Katie Janness /// Part 1 /// 760 | Forensic Files

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the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
crime the murder investigation involving a woman and her dog stabbed at pedmont Park Atlanta police now saying want to
talk with half a dozen potential Witnesses the mayor and police chief publicly discussing this case for the
first time today stressing the investigation is still very active but at this time they are unable to name a
suspect or make an arrest Joe hanky had the chance today to bring your questions
about this case to police Joe Sheba today Atlanta police gave us images from security cameras posted directly outside
of peont Park the images aren't the greatest quality but if police can identify and talk with the people pictur
Ed they might they believe that might lead to a break in the case 40-year-old Katie Janice and her dog Bowie were last
pictured at the rainbow crosswalk at 10th in pedmont soon after police responded to pedmont park after both
were killed the Jan is being stabbed now police are asking for six potential witnesses to come forward three
individuals here exiting the park around 11:54 p.m. on Tuesday at 10th in Charles
Allen 12:25 a.m. on Wednesday a person appearing to leave the park at 12th in pedmont and someone else same
intersection at 12:43 a.m. finally another person at 12:46 back at 10th in Charles Allen let's be clear those are
not suspects those are individuals that we know were inside the park uh and we just want to know what they saw what
Atlanta police have not released or any security camera images from inside the park we are still working with vendors
to try and determine if there's any information we can get off of those cameras John Kean Chief Operating
Officer for the City of Atlanta says there are nine cameras inside pedmont Park that use older technology and are
unable to integrate with the city's more modern camera system so images from the
cameras in the park cannot be retrieved as easily if at all a lot of false information that is being spread it is
not helpful to this investigation and M ke Lance bottom says as of now there is no indication to support rumors of the
case being linked to a Serial murderer nor is there any indication this was a hate crime Beyond calling the murder
gruesome and saying Janice was stabbed multiple times few specific of the crime have been released today deputy chief
Charles Hampton described why there are things that uh only the individual or individuals responsible for this no this
is very important when we apprehend them this is what we use as to further our case in order to bring them to
justice and Atlanta police chief Rodney Bryan today said he decided last week to
call the FBI in to assist with this case because this murder is unique and outside the norm he said of what they
typic see but he didn't explain what made the murder unique he added though the FBI has many resources and it's best
to include them earlier rather than later in the [Music] investigation Katherine Janice who went
by Katie grew up in Detroit Michigan in 2006 as a young adult she relocated to Atlanta Georgia deliberately choosing
the progressive liberal cities Midtown neighborhood it was a welcoming environment for those interested in the
Arts and involved in the lgbtq community one of Katie's first jobs in Atlanta was a bar manager gig
for the whole world improv theater Katie was a musician writing songs expressing
her political views and playing guitar in some local bands at the time as well but I can attest to this and the captain
will back me up music doesn't always pay the bills so she had to continue working
these other jobs she worked as a bartender at the Midtown Restaurant campagnolo for several years The
Establishment was right down the street from her and her partner's apartment and
was situated at the intersection of 10th Street in pedmont Avenue where the Washington Post describes the rainbow
crosswalks denote the area significance as the center of the lgbtq community and a Haven at work
Katie was known to be friendly and kind sweet a little geeky as one regular Patron described her but she was not the
Rowdy bartender type throwing down shots and hooking up with patrons no she collected books wrote poetry and songs I
love the Geeks of the world Geeks of the World Unite unite we we are all holding
hands sweaty Palms Katie met her part Katie met her partner Emma Clark I believe this was sometime in 2014
Captain Emma was 10 years younger than Katie but the two were inseparable and by
2021 k and Emma were trying to save up money for a down payment to buy their first home together but for now they
lived in Upper middleclass midtown Atlanta a generally safe area that was filled with restaurants bars and a
thriving music scene makes sense given Katie's personality and music background Katie and Emma had two dogs one was a
14-year-old female dog named Tori and the other was a three-year-old dog named Boe guess and she named the dog after
David Bowie Let's get to the events of July 28th 2021 the day in question actually what we should say is July 27th
is where we're going to start we need to go through that day and then go into the
early morning hours of July 28th so Katie was off of work on the evening of July 27th this is a Tuesday she had
dinner at her home at the apartment that she shared with Emma so the two have dinner together and the two dogs are at
home with them obviously at this time as well Emma is going to be working that night she's also going to be working
quite late that night one of the dogs Bowie the younger of the two had been cooped up for some time it was a warm
summer night so after Emma goes off to work Katie decided to take Bowie out for a walk it would be good for both of them
to get get out get some fresh air and stretch their legs this was sort of a routine for the two of them to go out
