Low Maintenance | Forensic Files | S14 E13 | FULL EPISODE | Forensic Files

[Music] up next tragedy at a texas college she's cold she's called to the touch yes ma'am oh
my god it's very unusual for a 20 year old girl to die suddenly of natural causes
tiny drops of blood could mean an accident or a murder we had no idea what had cost
her death they were just more questions than answers eyewitnesses place a man at
the scene but are their descriptions accurate they had us really scratching our heads
bryan texas is a college town that lies in the shadow of texas a m it's home to blinn college
where jenna verhallen and spencer hood were inseparable jenna's parents say that
he was just the love of her life that they had dated for several years went to prom together in high school
jenna just absolutely adored spencer jenna and spencer planned to pursue careers in either
law or government and they lived in separate apartments at the same complex the autumn woods apartment complex is
right next to blinn college and so there's quite a few students that live there it's easy for them it's close
easy access to the college on april 9 2008 after attending his morning classes spencer stopped by jenna's apartment to
pick up a book he'd left there when spencer arrived at jenna's apartment he found the door unlocked
and he went inside spencer found jenna's lifeless body on the bedroom floor and asked a neighbor to call
she's just laying 911 the ground i'm talking she's not breathing okay can you touch her and see if she's
warm to the touch can you touch her if she's warm to the touch she's cold she's cold to the touch yes
ma'am oh my god police and paramedics pronounced jenna dead at the scene the only injuries that
we could find on her were a small bruise on her forehead she had also clinched down on her tongue with her
teeth it didn't appear to be any kind of robbery her purse was hanging on a hook
right next to the door credit cards were there in her purse there was cash in her purse
her keys were in the purse there were no pills no alcohol there were no indications that she had
committed suicide spencer told police he last saw jenna the night before around midnight the two of them studied
and then he left and went to his apartment at 12 30 that morning and then made a phone call to jenna a
few minutes later to tell her a good night phone records showed that he had placed
a call at 12 47 a.m we know that she was discovered about 11 30 the next morning so we've got
you know probably less than a 12-hour window when jenna was killed during the autopsy
the medical examiner found no evidence that jenna had been sexually assaulted but he couldn't rule
it out either it has been my experience in some 30 years of performing autopsy examinations that the
lack of genital injuries does not rule out a sexual assault but he did find small broken blood vessels in the whites
of jenna's eyes known as paticual hemorrhages peticile hemorrhages are in that constellation of findings
that we refer to as stigmata of asphyxiation it tells me that i need to look for a
cause of asphyxiation and he found it jenna's larynx had been crushed the conclusion was inescapable
this is a strangulation and in great probability manual strangulation by hands [Music]
a background check revealed that over the years spencer and jenna had broken up several times
dated others but always made up and got back together knowing that there were no signs of
forced entry i think you immediately think this was some kind of lover's quarrel
gone bad we did ask spencer if he killed jenna and his response was absolutely no
but would the forensic evidence support his claim as investigators looked into jennifer
holland's background they learned she was well liked and respected by her friends and classmates
at blinn college in texas she didn't have any enemies she didn't have fights with people she didn't have arguments or
disagreements everybody had nothing but good things to say about her jenna was a dedicated
student who was working her way through school as a waitress at a local restaurant
she worked for everything that she had and didn't have a i think an almost full-time job at wings
and more while taking classes on the night of her murder jenna worked at the restaurant until
9 00 p.m surveillance tapes revealed nothing suspicious all we found was jenna just walked into her vehicle
we didn't find anybody following her jenna returned to her apartment around 9 30.
her boyfriend spencer hood said he stopped by and they spent about three hours studying together
and he left after midnight then jenna's neighbors provided a possible lead on the night of the murder the neighbors
were playing sand volleyball in the courtyard in between the apartment buildings
around midnight they saw a man walking from the direction of jenna's apartment he was shirtless
and he was acting very upset we learned that this suspicious male had come out anywhere between the hours of midnight
and 2 am in fact some of the girls that were playing said that he looked scary witnesses said
the man resembled 26 year old shawn stevens also a college student who lived in an adjoining apartment
building according to friends he'd once made a vulgar remark to jenna in the parking lot it was more or less
just some cat calls and stuff from sean's balcony down to the girls and there were some
words exchanged between jenna and sean shawn's apartment had a direct line of sight to jenna's apartment
we contacted him sean was extremely nervous and was literally shaking sean denied
