Okaloosa Jane Doe | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1994, Okaloosa County, Florida. A group of inmates uncover a disturbing scene
alongside Interstate 10. MICHELLE SANDLER: One of them discovered a body while they were landscaping,
almost fully decomposed. DEANNA OLESKE: She was almost entirely skeletonized. She still had some flesh on her.
There's a lot of information that you gather from the soft tissue that you wouldn't necessarily
have on your skeletal remains. MICHELLE SANDLER: The zip ties at her throat were really the clue that this was a homicide.
NANCY GRACE: Detectives exhaust every lead trying to identify their Jane Doe. Eventually, they hit a dead end, and her case goes cold.
KELLY HENDERSON: We did get some leads from other people that were missing. However, those leads were followed,
and nothing was able to come out of it. We weren't able to identify her. I think that they were shocked to find
someone they couldn't identify. NANCY GRACE: Almost 30 years later, new forensic science jumpstarts the investigation,
giving detectives another chance to identify Jane Doe. KELLY HENDERSON: We were very excited, as we had wondered
since 1994 who this victim was. I told my colleagues that we were going to identify
her before the end of the year. This is the story of the 30-year search for the identity
of a murder victim and the name of the person who murdered her. I'm Nancy Grace.
This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] [PENSIVE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa County in Northwest
Florida, known for stunning beaches along the emerald coast. ERIC ADEN: We have emerald-green waters and white-sugar beaches
on the south end, and then we have farmland in the north end of the county. "Okaloosa" itself is a Choctawhatchee Indian word
for "black water" because of the color of our rivers in the north end of the county, contrasted with the white-sugar beach sand
of the banks of the rivers. It's small. We get a lot of tourists for our beaches.
We live where people vacation. So this is a wonderful place to live and raise your family.
There is not a lot of violent crime. I think when we do have violent crime, it's shocking.
I think it's fair to say that the violent crimes are rising, but nothing compared to other cities,
and then in 1994, in the '90s, from what I understand, pretty low crime rate. ALAN DUKE: Much of the Okaloosa area
is occupied by swamps, recreational vehicle parks, RV parks. But the main feature of Okaloosa County
is Interstate 10, because it's this main road that takes you from the coast of Florida
all the way to the west coast. In California, it is a major trucking route. Any goods, any vehicles, anything that is transported
by a large truck that goes from the west to the east, there's a good chance it will be, at some point,
on Interstate 10. NANCY GRACE: September 14, 1994, inmates from the Okaloosa Correctional Institute carrying out supervised maintenance
on Interstate 10. MICHELLE SANDLER: The inmates were working a shift along Interstate 10 with a supervisor, and one of them
discovered a body while they were landscaping. [TENSE MUSIC] That inmate ran to his supervisor right away
and let the supervisor know what he found. They notified law enforcement right away.
Then a senior officers with investigations would direct the scene and collection and things like that.
Back then, we had about seven investigators that worked for the whole county. One of them would come out and be
the lead on the investigation. KELLY HENDERSON: They would immediately secure the scene.
They would remove everybody from the area. They would tape it off to prevent anybody from being
able to come into the area. And then they would do scene sketches, drawings. They would photograph the scene and then contact
the medical examiner's office, at which time the coroner would respond and take possession of the body
and/or the skeletons in this case, and then just finished processing the scene. ALAN DUKE: They're looking for artifacts, things,
clues as to if there was a struggle, was the person alive when they were there? Or were they dumped?
But the remains themselves were mostly-- it's just a skeleton, just bones. DEANNA OLESKE: She was almost entirely skeletonized.
She still had some flesh on her. She was wrapped up in a puffy jacket. MICHELLE SANDLER: There was a little bit
of a floral print dress and then a little bit of jewelry. She had some jewelry in her hair.
And she had, you know, kind of costume jewelry and a sterling silver ring on. What was left of her hair was brown with obvious bleaching.
Another really important artifact that they found, actually, were these zip ties
that, typically, an electrician or a sound engineer or someone would use to wrap cords to keep them organized.
They found that, and it was right with the body and right in the neck area of the body.
The zip ties at her throat were really the clue that this was a homicide. NANCY GRACE: The missing Jane Doe becomes
a homicide investigation. Crime scene investigators preserve all evidence found with the victim's remains.
They also take samples from the surrounding area. Detectives want to nail down who is this victim
and how long has she been there. MICHELLE SANDLER: They collected insects, foliage.