for a late night walk yeah I was going to say they live in a nice Community that's one of the perks is hey let's go
for an evening stroll and you feel safe in that community and in that environment and to sort of paint this
picture a little bit better this neighborhood it's situated so that there's businesses nearby both of the
businesses that Katie and Emma work at are within walking distance yeah from their apartment there's a nice park in
the area like the captain said this is the type of area that you it's inviting to be out and walking the streets it's
inviting to go out and take a walk and Katie and Emma when they would go out on walks especially Katie with the dog they
were more evening and night people due to their work schedules they both worked at restaurants and places that you're
going to make most of your money if you work at in the evening hour so by being creatures of habit most of the time that
they're out and about would be in the evening hours or even later at night right like I said this is sort of
routine for Katie and Bowie to go out for a late night walk what most of us would presume to be a late night walk
Bowie from my understanding was very well trained a very well- trained dog used to walking on on a leash next to
his mom's he was not the kind of dog to strain or pull away or one that was hard
to control or direct when walking like some dogs do he healed walking patiently next to Katie or Emma whoever held the
leash this night July 27th was no different although it was late after 10: the city was well lit restaurants and
bars were still busy cars and buses still drove up and down the streets people were out on bikes people were
walking and scootering to and from wherever they're going we don't have an exact time Captain when Katie set out on
her walk but we do know that it was sometime after 1 p.m. that night it's weird though how we feel if other people
are out and about that we're in a safer environment when the most dangerous animal on earth is man perfect that you
key in on that and bring that up here because there was at least one person that knew Katie that after the fact
would openly tell everyone look I worry that she thought that this park or this area even though she had lived there for
a considerable amount of time she may have thought that this area or this park again it's considered to be generally
safe but this person's perspective but maybe she thought it was safer than it was exactly safer than what it was was
this person's perspective so sometime after 10 p.m. Katie takes the dog Bowie for a
walk at 11:35 and we have multiple witnesses to back up this Tim stamp here on our
timeline Bowie and Katie they sto by Emma's work just to say hi check in hey how's it going how's your shift but
anybody that's worked at bars or restaurants one thing that is both good and bad about working in these
environments you don't always know you know what time you got to be there and clock in you don't always know what time
your shift is going to end sometimes you're there until the business closes other times you are there until it
business slows down right and you might not be able to gauge that until you are have been working for several hours so
from my understanding part of this stop was not just to say hello but it was also hey typical conversation between
restaurant and bar workers is going to be H what time you think you're getting off tonight and that was part of the
conversation and so we have several people there that that that say hi to Katie not just Emma but also Katie and
Emma are seeing talking together Emma is seen petting the dog Bowie then Katie said that she would see Emma at home
after Emma's work shift that evening I want to be clear about something here because I've heard some different
versions of this story based off of different sources and it's it's pretty well split down the middle 50/50 and you
know Captain when there's when there's different details we always report all sides of it because I we were not at the
restaurant that night we don't know exactly what their conversation was so it's only fair to report what we have
found in our research a lot of the reports State what we just set Emma says you know I think I'm getting off at this
time or maybe I'm working till closing and Katie says okay great I'll see you when you get home some of the other
sources state that Katie said that she was trying to that she would come back to the restaurant and her and Bowie or
at least Katie would be walking home with Emma that evening which which makes sense it's a nice gesture yes and I'm
sure on occasion that is what exactly happened she would show up and and go home walk home with Emma we should point
out here though Katie is on foot obviously walking the dog Emma rode her bike to work which was typical of her
she rode her bike that night so they could have been planning to walk home together I think that it's if I had to
choose I'm guessing that it's more of I'll see you when you get home because Emma would be biking home that night now
we're going to move on our timeline to just after midnight Emma bikes home from work and when she gets to their
apartment she's surprised to not find Katie and Bowie there at home yeah and anybody that's not owned dogs or or had
the pleasure of having a dog in the family their their other dog Tori is 14 years old I've been lucky enough to have
dogs that have lived to be 14 15 16 years old they just don't want to walk as much as the little three-year-old dog
does right and frankly they they they start to turn into cats a little bit at some point in their old age where they
just kind of want to be left alone and they just want to kind of lay around the house so you're just pointing out that
Katie wasn't being mean to the other dog it makes perfect sense that you would be
walking the dog that's young and needs the exercise I always say a tired dog is a happy dog uh 14-year-old dogs are
