The Devil's Teeth ////// Part 1 of 4 | Forensic Files

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eating [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
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this case begins with a teenager who goes missing several weeks later in September of 1972
a body is discovered atop a cliff high above an abandoned Quarry and Springfield New Jersey
[Music] later it was determined this was the body of the missing teen Jeanette De
Palma along with the body it was said that cult related items were recovered from
the area rumors said that she had been resting on a makeshift altar in the woods
the cult-like items were rumored to have been occult symbols carved from branches
and logs the perpetrator or perpetrators of this murder are said to have left the teen's
body posed with the crude symbolic artifacts surrounding the body the only thing missing from the young
girl was a gold cross that she always wore around her neck these stories would certainly Point
toward a possible ritualistic murder committed by satanists or a deadly coven of witches
weeks after the body was found local newspapers published articles that fueled speculation and scared the locals
with headlines like occult symbols reportedly surrounded the body and Witchcraft implicated in De Palma murder
these articles told us that living inside this quiet conservative community was a group of bloodthirsty satanists
then the story vanished from the local newspapers the Police Stopped releasing information
some say the police quit working the case some say they didn't want to work the case
Jeanette's family wanted a clearly deserved answers but would they get any did police have any suspects and if so
why hold back so much information information that could lead to a possible arrest and conviction
was there a cover-up for all we know this could be like so many other murders that happen in
communities back then where the cops figured out pretty quickly who did it but in the absence of reliable forensics
they simply could not build a solid case against the offender the case went cold
years later the story became local folklore and the rumors have never quieted the murder of Jeanette De Palma is very
bizarre and still unsolved this case is not known to most outside the state of New Jersey could the unsolved abduction
and murder of this teenage girl be the result of a police cover-up is Jeanette's case one of the first
examples of satanic panic [Music] or was Jeannette one of the first victims of ritual occult murder in
Suburban America this is the case of the devil's teeth [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] September 19 1972 Springfield New Jersey at around 11
A.M 44 year old police officer Don Schrute he is responding to a strange police call he is on his way to the brand new
Gardens apartment complex on Wilson Road the strange call that came in the apartment building superintendent had
found what was reported to be a severed human arm this was found lying in the grass near
some bushes right by one of several entrances to the building this was not officer Dawn's first day on the job and
he was trying to figure out what to expect to see when arriving on the scene probably see an arm Don and the other
officers had responded to several calls not only from this apartment complex but
from the same superintendent that had made this call see a group of teenage boys that lived in the apartments well
these kids suck and they decided for some reason to pick on the super intended and they always played pranks
on this poor woman actually one repeat prank that they seem to enjoy was to take trash bags full of
rubbish and cut the bags open and then they would dump the trash all over the lawn and then the lady would have to
clean up their mess real dick noses as he got closer to the apartments officer Don thought well you know here we go
again this time the boys had stepped up their game and he was going to have to give them a Stern talking to because it
appears this time the boys tried to scare the poor lady to death they stepped up their game by severing an arm
or leaving something that would scare the woman into believing she saw a severance you know he might have to use
the strong arm of the law to put some fear in these boys maybe like a mannequin with some ketchup they need to
stop picking on this woman well anyway the the Springfield police they've got better things to do than to continually
respond to calls at this apartment building so officer Don he pulled up to the building and got out of his car he
approached the building looking for the superintendent but before he could locate her he spotted the item that had
fueled the police call there lying in the grass was a forearm officer Don could immediately see this was not the
arm of a mannequin like he had expected to see not a half arm he saw the fingernails he could tell that the arm
had been out in the elements for quite some time the flesh appeared to be almost leathery and kind of maroon in
color Don got out his camera and took several pictures of the find and then he called
into the station telling them you better get some detectives out here we have a human arm lying in the grass and it's no
joke so I'm assuming this arm didn't get there by these pranksters correct well that's the weird thing Captain because