I know that there was a forensic entomology report done to try to determine the time of death
based on the degree of decomposition. ALAN DUKE: They can look and see, oh, well,
that insect takes this long to find and colonize and grow in a corpse. And it's like a flag, a marker for them.
When they see that particular insect, that bug in the remains, they then can make a conclusion generally,
an educated guess about how long that body has been exposed to the elements and to the insects.
I don't think anyone ever pinpointed an exact time of death. Because of the state of decomposition,
it was very difficult. But they did use forensic entomology and do the best that they could with the state
that the body was in. They believed that it had been there no later than April of that year, April of 1994.
The evidence is collected. It's secured. And then we send it here locally to the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement to get analyzed to see whatever DNA or anything they could get from it.
What they're looking for as well is evidence of identity. Okaloosa County detectives wait for autopsy results that
could reveal information about the ID of their Jane Doe and the ID of her killer.
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [TENSE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: September 14, 1994, Okaloosa County, Florida.
Skeletal remains of an unidentified person discovered along Interstate 10. Investigators secure every bit of evidence
they can for testing. The victim's remains undergo autopsy. Detectives aim to learn more about their Jane Doe.
DEANNA OLESKE: When we have just skeletonized remains, we've lost all the soft tissue.
So if you were bruised, I would never see it or ever know it unless there was an injury to your bones.
If you were shot, I'd have to hope it hit some bones. Otherwise, I'd never be able to tell.
There's a lot of information that you gather from the soft tissues that you wouldn't necessarily
have on your skeletal remains. The clothing actually kept the skeletal remains mostly intact,
but there was some surface scatter of the smaller bones, and the skull, I think, was found about 4 feet away.
When they brought her, they brought what they could find-- surprisingly covered quite a bit of her remains.
I'd say about 85% of her came back to us. They documented all of her clothing. And since she was an unidentified person,
they also documented the tags and the size of the clothing, which can help us determine maybe how old she is
and how big she was. We're looking for other pieces of evidence. Again, we wouldn't have any fingernails or places where you
could possibly collect for DNA evidence for sexual assault because they're just skeletonized remains.
We would do what we could. In this case, we found two ligatures that were encircling her cervical vertebrae that were
still left over and intact, that were still held there, actually, by her hair. And then we would do X-rays or radiographs, again, to see
if there's anything there. Following that, we would inventory and document what we do have, note what we don't have in terms of bones,
do a dental examination or have that sent to a forensic dentist to determine where she had any dental repairs.
Then we would send these remains to a forensic anthropologist to go over every single bone in detail
and try to gather as much information as they can from what the bones can tell you.
We learned about how tall she was. She was about 5 foot 4 plus or minus 2 inches.
And surprisingly, they made a guesstimation of how much she weighed based on her bra size.
She was a 34B, which I thought was remarkable. She was about 110 to 114 pounds. There was no perimortem trauma.
That means that there was no obvious signs of trauma or injuries to the bones immediately surrounding death.
However, we were lucky enough to recover part of the hyoid bone, about 2/3 of it.
A third of it was missing, and that could have been because it wasn't fused there, or it could have
been because it was fractured, as if she were strangled. There was a major clue in the autopsy room
that would lead to a conclusion of the cause of death. And that would be these black electrical cord
ties around the neck. It doesn't take a very experienced detective or even a journalist to conclude probably
was a strangulation involved in this. NANCY GRACE: The autopsy reveals a lot to investigators--
Jane Doe's height, her weight, and the suspected COD, Cause Of Death. It's a start, of course, but forensic science is still
in its infancy in the 1990s. Detectives and science have a long way to go. In the mid '90s, they didn't have
the tools that are relied on today by the same detectives. Databases were just starting to be created and to be shared.
Forensic tools that we depend on today were in their very early stages. Sciences-- forensic science has come a long way
in the last 30 years. MICHELLE SANDLER: They consulted with multiple agencies, and they scoured missing persons reports.
ERIC ADEN: But with the skeletal remains, it's a lot more difficult. You do not have facial ability
to be able to recognize them, had no identifiable victim to be able to say, this person is missing.
We might send out a notification to other agencies in the area, and we would tell them internally,
hey, we have found a body, a remains of a female. Do you have anyone missing? KELLY HENDERSON: In fact, when we were reviewing the report,
we noticed that they had at least 30 different missing people that they had further investigated
to see if, by chance, our skeletons were one of those victims. MICHELLE SANDLER: They tried to track down the manufacturer
of the clothing-- believe it was Brandywine Creek, I want to say-- and determine where
that particular dress was sold. They interviewed as many people as they could. They got trucking records.