constantly tired so they're constantly happy sry 40-year-old men yeah Emma arrives home doesn't find her partner
Katie and Bowie is not home as well so she's like okay well they've been out for a considerable amount of time at
this point but it's also not completely out of character out of their routine so
she gets home and it's just old dog Tor all by her Lonesome as we said it's late
it's after 12:30 a.m. by this point Emma knew that Katie and and Bowie had set out quite some time ago for
their walk later Emma would say in an interview if I get home and Katie is not there I always just call her and she
always answers but this time she didn't answer Emma said I called her a bunch of times
she didn't answer I text her a bunch she didn't respond so after a bit Emma decides to
use the find my iPhone app to see where Katie may be she opens up the app and of course Katie's phone is visible
she can see the location of Katie's phone she says that she the the phone was located right inside the entrance to
nearby pedmont park but the phone wasn't moving this is concerning obviously she's out on a walk one would expect to
see the phone start moving at some point Emma decided that she was going to head
out and look for Katie and she even stated later that she thought perhaps Katie had dropped her phone maybe she
couldn't find it in the dark but she really didn't know what was going on so Emma rode her bike toward the phone
location at 12:57 a.m. she approached the Gated entrance to pedmont park now there are several entrances to this park
yeah it's a big Park this entrance is located at 10th Street in Charles Allen Drive Northeast and as she arrived to
this location she says she could see a form lying on the ground this visible to her from the gate area she gets a little
bit closer she realizes this is her dog Bowie Bowie was lying on the roadway inside the park about 50 ft 5 ft from
the gate Emma would later tell 11 alive news I just ran in and I grabbed him because I didn't know maybe he was still
alive obviously I knew something was wrong because he was just lying there I didn't put two and two together because
I didn't notice her right away so just to be clear here to be Crystal Clear what she's saying is that at this point
she's seeing her dog lying there lifeless about 50 ft from the gate she doesn't know or have any clue
and has not seen Katie yet right at this point so she's not caught sight of Katie
yet she's finding her dog and she doesn't really know what's going on so let's continue on with her statement
that she would give later Emma says the first thing I noticed is I saw Bowie he was visible from the Gate of the park he
was maybe 50 feet from the gate on the inside and she unfortunately meaning Katie was further on the right she said
she she thought at first that Bowie had been possibly been hit by a car because cars sometimes used that road in the
park if anybody's familiar with this park and I'm sure there's a lot of people in the area that are as the
captain pointed out it's a large Park but if you look it up on a map there appears to be some type of paved pathway
now this could be mainly for pedestrians and people on bicycle uh roller blades what have you and it it
clearly is not large enough to be a two-way street but it does appear large enough
that you could fit a car a vehicle a golf cart something of that nature on that pathway and what Emma is saying is
that from her experience in living near the park for a long period of time many years sometimes Vehicles end up on that
paved pathway right he is laying the dog is laying on that pathway and her first
thought which I think would be natural reaction would be to think possibly he got hit but then of course you're going
to be wondering well where is my girlfriend who was walking our dog and also why isn't her phone moving when I'm
looking at the tracker exactly exactly she starts calling out for Katie and looking around she had to look at her
phone again to see where Katie's phone was and then she followed the blip on her find my iPhone app she sees Katie
eventually she finds Katie who is lying on the ground again this is to the right
of where she found Bowie but maybe about 100 feet away Emma says that she rushed
to her and saw with [ __ ] that Katie was covered in bloody gaping wounds and then she ran out of the park after
finding her partner later Emma said quote I tried to feel for a pulse it was clear that she was gone it was dark I
didn't know what was going on I was terrified and shocked well you also don't know if the Killer is still around
that area that's exactly right and that's what Emma's father Joe Clark would later tell the news as well he
says quote she ran for her life she didn't know if someone was still here now Emma calls
police frantically and this is at 1110 a.m. so let's talk about this 911 call because people that are familiar with
this case they know that there's been a lot of different opinions varying opinions on persons who have triy to
decipher the communication the words the statements made by Emma in this 9911 call right the transcription that I have
here Captain goes something like this Emma is stating I'm at the entrance to pedmont park I was just searching for my
girlfriend because I couldn't find her she's dead she's here at pedmont Park please help the
dispatcher responds you said Somebody's dead at pedmont Park Emma oh my God yes help please send help oh my God
dispatcher where is she at the park Emma says she is right near the entrance like
I don't know how to explain it and I given a little bit of a description here I've listened to this 911 call a few
times at this point she's breathing heavily as she's trying to communicate with the
dispatcher and this very likely Captain is from a multitude of things like she said if we are to believe everything she