that is the first thing that jumps in my mind how did this arm get here lying in
the grass near this building right and I don't know that they ever truly answered
this if you look up like little short Snippets about this case they will tell you that a dog had somehow found the arm
and and brought it to this location leaving it there in the grass I don't know that they fully explained that uh
the police anyway in their investigation yeah the issue was the lady that made the initial call that her dog was very
little like a small dog yeah but what they found out later was that there was a Dalmatian that was owned by somebody
on the property and that the domination would roam this area all the time so they kind of assumed that that's how the
arm got there yeah because they started knocking on doors of the tenants that lived in the building just asking
questions what people had been doing that morning and such and like you said that Dalmatian was a large dog and the
one lady says I let my dog out this morning and he just runs wild and then I'd let him in whenever he's done
whenever he comes back and so I think they kind of just put two and two together and came to this
conclusion that maybe the dog had gone off into the woods or in some other location bringing it back to the
apartment complex the other strange thing that that occurs early on in this police call is once the
detectives and some other officers get there it's not a long time that they're there before one of the tech detectives
spoke up and says hey I think this could be the arm of Jeannette De Palma you know which seems like a very strange
thing but we have to keep in mind we're talking about 1972 in Springfield New Jersey and from my understanding it's
not a huge town you know there's not a ton of people that are living there and at the time Jeanette De Palma she was
the only missing person listed in Springfield right I'm assuming that they could tell that it was a female hand
well it did have the uh the fingernail polish but we both know that doesn't mean anything no uh but uh I mean we
both know well we both know we grew we grew up when the goth thing came was was going crazy yeah we had we might have
had more guys with fingernail polish than girls in the high school it's possible in the in that old classy high
school well you probably had more guys wearing nail polish and College Tech than the college prep program well it
took some time Captain but a search was organized they had to call in a favor with another Police Department the
Springfield Department was very small and had limited resources back then they did not have a K-9 unit or a search dog
so they brought in an officer with a bloodhound and they had a team of about four or five officers some of them were
actually Off Duty Officers that had volunteered their time to help in the search
the official search started around 3 P.M that same afternoon just after about 3 30 PM the search team entered a wooded
area this is off of Mountain View Road they spent some time kind of you know getting deep into these Woods
The Searchers passed over a hill crossed a creek and then came to a quarry now this area this property actually
belonged to the howdale construction materials company and according to the officers this area would not be
accessible to any normal means of traffic that's their word so for clarification on what that may mean is
just this simple they would not expect hikers to be trampling through this area mainly because of where it was located
it was when they got near this Quarry area that they found what they believed to be a small top portion of the arm
that was earlier located at the apartment complex and they're assuming that the dog again a dog went to the
woods took the arm took it back to the apartment complex and so that this piece would have fell off on its Journey back
and remember officer Don that we spoke of earlier well he was one of the officers that had volunteered his time
that afternoon to join the search so he along with another officer started up what officer Don would later call a very
Steep Hill he says that it was steep enough that he had slipped several times on his way to
the top at the top of the hill there was a flat area it was on this spot that the
two men had located a body the body was lying face down the flat area where the body was lying was about
12 feet around on the body a blue there was a blue t-shirt and tan pants but no shoes or
socks they did find a pair of flip-flops nearby now excuse me for for saying this I can give
a little warning here it's a little gross but animals had ate most of the flesh off of the feet and around the
head of this body according to the officers that found the body the clothing was in so-so shape but the body
was very deteriorated they couldn't tell if it was the body of a male or a female and as they had
anticipated the body was missing an arm the remaining arm was resting under the head and the head was pretty much just a
skull by this time with long dark matted hair even though they couldn't tell outright
determine the gender of the body they suspected it was a female body because of the long hair and they had found a
pocketbook nearby well yeah even though this is like the height of the hippie movement right or around well it's in
the hippie movement there was what the officers would say a bizarre arrangement of sticks and stones around the body