any involvement in jenna's murder he also said he wasn't the shirtless man walking from jenna's apartment
on the night of her murder but he couldn't provide accurate information about where he had been that night
due to a large consumption of alcohol then police uncovered a startling piece of information
two months before her murder jenna told her family about an incident involving her
apartment's maintenance man it happened one morning after she got out of the shower
she found the maintenance man standing in her living room he was there when he wasn't asked to be
and she didn't know that he was there according to janna the man claimed he didn't hear the water
running and believing the apartment was empty walked inside it's creepy it's creepy just to think about you
don't stick around while someone's in the shower and then when they come out leave jim
became very upset and contacted the supervisor of the maintenance worker and explained to him what had happened
worker's name was jeremy rosser he was 29 years old divorced with two children he had never been in trouble with the
law he comes from a religious background his father is a pastor in a nearby town but police were more than a little
suspicious so they conducted an experiment to see whether rosser's explanation had been truthful when detectives fry
and matthews go back to the apartment complex they actually stand right at the front
door and have someone go into the jenna's bathroom turn the shower on close the door to the bathroom and they
say from the front threshold of the door you can clearly hear that the shower's running inside
that apartment coincidentally rosser was fired one week after jenna's murder he had been terminated or fired because
he wasn't coming to work anymore police wanted to question rosser but he left town after he lost his job
and no one knew where he was they also discovered that jenna's boyfriend spencer hood was missing
too certainly our first area focus was on spencer as he was the last one to see her and
the first one to find her it did not help his case any that he had suddenly left town
that left sean stevens and he was nowhere to be found either he's gone he's not at school anymore he's not his
apartment complex anymore this made us a little bit suspicious i started to realize they just have no
idea they have no idea who did this police had three persons of interest in the murder of jennifer holland
her boyfriend spencer hood shawn stevens who matched the description of the man seen leaving jenna's apartment
building the night of the murder and jeremy rosser a maintenance man at jenna's apartment
complex who had once entered her apartment under suspicious circumstances investigators hoped scientists could
find forensic evidence that would help narrow their search we're looking for biologic evidence
is there skin is there hair there may be fibers there may be bits of material from a scene or from
dirt or something on a person's clothing first scientists discovered skin cells under
jenna's fingernails which is not unusual when a victim is involved in a struggle
they extracted dna and discovered there were two genetic profiles both male one a minor contributor and one a
major contributor investigators also found a drop of blood on jenna's shirt collar
and two drops of blood on the carpet near jenna's body one of those did come back to be jenna's dna
and the other one came back to be the same unknown male contributor that was detected
in the nail samples and on the neck of the shirt she's fighting for her life she is
scratching him scratching him deeply and hard enough that he's actively bleeding
this cna evidence was extremely exciting to us because we knew if we could ever get dna from a suspect
that matched we would have our killer armed with the killer's dna investigators wanted dna samples from
jenna's boyfriend spencer hood her neighbor shawn stevens and the maintenance man jeremy rosser
mysteriously all three left town after jenna's murder while police searched for them
they also conducted a dna dragnet they asked other men who lived in her apartment complex
as well as male co-workers for dna samples nearly 50 people willingly complied but no one matched the dna from the
crime scene if we're eliminating people that are around her that have a connection with
her if this is a completely random act then how how are we ever going to locate that
person again to get their dna eventually police found jenna's boyfriend spencer hood
three hours away at his parents home we ended up driving to wimberley to try to track him down because at that time
we believe that he may be our killer i asked him the question about why he left town
what he'd explained was he was just upset him and jenna were very close and he wanted to be with his family
spencer was entirely cooperative he allowed police to photograph him without his shirt
and police found no scratch marks on his body he also answered questions without an
attorney present and willingly provided a dna sample next police tracked down shawn stevens
at his parents home 450 miles away in oklahoma sean said he went home to see his
brother who was on leave from military service in iraq so this gave us an explanation of why
sean led town when asked sean willingly provided a dna sample without police having to resort to a
court order the only remaining suspect was jeremy rosser police were finally able to locate him
through his ex-wife who provided an important clue she said jeremy had shown signs of