says she she sprinted out of the park because she's terrified having found her dog and her her partner dead and and and
whatever happened to the two of them was a vicious attack she fled the park according to her statement so so one
would expect her to be breathing heavily and she's also probably terrified and in shock all at the same
time then on the 911 call Emma can be heard talking to someone who sounds like a man like a man's voice a male's voice
who's yelling something you can't really tell what he's saying because it's in the background it's been reported that
the person was saying what the [ __ ] well because he he he might have came upon
the the dog at that point or maybe he came upon Katie at that point and then he's he's freaking out as well yeah so
just to add a little better description to this if if one were to be walking in the park
jogging at night or walking through the park what have you this person likely may have seen Katie first If he if he
were to have been coming from the opposite direction he would have seen Katie first who knows if he saw the dog
or not but then if if his reaction was the same as Emma's to get out of the park you're going to head toward the
nearest exit entrance and that's going to be this gated one that is at this corner of the um 10th of Charles Allen
in 10th street so I picture this as her standing just outside right because there's an intersection there there
you'd feel safer out on the road and he's probably approaching her like what did I just see what the hell's going on
you know and so we know what it's reported that he said he says what the f Emma responds
and you can hear her and she says something like did you just see that and you hear the the male voice
respond saying yes Emma then says that's my [ __ ] girlfriend and and and to hear my voice say it doesn't do you
would really need to hear her say it because there are some people that that don't like the words that she's using at
the time but I think you have to hear the tone of her voice like it she's saying it to the way I hear it the way
that it hits my ear Captain is it sounds to me like like somebody that is trying
to describe an observation that they just made but it's something they can't believe can't believe and maybe don't
understand exactly like I like I don't know what's going on either so then Emma tells the
dispatcher quote like she's dead dead the dispatcher tells her help is on the way now the call does last a little bit
longer than this but there's no there's no interaction between Emma and the dispatcher after this um it it sounds to
me like the call continues because the dispatcher we've heard a bunch of these 911 calls and a lot of times the the
person receiving the call is now alerting emergency services whether it be the cops ambulance both fire
department and some situations and so the rest of the 911 call is the dispatcher alerting emergency service
services but telling the person that he's trying to coordinate with that I I think she hung up because you have the
ambulance and police who are looking for more information you know near the entrance okay great what entrance he
doesn't have the person still he doesn't have Emma still on the line to relay that information to everyone so like we
just covered someone else found Katie this is immediately right after Emma did and
that's someone who s mail in the background of the 9911 call emerged from the park entrance that Emma ran out of
the same entrance exit that Emma ran out of right but I want to be clear here I police have never addressed who that
person was that to me is is a big stumbling block for us as researchers and as true crime
storytellers I really want to know who this person was where they were coming from how long
they were in the park but we also we we need to be logical in our thinking here because of course one could argue could
this have been the killer having watched Emma find Katie from the shadows and then decided to flee and act like he
didn't know what was going on either but the flip of that would be that whoever killed Katie whoever attacked her in the
park that night and we'll go through some more of the details of this crime but they would have been covered in
blood and that would have been obvious to Emma from outside of the park once that intersection is well lit and she
would have been able to see likely been able to see that the person was covered in blood one detail that I think is key
here is because it was so late at night technically the park is closed at this time like the the gates are still open
and and I believe that they close and lock those at some point but what we do know is there are restrooms public
restrooms male female restrooms at this park a couple of different at a couple different
locations and so one thought that I had here was the the restrooms it's been confirmed and reported that they were
already closed and locked up for the night mhm could this have just been somebody who just decided to stop into
the park to try to use one of those restrooms finds the door locked and then then stumbles upon this horrible
situation and gets out a Dodge but the other thing too to keep in mind is If This Were The Killer he would not have
had the ability to go into one of those bathrooms and wash up there he could not
have cleaned up before fleeing and being spotted by Emma as he's leaving the park
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mates cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain okay so so many questions that I have so far mhm one I it's very
possible because this park is so large and they don't lock the gates that some people local to this area would still
use it as a way to travel I'll go into the park and use those paths to get from point A to B so the the person could
have still been in the park and just leaving the park or maybe they're using the park to commute yep I'm sure they