They went down every rabbit hole they could possibly go down and used every tool at their disposal that was available
in the '90s, including working with other law enforcement agencies. They did everything they could to try and figure out
the identity of this victim. NANCY GRACE: Investigators are nowhere in identifying their Jane Doe.
Then, 1995, one year after she's discovered, a new potential suspect comes forward.
They had received notification from another law enforcement agency that Keith Jesperson had admitted to killing
a woman along I-10 in Florida. KELLY HENDERSON: He was incarcerated for, I believe,
Taunja Bennett's murder. And he, again, confesses to killing multiple other victims
in different jurisdictions. Keith Jesperson is infamous. He shamelessly confesses to seven additional homicides
after his first arrest in 1995. His nickname? The Happy Face Killer. Mr. Jesperson was very believable to the Okaloosa
County Sheriff's Office. He told a story that made sense, and he gave them information that he would not otherwise
have been able to get. At that point of time, we didn't have the public records that we have now, the internet and all of the things
that we have to make the kind of information like she was found with zip ties in a floral dress
and the kind of jewelry she wore and things like that-- it wasn't widely publicized.
They can't do a whole lot without an identity of a victim. It's very difficult to prosecute those cases.
NANCY GRACE: Keith Jesperson's confession in the Jane Doe case seems credible until he's asked to ID the victim.
Other than the name Suzanne or Suzette, he now says he can't remember much else about her.
He said her name was Suzanne or Suzette. I need to know that that's a Suzanne or a Suzette
in order to prosecute the case beyond a reasonable doubt. We're required to prove that there is a crime that occurred
and the body of the crime. And the way the law works is you can't prove it on a confession
alone. Even with Keith Jespersen's confession, detectives are unable to move forward.
Why? Because prosecutors want a definitive ID for the murder victim. So for now, not much else can be done.
ERIC ADEN: '96, you know, about then, it went real cold because, you know, in '95, he had already confessed.
And then we interviewed in '96, but then shortly thereafter, couldn't do much with it from there.
I mean, the investigators tried to use whatever means they had at the time at their disposal to try and get justice,
but they just were simply unsuccessful. NANCY GRACE: The murder case of Jane Doe goes cold.
Can detectives trust a serial killer, Keith Jesperson, to give a truthful confession?
We find out next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa County, Florida, 2007, investigators reopen the cold case of an unidentified woman discovered along Interstate 10
back in 1994. The only lead? The 1995 confession of a ruthless serial killer, Keith Jesperson.
Jesperson's info about Jane Doe is sketchy, so detectives try a new strategy to ID their victim.
In 2007-- this is 13 years after the body was found and a long time after this case was put on the shelf--
a new approach was attempted. MICHELLE SANDLER: They sent the skull off to a forensic anthropologist to do facial reconstruction to--
and what they used was a clay imaging process. And that's where they placed clay over certain points that
are known to be of a certain thickness on the skull to recreate what the individual looked
like in life. They're interesting because it's actually a 3D rendering based off of their skull structure.
They can be really accurate. ALAN DUKE: Have you seen this person? Is this person someone you knew in 1994?
And at least it might be a visual trigger that would cause people to come forth with clues as to who this was.
We did get some leads from other people that were missing and family members that had reported
their loved ones missing. However, those leads were followed, and nothing was able to come out of it.
We weren't able to identify her. NANCY GRACE: The clay mask strategy does not help identify their Jane Doe,
but investigators won't give up. They send the remains off for a new round of DNA testing,
hoping to create a new DNA profile they can then upload to CODIS. MICHELLE SANDLER: CODIS is the Combined DNA Index,
and that is basically the national database where people whose DNA has been taken for crimes is entered so that it can
be compared to and run against crimes in which there's known DNA, but not a known suspect or victim.
DEANNA OLESKE: Well, we ended up sending both to FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,
to their lab for genetic testing, and then ultimately, also in 2007, to the FBI to do mitochondrial DNA testing.
The profiles were generated, they were uploaded to codas, and there was nothing.
2008, investigators take a long shot at identifying Jane Doe. They send her remains off to the University of Florida
for anthropological testing. The results confirm the victim's age, between 35 and 55
at the time of death. Unfortunately, it still doesn't get police any closer to knowing who is Jane Doe.