some said that the sticks had been arranged to appear like crosses that there were some Stones arranged around
the head in a semi-circle and according to one of the officers it looked almost like a halo around the body's head
one of the officers told officer Don that in his opinion this looks to him to be the work of witchcraft
when the detectives arrived the they kicked all of the Searchers and the officers off of the hilltop they had to
wait for the coroner to show up to officially declare the body as dead before they could remove the body now
the hill was so steep captain that they had to use a fire truck to remove this body
and the way that this was explained to me is that on one side you know you pretty much have a steep Cliff or a
steep hill and then on one side you have a cliff so just a complete drop off and what they did was they took the fire
truck and they backed it up to the cliff portion and they took the ladder and they shot it up towards the top of the
cliff yeah I mean it's it's kind of like when you're moving a mattress right instead of going through the house
you go through like the bedroom window right right that's a good explanation I I guess the officers just determined
that the hill was too steep to take it down the hill this way would be faster and probably preserve the body the best
that they could now once they get the body back to uh to check it out to try to find some
evidence figure out who this person is and the cause of death it's crazy Captain because they weren't
able to determine a cause of death there was no cause of death determined and while the coroner was going to
continue to work on this aspect of the case right the detectives they were charged with trying to figure out who
this body belonged to the identification from the autopsy where they're able to speculate anything I mean I know that
they couldn't determine you know for sure like this is how the person died but sometimes they can say
well it's possible that this person died this way okay so my understanding is that the the body had been deteriorated
very badly and that this did not allow them to come up to come up with a 100 conclusion of how this person would have
died now they say that they believed that this person was strangled um and they can't prove it they can't
prove it and there was actually no like ligature marks to to lead them to that conclusion what my
guess is is that they have no they don't have any obvious signs of of a bullet wound you know or any signs of blunt
force trauma or something that would have fractured the skull or fractured other bones and typically you would see
that with bullet holes or you would see that with stab wounds or being struck over the head there was nothing to
indicate that anything like that had happened to this person before he or she expired or if there was any indication
of that it possibly could have been postmortem as well correct now to kind of paint a picture of how badly
decomposed this body was and and how possibly long it had sat there in the woods the clothing of the person and the
the body of the person it had laid there so long that they kind of started to become one and was very sunken into the
ground that the body had laid on so I mean when they're seeing this situation they're seeing this site it's obvious
today them even from somebody with an untrained eye that we're looking at a person that's been there in out in the
elements for quite some time so as we said the the detectives are charged with trying to make an
identification of this body and the one detective decides you know what he's he remembered what one of the other
officers said Remember the officer said hey this could be the arm of Jeannette De Palma well he remembered hearing that
and he says you know what I'm going to start there so yeah I mean obviously she's the only
person that's missing in your town yeah reported missing and then furthermore they kind of believe that they're
looking at the body of a possible female victim right so this is a good starting
point so what they do is the following day the day after the body is discovered they have a meeting with Jeanette's
dentist okay now the way that I understand this is that the dentist he was new to the area and he was kind of
the young dentist right and he was working for this older dentist that had been in the area for many many years
skeptical and I guess what's skeptical well I'm anti-dentite next thing you know you'll be saying
they should have their own schools yeah [Music] because the way that this situation that
they had set up was this that the the older dentist he took all the older patients and anybody that was younger
and knew well he got the new patients so the dentist had to go over to the funeral home and do an examination on
the body's dental work and comparing it to records that he had brought with him regarding Jeanette De Palma and of
course made a positive identification that this was in fact the missing teen that they had been looking for she'd
been missing for almost six weeks you ever spent any time in a funeral home only when I'm attending a funeral well I
had a friend that lived in one okay and now we had a sixth grade dance and at the funeral home yeah I was
you know it's romantic in a creepy way wow no it's not no it's not I was like my girl no I