know who this individual is but is it possible that you you commit a crime time you discard of your your clothes
change your clothes and and then you happen upon the scene as if you don't know what's going on and then I think
there's a lot of questions that law enforcement is going to have with Emma Katie's partner what time did you leave
work what time did you get to the park I'm sure if she's telling the truth that the information that they probably could
have got off of her cell phone would uh track her whereabouts but also like you said it's a very
dramatic and tragic situation so you do things that might not be great and you might have some actions that compromise
the crime scene like picking up the dog or touching the victim and then we we every crime documentary where there's a
911 call you can spend hours if not days dissecting what what the person meant by
the tone in their voice their actions what choice of words they used we don't know how we' react
ourselves unless we were in that situation I think if I was ever in a true crime documentary and I found
somebody murdered and I called 911 people would be dissecting that call saying he's too calm because normally
when I've been in situations that are emergencies and I've had to call 91 one I know that the information I give to
them is going to be so important to help the victim right I could see myself being too calm and then people making
comments well this guy was so calm he must be the killer but I don't think it's out of bounds that law enforcement
would go hey we got to look into Emma's story what's true what's not true and look at the background of of their
relationship as well after the 911 call obviously police swarmed to the park they saw immediately that this was not
just your run-ofthe-mill big city stabbing quote it's a gruesome scene end quote this comes from Deputy police
chief Charles Hampton some of the cops on the scene described it as quote hard to stomach right so Katie and Bowie
unfortunately are both found dead at the park and this is dead upon arrival for everybody responding to the scene this
isn't put them in an ambulance and they died on the way to the hospital or died at the hospital this is unfortunately
were killed in the park and it's obvious and and that goes back to Emma's statement that she says I didn't know
what to do but it was obvious she was gone it's been described and forgive me for the the crudeness of this statement
but it's been described that like Katie had been cut to Ribbons is at least one of descriptions that was provided well
and I think that's why law enforcement wasn't saying that this looked like a typical big city stabbing because
typically in a stabbing case it's somebody triy to rob somebody maybe the person the victim didn't have something
to give to the robber or they put up a fight the robber stabs him a couple times and leaves them this is not that
this is this seems like a vicious personal murder yeah well and we'll we'll let the listeners decide for
themselves what they think because we're going to go and we're going to talk about the autopsy report here in I
apologize in advance in graphic detail so skip ahead if needed what was done to Katie was incredibly gruesome and we are
not going through these details to be gross or disturbing or any of that but because her injuries I think the
investigators would agree with this statement could potentially tell us a lot about her killer right and may even
help form theories about the murder itself Katie's autopsy was performed on Friday July 30th 2021 by medical
examiner Karen Sullivan MD when The 40-Year-Old Katie's body was brought in she still had her right earbud in and
her socks and shoes on she was wearing her t-shirt and her pants and underwear were found were as they were found which
we will get into in a moment but all of these items of course were removed and then placed into evidence real quick on
the earbud thing Katie like many people outw walking or exercising she actively was listening to music
or podcast and so given that the earbud is found still in place in the right ear
it's believed by Emma and police that she was probably walking through the park that evening listening to something
on her on her phone which could mean that she may have never even heard her attacker approaching her right Katie was
stabbed upwards of 50 times 5 times more than that the autopsy report says that her death was due to sharp
force injuries of her face neck and torso but that doesn't even begin to describe the wounds essentially somebody
carved her up she had at least 15 insided wounds from her forehead to her chin slicing cuts that Fayed her skin
open in an x pattern this including her nose and lips both eyelids were sliced through and both lips cut all the way
through to the underlining tissue both kateed arteries were cut in a gaping 9 and4 inch by 5 and A2 in sized wound
inflicting several overlapping slashes the cuts to her throat were so deep that they went all the way through to the
vertebrae and through to the muscles on the back of her neck this is probably the hardest part of the autopsy report
her heart was still beating while this those injuries occurred she had sharp force injuries to both breast and
multiple stabs to her upper and lower back the back wounds penetrating her aorta and left lung and liver meaning
these are very deep wounds those areas had started to fill with blood this again meaning that her heart was beating
while this happened as well there was also at least 14 sharp force injuries that spam and the lower back uh and she
had a multicolored tattoo on the lower back region now it's there's been a lot of speculation over the past two and a
half years roughly since this murder took place the last almost three years since this murder took place about what
that meant was some had speculated that it might be a pride tattoo and that the killer was trying to destroy the pride