violence at the time of their divorce they got an argument he shoved her to the ground and while she was on the
ground he kneeled over her and put both hands around her neck coincidentally this incident occurred right around the
time of jenna's murder but for investigators it was still one problem a criminal check was done of roster's
background and we found no instances where he had been arrested in the past this made him somewhat of an
unlikely candidate for a crime of this type when police questioned rosser he denied
any involvement and was happy to cooperate he was very calm very cool not someone that you
would pin a murder on but in rosser's truck investigators found a laptop computer
the serial number was traced to a tenant living in janus apartment complex who'd
reported it stolen months earlier they also found rosser still had keys to the apartments
this indicated to us that rosser had likely gone into many apartments during his term there as a maintenance
worker but jenna's apartment key was not among those found in jeremy's possession
and just like the others jeremy willingly provided a dna sample my feelings of jeremy was that we might
not have our person being how cooperative he was and his demeanor so investigators had three
possibilities would a dna match be among them or was the killer still at large i have other cases where
i know who did it i just can't prove who did it this case is different whereas i can prove who did it i just
don't know who did it with dna samples from three suspects scientists hoped to determine who killed
college student jennifer holland and had it not been for science there's no telling what would have happened
had we not had the dna under her nails or on the collar of her shirt or on the carpet we may never have
solved this crime without the forensic evidence i don't think there would have been an arrest
the dna results left no doubt jeremy rosser was in jenna's apartment on the night of
the murder how would your skin cells be under here what snapped what made him want to want
to do this to her it's weird when police arrested rosser he wasn't surprised there's no screaming yelling i'm
innocent what are you talking about it's just oh okay and so that was a big indication
prosecutors believe that rosser's intrusion into jenna's apartment while she was in the shower was no
accident after that encounter prosecutors believe rosser used his master key again on the night of the murder to
enter janna's apartment while she was at work this time they believe he hid in jenna's
second bedroom and waited for her jenna came home around 9 30 p.m but her boyfriend spencer hood also
stopped by something rosser probably didn't anticipate this forced rosser to wait another three
hours spencer left shortly after midnight nicely i love you too but he called jenna at 12 47 to say
good night after that call jenna went to bed and at some point rosser attacked [Music]
jenna fought for her life scratching him collecting his skin cells he strangled her to death
tiny drops of rosser's blood landed on jenna's shirt and on the rug next to her body
i would like to say that jenna in her last moments i guess fought like she always fights and she's
been a fighter and that was enough to help us identify who this person was so that we could
try and achieve some small sense of justice for her and her family when charged with jenna's murder rosser
admitted he was guilty in order to spare his family the ordeals of a trial [Music]
rosser never revealed his motive it's possible that jeremy entered jenna's apartment to burglarize it
and then once spencer left jeremy may have exited the bedroom hoping to get whatever he was there to
steal and was caught by jenna and then subsequently had to end up murdering her being that she knew his identity
it's also possible the assault had something to do with his marital problems at the time
jenna looked very similar in bill to rosser's ex-wife he may have assaulted jenna based on the fact that
he was angry with his ex-wife the forensic evidence was crucial to this case because we don't have a motive without
his dna we don't really have a motive for him going into that apartment regardless of his motive jeremy rosser
was convicted of jennifer holland's murder and was sentenced to 55 years in prison
he has two children you're gonna grow up with a dad in prison so there's a lot of people affected by
the decisions that that rosser made this case stands out to me and i consider it to be one of the
most important cases that i've worked in my career based on the type of person that jenna
was she was a young person that had her life ahead of her and it's just a tragic event
that has to happen to someone like her

In 2008, college co-ed Jenna Verhaalen was found dead in her Bryan, Texas apartment and petechial hemorrhages in her eyes indicated that she was strangled.

Brief Summary

Jenna Verhallen was murdered, leading to the arrest of maintenance worker Jeremy Rosser based on DNA evidence.

Key points

Tragic Death of Jenna Verhallen. A young college student is found dead under mysterious circumstances, sparking a tense investigation.
The Investigation Unfolds. As police investigate, they uncover a web of relationships and potential suspects.
Forensic Breakthrough. DNA evidence from the crime scene leads investigators closer to the truth.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Oh my god.

Spencer's reaction upon finding Jenna's body

2:08WatchMar 13, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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