KELLY HENDERSON: We know that we have somebody that's been murdered. And because we can't identify her,
one, we can't give closure to the family, and two, we can't give justice. NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa County detectives,
frustrated, they put the Jane Doe case back in the cold case unit. Then, 14 years later, October 2022, opportunity strikes.
DEANNA OLESKE: I was at a national conference in Las Vegas, and I attended a talk about forensic genetic
genealogy, the advances of and how they have been successful with it. Forensic genetic genealogy is when the DNA of a victim
is compared in a database. They make sure that they have a full genome for the victim
and then compare it to other genomes so that they can find relatives and identify our victims that
have remained unidentified. Othram was the company that was offering to do these kinds of identifications.
And I took a picture of the slide during the conference, and I sent it to my associate medical examiner,
Dr. Lorraine Lopez, and I asked her, can you initiate contact? Let's try to do this for Suzanne.
Othram is purpose built to identify victims and perpetrators from crime scenes using DNA.
So we have built the infrastructure necessary to be able to test the most intractable pieces of DNA
evidence, the software needed to be able to build the most high-performing DNA profiles that you can upload
to genealogical databases that are consented for law enforcement use, to help you infer
the identity of an unknown person at a crime scene. For every case that comes to Othram, the first step
for us is to understand what has been done in the past, what is the current status of the case, what items
are available for testing. And so we ask for any agency to submit available information
into our portal so that our scientific team can review what's available and make a decision
and determination as to whether or not we believe we can work the case. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: We got a call from Okaloosa Sheriff's Office,
and they told us that they had unidentified remains that were found in 1994, a cold case that had absolutely no leads
as to who this person might be. They did say that they thought it was a female. She was about 110 pounds when found.
And she was estimated to be between the age of 35 and 55 years old. NANCY GRACE: Othram agrees to take on the case.
Dr. Deanna Oleske carefully sends over part of the 28-year-old victim's remains to see if it's possible
to extract a DNA sample. DEANNA OLESKE: We tried sending teeth at first, some molars.
They were unable to extract from the molars. We did send a femur as well, and it also did not yield
enough DNA for extraction. So we ended up sending part of her skull. The base of the skull, where your sphenoid, sinus,
and your cavities live, they've had better success with that than with teeth at extracting DNA.
At the end of December of '22, they were able to extract a profile from that. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
KRISTEN MITTELMAN: We were able to do forensic grade genome sequencing on this and create a profile
that had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of SNP markers. It had enough material to generate a profile.
They used that and they compared it to persons who publicly upload their DNA to a website called GEDmatch.
For a comparison to see if there is any distant relatives out there that could be related to this person.
It was actually a really good profile and uploaded and led to matches in the DNA database.
We knew that there were clusters of relatives in certain parts of the United States,
and that's important information. Not always are you able to immediately point to the name of a person, but rather, you
point to the name of relatives, and those relatives can be data sources. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: It was early 2023 when we provided back
the family that we thought the person belonged to, and then law enforcement made contact with her family.
They asked if someone was missing. They said yes. They asked a family member to provide DNA so that we
could confirm the result. MICHELLE SANDLER: The victim's mother, they performed a buccal swab for YSTR testing
to compare that to our victim and determine that it was, indeed, the child of the person whose DNA they
had taken a buccal swab of. NANCY GRACE: The buccal swab test returns a positive result.
That means Othram successfully finds the mother of Jane Doe. DEANNA OLESKE: I told my colleagues
that we're going to identify her before the end of the year. We were able to identify her within two months.
I was in my office, and Dr. Lopez yelled at me down the hallway and said, we identified Suzanne.
I go, oh, what's her name? And she goes, Suzanne. I go, are you kidding me? [LAUGHS] The whole time, that was actually her name?
I felt really, really good. It was a pure and utter excitement. We kind of bounced around for a couple of minutes
cheering that we actually had her name for once. And it was incredible. Detectives are finally able to put a name to the remains.
It's Suzanne Kjellenberg. She was 34 years old at the time that she was killed. We knew that she was from the Midwest, that her father was
an attorney, that she had a brother, that her family had not given up on looking
for her for a long time. KELLY HENDERSON: Back then, it was, you know, wait 24 hours or 48 hours.
See if they're doing their own thing or, if it's a child, if they maybe went to a friend's house
and just didn't tell their parents. Not taken as serious, I guess, as it is now.