tattoo to be to be completely clear here there's never been any confirmation that
I could find of what that what the tattoo was of so when you when you hear that or you read that somewhere please
note that that is just speculation Katie had sharp force injuries of the abdomen
with evisceration of the small intestine hemorrhaging in the bow indicates that she was alive while this
was done to her as well defects in the shirt corresp respond to wounds on the body what that means to the lay person
is she was stabbed through the shirt so the the holes in the shirt unfortunately line up with the holes in
the body underneath the shirt but what we do know Captain is that then at some point the attacker or attackers lifted
up her black t-shirt that she was wearing because they found the letters f a t were carved into her lower chest and
abdomen area she's listed as weighing 155 lbs and almost 5' 7 in tall so even though the letters f a are carved into
her she she's not fat by any means at all uh and we can kind of try to get into the the killer or the attacker's
head here and after we get through some of the details of the crime to see if that means
anything but she's totally normal healthy size for her age so where the letters capitalized or so here's the
description the best description that I could find the F and the a were on the right side of the midline of her body
and the T on the left okay the T being the deepest of the three so that that's the deepest wound
of the three letters each letter was several inches tall to try to describe it the way that I read this Captain the
autopsy report the way that it's described the person would have had to have been standing over top of her to
obviously to do this and might have been we we'll keep going through the information here but these letters may
have been upside down due to how the the killer was standing above the victim her
pants and under where were down around her knees when she was found there was sharp force injury to the lower back
area there were no vaginal injuries and no sign of rape according to the Emy she
had lots of defensive wounds on her hands as we would expect she also had multiple contusions indicating that she
was beaten with something you know she's not just stabbed she was beaten with something as well and this could have
been simply something as simple as fist or it could have been an actual object yeah there or or the backside of the the
handle of the knife yeah we don't have anything conclusive to say if it was a a heavy metal object or anything like that
it's it's just simply saying that she was beaten with something possibly fist okay two things and and give your
thoughts on these to me okay there's no physical evidence of sexual assault but I think that's kind of misleading
because if she's found with her pants and her underwear around her ankles that almost seems like that's
what the perpetrator was attempting but maybe just weren't able to commit the assault and then my other thing do you
believe this is one attacker because we have different wounds that are telling us that there's technically different
instruments used is it possible that there's two attackers I think that it's it's possible I I want to refrain from
using the word likely because I could see this being a single attacker and multiple attackers the the I think what
lends itself to one thinking that maybe we have multiple attackers here is the presence of the dog yeah right this is a
young 50 lb dog it's a decent sized dog a pitbull so there they are typically fast and and protective dogs
so the presence of the dog makes it more complicated obviously for one perpetrator to commit this unless you
are able to neutralize the threat of the dog quickly and but the earbud still being in almost that is indicative to me
of a surprise attack of some type of Ambush yeah I agree so then you have to play play this out and go well how could
somebody surprise and Ambush the victim but also neutralize the dog at the same time and that's where you Circle back
and go well was there multiple attackers the other thing that I want to present here and I don't know why I can't shake
this idea if the dog is is very well behaved and responds to being called and listens you're out at night yeah there's
other people out walking and around and such but when once you go into the park this is a large open area is there a
chance that you let the leash go or let Bowie off the leash and he stumbled upon
something before you did right that's the way that I could see this playing out and working and I hate to use that
word but when we you have to look at these things the way that it detective would how did this play out and how does
this make sense logically that that that what we know happened happened and so that's how I feel like this possibly
works now back to what you said about the pants being pulled down I have a lot of thoughts on that and I agree with you
that could be that could be exactly the situation where the attacker thought to about raping or sexually assaulting the
victim and for some reason did not for any number of reasons the other thought that I had too is based off of the
the The Carving the letters into the victim seems that has to be important to the killer or he would never have done
that was it just out of necessity like when you when he pulled up the shirt right he he already stabbed her through
the shirt yeah he then pulled up the shirt because the letters f a t are not through the shirt that the shirt was
lifted up and then carved into the body was it necessary for him to pull down the pants to to do that too I don't know
you know we have a general location of where those letters were carved but not the exact location well then it also
makes you wonder is the pulling down of the pants and underwear is it to suggest
the sex of the attacker yeah well I to me the the viciousness of the attack is suggestive of the gender of the attacker