think that's what you do when you want the children to remind their parents that hey this is what happens when you
don't vote for the school levy no it was just a party it was a school dance so we
gotta talk about Captain the devil's teeth and uh for those of you out there listening you know the title of the show
was the devil's teeth it wasn't wasn't just a clever name that the captain came up with you just say Devil's teeth I
think I think I did hey listen to our new episode The Devil's teeth but the reason why we have this is
this title is because Janet De Palma her body was found at the top of the cliff the cliff that they found her body at is
now known to the locals as the dev Devil's teeth now our story takes place in 1972 but how this spot got to be
known as the devil's teeth well you have to go back a bit according to locals back in the 1920s it was known as The
Devil's skull this is because some kids found a large natural depression in the blue stone that was up there so this is
a like fairly large Rock Hollow and in the spring and summer months it would fill up with water and the kids would
sit inside of this kind of like a like a bathtub or a hot tub the hot tub yeah in
the Autumn months and when it started to get cold out the place became you know dreary kind of kind of like Ohio does
when the Sun goes away in in November and you don't see it again for a few months but it is said that you could
often see buzzards circling above the spot because like little rodents and stuff would would fall in there and
drown in the water and the the birds would pick their bodies out of there but during times where there would be enough
time between rainfall The Rock Hollow would dry out and it would start to take on the appearance of the inside of like
an inverted half skull so the kit the kids started calling it The Devil's skull so then years later when the
construction materials company purchased the land and started mining the area they would dump loads of waste rock
along the edge of the devil's skull so the rows of this waste rock started looking like teeth like lining the jaw
of the devil's skull so that's how it took on the name of the devil's teeth and remains it's still called that to
this deck foreign [Music] I was just admiring your little uh fancy coaster thing you have over there on
your desk during the beer break yeah it's because uh there's some beautiful people that
listen to the show and they like to send me some things well Captain I want to talk about victimology here because we
know that Jeanette De Palma is our victim and we know that she was found September 19
1972. yeah she was last seen on August 7th 1972. this is like six weeks before they find her body
apparently she was supposedly going to Gail Donahue's home this is a girl her same age good friend of hers somebody
that she had hung out with often uh apparently I guess Gail lived approximately eight miles away
now the story goes like this because there's some conflicting stories amongst people close to Jeanette on what her
plans were for the last day that we know that she was possibly alive and the one story comes from Gail
Donahue herself she says that that morning one of the two had had phoned the other one either Jeanette had called
her she had called Jeanette right the plan for the day was that Jeanette was supposed to come over to Gail's home
because there were two boys that they were interested in they they had made plans with and they were going to hang
out that afternoon apparently I guess that Jeanette says I can't make it you know I know we said we
were going to hang out but I can't make it my mom has some chores and things that I have to do and I won't be able to
to get over there right Gail says look you know we've been there well I don't know that all of us have been there but
I can recall times where you're supposed to make plans and you got two girls two
guys making plans and if your buddy doesn't show up now you got a weird situation right because you're thinking
maybe the girls won't show up or maybe they only want to hang out because he's there whatever your day is kind of
ruined if somebody drops off especially at that age yeah it's an awkward time so
Gail kind of gives Jeanette the business like no we made these plans with these guys you should figure out a way to get
over here right right make it happen Jeanette before she hangs out hangs up the phone she says you know I'll get
over there what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to my mom I'll hit you hitchhike a ride to your place okay
which the hitchhiking was a lot more popular back then yes of course where the stories start to vary a little bit
is we have Jeanette's sister Jeanette's sister said that on that day Jeanette had asked her if she wanted to
go with her to Gail's home and this is this is where I should I should clarify this is where the story gets a little
strange she says that she wanted to go to Tommy's home okay Tommy is a boy that I guess
Jeanette was interested in and she told her sister that Tommy lived near Gale Gail would later say that that's not you
know that's not the case she was coming to my home yes we did know a boy named Tommy but he was the guy I was
interested in right what I think we have here Captain is we have an older sister
who ultimately does not end up going with Jeanette and I bet you there's I bet you both stories are probably true