I mean, now we immediately do a missing persons report based on situation. It could even be an endangered to where it gets pushed out
quicker. But back then, it seemed like it was kind of a "well, let's wait and see if they come back first."
ALAN DUKE: But she was 34 years old, in her mid 30s, and she liked to roam around.
She was something of a free spirit in that way, in that she would spend time in this part of the country
and then in another part of the country. KELLY HENDERSON: She was kind of a drifter.
She would kind of just do her own thing. She would get rides, which was not uncommon at that time,
you know, to get a ride with a truck driver or hitchhike with somebody. She wasn't necessarily-- stayed in contact with her family.
She just kind of did her own thing. There was a lot of communication between my office,
as well as the medical examiner's office and the state attorney's office, because you know,
Keith Jesperson had previously confessed to killing Suzanne. He's already serving several life sentences for other murders
and has been been convicted of. So there was a little bit of, well, are we going to move forward with this when he's
already serving life sentences? And the ultimate decision was, yes, Suzanne, as well as
her family, deserve the same justice as the other victims from Keith Jesperson. So at that point, it was decided to make
a trip to Oregon to do a face-to-face interview with Jesperson. Science and great police work joined forces
to finally identify Jane Doe. Now, investigators want to know why she died and who murdered her.
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa County, Florida, 2023,
29 years after the remains of a woman found dumped along the side of Interstate 10, detectives
finally know who she is. Her name? Suzanne Kjellenberg, 34 years old at the time of her murder.
But now, detectives want to question infamous serial killer Keith Jesperson. In 1995, Jesperson confesses he sex assaults and murders Suzanne
Kjellenberg. Keith Jesperson is a very proud serial killer. If you add up all of the stories of the people
he claims to have killed, it would be about 160. However, law enforcement and prosecutors,
while they might like to pin all those killings on one person, close all these cases, they tend to want to have some evidence
to go along with it. And if they think that he's just boasting about this and not
bringing the information to connect him to the killing, he doesn't. They have been able to verify eight.
NANCY GRACE: Since 1990, Keith Jesperson is known as the "Happy Face Killer." Why?
Because of confession letters he writes to law enforcement and media. Mr. Jesperson wrote several letters to the press,
and he signed them with happy faces. He had written little notes on bathroom stalls
at truck stops, signed again with the happy face, the smiley face, almost taunting the police and media,
letting them know that the person that's responsible for these deaths are him, and he's still out there.
NANCY GRACE: Detectives now go to the Oregon State Prison to interview serial killer Keith Jesperson.
They want to know if he really murdered Suzanne Kjellenberg or if his confession all those years ago is a lie.
Mr. Jesperson was in the Oregon penitentiary, located in Salem, Oregon. KELLY HENDERSON: So in September of 2023,
we did elect to go do a face-to-face unannounced. So Keith Jesperson did not realize that we were going
to be coming to talk to him. And it was a team of four. It was myself, my partner, Investigator Pittman,
FDLE Special Agent Mark Zagar, and then our assistant state attorney, who was going to be trying the case,
which was Michelle Sandler. MICHELLE SANDLER: We look at several different scenarios that
could happen before we go there, and we review the case file heavily so that we can gauge his truthfulness.
The fact that we had a confession from 1996 was incredibly helpful, because then we had something
that we could compare to the evidence and to whatever statement he gave in 2023 to see
how truthful he was being. We needed him to answer time and place and detail, more than anything else.
We needed to make sure that he knew things only the killer would know. We were a little worried he might feign ignorance
or refuse to speak with us. KELLY HENDERSON: Once we got there, we introduced ourselves.
Keith Jesperson knew exactly why we were there. When we walked in and I said that we were from Florida,
he said, oh, about the girl I killed in Holt. He knew exactly. This is a big man.
He obviously had put on some weight since the 1990s, you know, photos. But he was probably about 6' 5, probably pushing 300 pounds.
And he had huge hands. He is older now, so he had gray hair and glasses, but a very big guy.
He was a very affable, friendly guy to meet us. If you didn't know he was a serial killer,
you would think he was a typical big, gregarious type of fellow. But knowing he was a serial killer kept us guarded.
NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa County, Florida detectives interrogating a serial killer. Can they confirm he savagely murdered a defenseless
woman 29 years before? We find out next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO]
NANCY GRACE: Florida detectives are at the Oregon State Penitentiary to interview notorious serial killer Keith
Jesperson. In 1995, he confesses to the brutal sex assault and murder of Suzanne Kjellenberg, the 34-year-old
dumped along Interstate 10. She's not identified for 28 years, and now detectives are determined to close her murder
case and seal his confession. We needed to be very careful that any conviction that we got
had integrity, meaning that it would not be overturned. So we wanted to make sure that he had representation,
that he was able to review the evidence with his attorney and decide to plea freely and voluntarily
of his own free will. I just asked him to just tell me what happened. I kind of let him just talk and explain everything.
And then if we needed to clarify something, we would. But I explained to him that I had done all this research,
and I kind of just wanted to hear it from his own mouth. KELLY HENDERSON: She was sleeping,
and he decided, well, I'm not supposed to have unauthorized riders here, so let me go make sure
I don't get in trouble. He claims that she was asleep and that he was trying to be a gentleman and wake her up to see if she
needed to use the restroom. And when she woke up, he thinks he startled her, but she started screaming.
And he knew that that security officer was right next to him, and he didn't want to get in trouble.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It was chilling to hear somebody so casually discuss the murder of another human being.
When I heard the story, I felt like it was a person who had very little regard for human life.
No remorse. You know, he-- it was matter of fact. It was just so matter of fact.
It was-- he enjoyed talking about it, you know, is kind of the sense that I got from it.
He liked that attention. MICHELLE SANDLER: We were with him for a couple hours, and then we left and came home quickly.
And then we decided to file on the case as second-degree murder. And that's just because the state of Florida
requires that if you file a first-degree murder, you have to convene a grand jury.
And we knew he was already willing to plead to life. NANCY GRACE: Keith Jesperson convicted
for the second-degree murder of Suzanne Kjellenberg on April 4, 2024. I was happy to have the case closed to have justice
for Suzanne Kjellenberg. DEANNA OLESKE: We contacted the family, and they had to make arrangements
for her remains, which, once we had gathered and gotten back from Othram, we made sure
that we had all of her back. We-- they contacted a funeral home, and we released her remains to a funeral home.
And I believe she was cremated. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: I can't imagine losing someone that I care about and not having any answers.
And I think that there's nothing more devastating than allowing a serial perpetrator to conceal the identity of someone
and take away their voice forever and leave them voiceless. To me, that's horrible.
And so it means a lot to me to be able to say that I think this technology is going
to lead to a world where no one is ever left voiceless like that. KELLY HENDERSON: It certainly motivated me to make
sure I never give up on a case. Just because it doesn't-- we don't have something right in front of our eyes
doesn't mean we can't develop something, you know? And it grounded me to know-- to keep working, to keep working on these cases,
because somewhere out there, there's a family member that is wondering where their loved one
is or deserves that justice. And I have cold cases all the way back from '73, so it's given me hope to try to move forward on those
and get justice to where we're able to solve all of our cold cases. NANCY GRACE: Incredible work of law enforcement
and scientists finally solve the brutal sex attack and tragic murder of Suzanne Kjellenberg.
Their combined efforts prove justice can prevail in even the toughest homicide cases after 30 long years.
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO]
[AUDIO LOGO] [THEME MUSIC]

A woman’s skeletal remains are found in Okaloosa County in 1994, starting a search for her identity and her killer that stalls for years, until a new forensic tool might give answers. Now in its fifth season, Bloodline Detectives is the leading true crime series that explores how police departments harness genetic genealogy to solve crimes that were once considered "unsolvable," bringing long-awaited answers to victims' families.

Brief Summary

The episode reveals the 30-year journey to identify murder victim Suzanne Kjellenberg and convict serial killer Keith Jesperson.

Key points

Discovery of Jane Doe. Inmates discover a body along Interstate 10, leading to a homicide investigation.
Cold Case Reopened. In 2007, investigators reopen the cold case of Jane Doe, seeking new leads.
Forensic Genetic Genealogy. In 2022, advances in forensic genetic genealogy offer new hope for identifying Jane Doe.
Identifying Suzanne Kjellenberg. Detectives finally put a name to the remains of a woman found 29 years ago.
Confession of a Serial Killer. Keith Jesperson, the 'Happy Face Killer', confesses to the murder of Suzanne.
Justice After 30 Years. Law enforcement and scientists solve the murder case after three decades.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The zip ties at her throat were really the clue that this was a homicide.

Michelle Sandler discussing the evidence found with the body.

0:38WatchJun 13, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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