mhm I mean I'm I'm just playing the numbers here but an attack this violent is almost always a a male attacker now
we I've you know you and I have reviewed a lot of these a lot of cases I shouldn't say a lot of these cases
because just like the cops and detectives are pointing out this is different from yeah the homicides
they've investigated in the very big city of Atlanta Georgia but one case and I and I know this to be true in a couple
cases but I can think of one right away where they initially suspected sexual assault on the victims because the pants
were found to have been you know they were down around the knees or ankles of the victims and later they determined
there was no sexual assault and they figured out that the victims had been dragged and the way that they were
dragged you know it's very hard to pick up an entire human being an adult human being so oftentimes you drag them by the
the legs the feet the arms the shoulders what have you and in that case they they
were able to determine based off of the drag marks and off of other things that they were seeing on the body that the
pants were found pulled down to the the knees and Ankle area simply because the perpetrators had dragged and moved the
bodies and just by dragging them along the ground that surface is what pulled and tugged at the pants to where they
were found eventually well did law enforcement find any evidence of Katie being dragged there I found one report
that says that she may have been dragged and that's that to me is is really something that I'm very invested in
trying to get to the bottom of and if I had that information trust me it would be here because that was there are two
things in this case that that to me I really want to know the answers to and we'll get to we can get to some of that
stuff in in the theories but wrapping up the autopsy information here as we said
unfortunately Katie was still alive while some of these wounds were being inflicted so whoever did this what we
can say with certainty Captain is whoever did this was incredibly vicious and likely wanted her to suffer well
like you said most likely completely covered in blood yes and Katie was stabbed both in the front and back so
someone very deliberately turned her over to continue inflicting penetrating wounds and yeah
yeah unless they attacked her from behind and then she turned around to defend herself and then the the attack
continued how deep and how severe a lot of these wounds are I would be surprised if she was standing for
very long into this this attack I think she she's you know we talked about neutralizing the threat of the dog I
think she's been neutralized and taken down to the ground rather quickly now nothing has been released about the type
of weapon used so we don't know for sure what weapon was used maybe the police do
not know as well but based on the slicing wounds and the amount of penetrating stab wounds it had to be
something very substantial in my opinion and this was not you know just to kind of touch on
motive here for a minute this was not a typical stab and grab robbery first of all as far as we know Katie wasn't
robbed Emma told the Washington Post that robbery did not appear to be the motive because they didn't take her
phone so her phone was found and why wouldn't it be I mean we know that Emma was using the find my iPhone app or says
she was to locate Katie Katie was wearing $200 headphones they didn't take those headphones they didn't take her
keys and a couple of sources I did see that that money was found on her person a small amount of money so as far as
robbery goes this doesn't appear to be a robbery have gone horribly wrong and turned into
this vicious murder because any items of value that she had with her that night according to Emma and at least what the
The Limited information we can get from police all of those items and possibly cash were found still on or near her
when she was located at at in the park that night well I was going to ask you do we have uh do we know how deep the
stab wounds were because with the amount of slashes almost feels like a like a box cutter as opposed to a a knife well
yes and you're right that that would be likely a sharper item that would would lead to kind of these
gaping large slash and cuts but you know that this we do know that the stab wounds were not just into the back but
they they went into vital organs right and so they were deep enough for that but the the I don't know
the the gaping n and A4 inch wound to the kateed artery area seems like yes like it would have
to be something very sharp like a box cutter but then the problem with the box cutter is it wouldn't go in 9 in it
would probably break off before then exactly now that's that's very insightful there Captain what we don't
the information we don't have is what kind of weapon was used because like you said and I would expect the same thing
that a box cutter the blade would break off would have been found at the scene or on somewhere on our victim here I
kind of and but it's open case so we're not privy to all the information so for all we know a blade was found with
inside her and they're keeping that information back cuz that's something that only the attacker would know
exactly they may know just because it's not been released doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know exactly what
kind of weapon killed the victims you know my mind kind of went to something like the Moscow College the Idaho
College murders with that kind of more like uh large [ __ ] bag that giant bag of
a person yeah like a a large Rambo style blade but again yeah we don't know and and we're not medical examiners so it's
difficult to for us to review these wounds and tell you what kind of well maybe we are but we're just not telling
people we are so if it wasn't robbery it wasn't a sexual assault right it get that's it's like then now you you go