in some sense we probably have an older sister that maybe really only knew part of the facts
of why Jeanette was leaving or why she wanted to go where she was going yeah but this happens all the times
especially with teenagers you know you have a situation where people's stories don't line up but
also it's like you're trying to their perceptions are off of what the truth is it's not that they're
technically lying they just don't really remember the facts correctly yes and we
have so we have the sister that was asked to walk with Jeanette the sister ultimately turns her down she had
something else to do we do know that Jeanette reached out to another friend asking her if she would like to walk
with her to the to Gail's home yeah what was under a report that the mom was going to drive her that's correct
typically her mother would drive her down to a train station and then she would take the train to wherever she was
going maybe it was work later that day or to a friend's house now remember we said that her friend Gail Donahue's home
was approximately eight miles away so in this situation she would need to get three miles to the train station and
then make it the rest of the way to her friend's house it's it's the summer time
it's August 7th she tells her mom hey it's nice out I would prefer to walk so she's got three miles to travel on foot
she's reached out to a few different people who can't go with her or don't want to make the trip with her so she's
on foot alone for these three miles and I don't know if it matters at all but I also heard that it wasn't a nice
pleasant conversation it was the mom said I'm gonna drive you and she said uh I'm 16 now I'll just you know I'll
hitchhike well it's interesting that you bring that up because of a couple of points and one that I will wait to get
to later but one point is this though it's pretty common when you know when we're talking about victimology and what
kind of person was Jeannette and what kind of family did she come from right it's widely reported by people that knew
her and knew her family that there was a lot of kind of back and forth between between
mom and daughter the the Jeanette was kind of a tough a tough girl and it sounds like the De Palma family was a
little tough all of them and yeah maybe hard-headed would be a word that we could use
um well I mean I think it's safe to say I mean I I don't want to assume too much
but I think when I when a younger boy is becoming a man the 16 to 18 range he has
some issues with the father mostly and when when uh a teenage girl is becoming a woman she starts having issues with
her mother well if in fact they did argue about whether she would walk or ride to the train station
that would not be their only argument that I have heard reported of that that day of the day that she went missing
apparently her cousin had run away from home several times and I don't get the sense that she was
running away from a home where she had like abusive parents or she was being mistreated right it was more of she's a
teenager and she was kind of wild and running away might be going and staying with friends for a couple of days
without permission from the parents yeah well on this day her parents had informed her that her cousin had been
gone for like a week or two like like a a longer time than than expected and previous from previous times again this
is a different time so it wasn't very it's pretty common that at 18 you moved out back in the 70s and so you'd have a
lot of situations where somebody would you know I'm going to live on my own at 16 or 17. that wasn't super uncommon and
at some point during the course of that morning Jeanette's parents told her that her
cousin had been missing for a while and Jeanette got upset with them and kind of
gave them the business because she's like well why did you wait so long to tell me yeah so they they could have had
more than one argument that day regardless she goes off on foot by herself she's got to make the three mile
hike to the train station now we do know that she was seen walking several people
had seen her walking in the direction of the train station yeah but that walk is
going to take her about 45 minutes yeah and she's last seen not terribly far from her home where she's Crossing an
intersection this is widely considered the last sighting of Jeanette De Palma on the day that she went missing now
let's talk about the De Palma family I've been told that this is an upper middle class area the neighborhood that
she was lived in in the neighborhood that she was last seen in regarding her family a lot of the people have referred
to the family as quote unquote weird and that would make you think that there would be something very strange with
this family I don't know that I found a lot strange with with what they their accounts of why this family was weird
what do they mean by weird so this was a small community right and these the de Palmas were not very social
they rarely went out they didn't go out a lot the adults didn't the mother and father and when they did go out they
were not social to the other people in the community this regarding you know when you take into account the time
period and the small community that they lived in this was considered to be strange there was the other
consideration that there were Mafia rumors that maybe the father was in the mafia this was an Italian family a large
Italian family I believe they had seven or eight children yeah and they seemed to have some money and so I think some
people that in the neighborhood and in the town thought that they were involved in the mafia well they had a little bit
of money because they weren't going out all the time there you go so and and look there's a difference between you
know maybe they were quiet some people assume all this person's quiet so they're rude and so you know I'd like to
know if there was a you know or were they outwardly just rude to people there were a few two police officers now
retired obviously that state that they had responded to the home several times on police calls
for what well it I guess they don't really know the police don't really know because every time they would arrive
they would get the same story that there was a problem now there is no problem we're all fine here
they believed that there was probably some yelling and fighting between the parents and at times maybe one of the
parents would call or one of the children would call the police and then whatever issue had warranted the call
was resolved by the time the police would arrive but we do have several police officers stating that they
believe and recall that happening several times now regarding our victim Jeanette De Palma what kind of kid was
she what kind of girl was she that is that's the debate yes it's all over the shop you've you've read these
things too it's like depending on who you talk to you get one completely different version of somebody else you
know somebody else's account and if you take all the different versions of who she was we could literally talk about
that for maybe four or five hours it's that debatable all right well let's start
no let's not because I found that portion of when I was looking into this case I found that portion to be quite
boring and I felt that it was quite really because I I actually thought it was interesting well the thing for me
was I didn't think it helped me understand the case any better maybe that's why I thought it was boring but I
found that it was interesting that you know one person would be like oh she was a real wild girl you know she was always
she was always you know hanging out with the greasers and doing drugs and and she
was a fast girl she spent a lot of time with a lot of different boys yeah there was rumors um a lot of cops were saying
that you could find her at like Lovers Lane and stuff like that she would always be in somebody's car and then you
have other people that other girls or boys her age that would say the complete opposite they were like well she might
have smoked a cigarette every now and then maybe even some weed once in a while but I wouldn't consider her to be
wild and I didn't know her to do anything more than first base you know maybe she liked to kiss some boys but
nothing you know that was out of the ordinary for her time you know for her age right she's 16 years old that's what
everybody's doing what most the kids are doing at that age and then you have other people that are
saying that she was very religious and that she had a boy or two that she was interested in and when
she was interested in a boy she didn't look at other boys she didn't chase other boys or talk to him that she was
pretty conservative so it's really all over the shop at the end of the day and it makes it hard to kind of nail down
what type of person she is well and there's again there's then there becomes rumors of that she's heavily involved in
church and there's a lot of stuff from her family coming out and saying she was very involved in church and then other
people saying that she was possibly involved in witchcraft yeah and one thing I found captain that when uh years
later when people would go back and try to investigate this case is I found that what a lot of people
were reporting regarding her character Jeanette's character and her actions it seemed to
me they were reporting things that they had heard or things that they had heard other people say or my parents told me
this or my sister told me that here's what I wonder you know we mentioned during the trailer that this
case has almost become folklore at some point and I think that very quickly in this case when you have a 16 year old
girl that goes missing and she's missing for six weeks and then later found dead
in the woods you know you know sometimes and and I don't care for this one bit but sometimes parents and Priests and
police officers and teachers and principals aunts and uncles anybody in the the form of authority
figure to teenagers they kind of use this as a teaching moment where they're like and they they misconstrue the truth
they they stretch the truth quite a bit sometimes when they choose to take this on as a teaching moment and they'll
throw things in like she was a wild girl you know she was always in the back seats of uh cars with with boys hanging
out in lover Lanes this is what happens to you and they give hand jobs yeah and they don't really outwardly say that but
they imply like this happened because she was this way or she was she was way into drugs and look where it got her
yeah Reefer Madness man yeah and where really I mean yeah maybe you can use that as a
teaching moment I don't think you can when when you don't have a cause of death and you have a person who is a