into considering the wounds that were inflicted on on our victim and the amount of wounds so that that's telling
too because that tells us the attacker took time to do what he wanted to do and this is this is where my mind
goes with this there are a lot of people that are suspicious of Emma and we will
definitely get into why that may be I don't see so much a reactionary attack here this to me sounds a lot more like
all of the FBI books and stuff that I've reviewed all of these serial killer types that that we've reviewed where
it's like they create this fantasy of what they want to do to somebody how they want to attack someone and then
took the time and felt like they had the time to do what he wanted to do to the victim we know that this took a
considerable amount of time how much time is is hard to say but it does not appear if someone's choosing to carve
letters into a victim that is suggestive to me that this killer or attackers did not feel
rushed and the letters are very that's a very deliberate act carving letters into
the Torso of a living human being in a public park in the middle of a big city right in plain sight
I mean she's not found behind a bunch of trees or in shrubbery or in the woods she's lying on the ground in plain sight
under a tree alongside the roadway in the park the roadway is where people would naturally walk and Traverse at
night time especially at night time yeah it makes you start questioning where the
attack happened did he drag Katie to this location so that that she would have been found again if we have her
phone can we track the movements of her phone obviously that's information that the police would probably want to hold
back but we were dealing with a very violent individual and we're dealing with somebody this is somebody that
stabbed somebody over 50 times basically in a public park it wouldn't be surprising to me if this person hasn't
committed other crimes similar to this this attack well and the thing here to me is if in fact If This Were A Thrill
Kill was that part of the thrill for the the killer just that the fact that they
would have the riskiness of doing it in a public location that I mean walking this
fantasy as far as you can to the edge without going over the edge and now I've seen some estimates that have been put
forth by experts here that vary that say that you know if if this thing went down
really quick and happened really fast it's possible not likely but possible all of these injuries could have been
inflicted in as little as three minutes time or as many as 10 minutes time and I
have to believe that it's probably closer to beyond the five minute Mark somewhere between five six minutes in
that 10-minute Mark is what I would be guessing and if that's the case I mean any body could have walked by and caught
a glimpse of this killer hunched over top of a victim so was that part of if it was a Thrill Kill was that part of
the thrill not just the attack itself or the riskiness of the attack but also the
location and the possibility of being discovered or or being cited and then having to to flee yeah that's probably
where I disagree with you a little bit to me the the the stab wounds and the slashes I think could happen with within
a very short amount of time the time period Then elapses a little longer when you when the killer has to reach up pull
the shirt up and then start carving in in letters but I still think all that could have taken place under 3 minutes
easily right but that's not my opinion that my opinion is 5 to Six Minutes close somewhere between that and 10
minutes that that's experts opinions that as little as 3 minutes and as many as 10
now and I'm not the only one to say this either but the fact that Katie was alive
while much of this took place right this implies based on the time and the care for a lack of better term that the
killer took with this handiwork is highly suggestive that the attacker is some type of sexual sadist someone who
gets pleasure out of the pain that they inflict on the victim [Music] so much more to get to in this case
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Katie Janness /// Part 1 /// 760

Part 1 of 2

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In July of 2021- 40 year old Katie Janness was walking her dog in a city park in Atlanta, Georgia when the two were attacked. Piedmont Park was just a short walk from Katie’s home. The two had walked together in the park many times. But on this night both were attacked and stabbed by an unknown assailant. Just before 1AM Katie’s partner Emma discovered Katie in the park and called 911. Please help get justice for Katie Janness. If you have any information please contact the Atlanta Police Department by calling 1(404) 614-6544

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Brief Summary

Katie Janice was brutally murdered in Piedmont Park, Atlanta, while walking her dog, leading to an ongoing investigation.

Key points

Murder Investigation in Piedmont Park. A woman and her dog were found murdered in Piedmont Park, prompting a police investigation.
Katie Janice's Background. Katie Janice, a musician and bar manager, was known for her kindness and creativity.
Emma's Frantic Search. After not finding Katie at home, Emma uses an app to locate her phone in the park.
Emma's 911 Call. Emma calls 911 in a panic, revealing her girlfriend's tragic fate.
The Gruesome Crime Scene. Police arrive to find a shocking and brutal scene, far from typical.
Details of the Autopsy. Katie's autopsy reveals horrifying injuries that suggest a personal attack.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I tried to feel for a pulse; it was clear that she was gone.

Emma's reaction upon finding Katie.

23:04WatchMay 21, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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