victim at this point we don't have anything to point us in the direction to lead us to believe that
that she had anything to do with her demise well it's a lot of rumor and a lot of hearsay yeah and one thing that
does not seem to be rumor or hearsay remember we have her telling her friend that she would just hitchhike a ride
over to her house yeah well it seems to be that that was a general consensus amongst her friends
was that that Jeanette was not opposed to hitching a ride there were several of these friends
though however that said she would not get into a car unless she would know the driver
and apparently that sounds silly it's like it's one of the other right just kind of hitchhike and it's you only get
in the car when you're hitchhiking if you know the person I get what you're saying I wonder if you know if she would
recognize uh girl and guys her age are a little bit older well they would have to be a
little a little bit older because apparently back then you had to be 17 and a half in New Jersey to get a
license at that time right so when she's 16 she's trying to get around on her own
my speculation is what they mean by that is that she would recognize a friend's car from high school and then stick the
old thumb out or wave them down you know hey Tommy hey Julie whatever I'm heading
over here you live near them would you mind giving me a ride kind of thing yeah but this kind of stuff in cases drives
me nuts because maybe that's not the type of person she was just getting in a car with a stranger but all it takes is
one time yeah maybe she got desperate right and didn't want to make I mean eight miles
is a is a stretch right so after walking for 45 minutes maybe you went I don't really know this guy but he seems safe
or he's he's looks like somebody I might go to high school with or he looks like
he's only 18 years old well here's one rumor that I do want to talk about though because this one seems
to stand out amongst the others for me Captain and this is something that didn't really I think this was a rumor
that was swirling about amongst the people that knew Jeanette and amongst the people at her high school but it
wasn't something that was kind of widely known until a couple years after her death and this was a rumor of a party
the night that Jeanette had disappeared and this party was taking place at her friend's house Donna blattis now her
friend Donna blattis and her brothers apparently were throwing a party that evening the rumor is that Jeanette
showed up to this party and at some point you know there were drugs and drinking and things like that going on
at this party at some point that she had overdosed on an unnamed drug and one of
the blattus brothers or all of them kind of panicked and people that were at that
party took her body off into the woods off of Mount View Road and dumped her there
I guess this this seems to be the belief that is also held by some of the members
of the De Palma family and some people dispute this because they say well the drugs that would be the unnamed
drugs right would be like LSD and that you can't OD from LSD okay and I'm not an LSD expert so I I don't know
if that's possible or not I thought I was working with an LSD expert uh no but I would I would also assume you know
because one of the other rumors is that maybe that she left this party and she went wandering and she just collapsed or
whatever in this in the woods right is that possible if you're high on LSD well you have the situation where there is no
visible signs of cause of death uh for this individual so that that would lead some you know lend some Credence to what
they're saying here but so the the people of the De Palma family that seem to believe this is we have Cindy her
sister we've mentioned her sister before but not by name the youngest one and Carl and according to Cindy her mother
believed this too and the reason why they believe this rumor that they heard was they recall not having seen Donna
blattus and her brothers at the funeral you know this was a this was awake and a
funeral that was attended by hundreds of people uh people that that Jeanette knew
and the De Palma family knew and they don't recall seeing them at the funeral when you have that many people you might
have missed somebody you might have missed a face in the crowd yeah it's also possible that they didn't go for
whatever reason I don't know I don't know how much it points towards guilt it might seem strange though I can I can
get on board with that that it might seem strange but we have a friend of of Jeanette's
and she was somebody that was very close to Donna blattis and she disputes this she
says that you know this rumor might have some it might have some truth to it but
according to this friend and her name is Denise Parker she gives a slightly different story she says that there was
no party at Donna's house that night that's just a bad rumor she states that there were always kids there were always
kids hanging out at Donna's house 24 7. it was a hangout right you know but had there been a party she would have been
aware of it and she also stated that that was not a party house it was just a place where you would you would see a
couple kids hanging out from time to time right but that again it's not a party house it's just kids
hanging out but is it possible that why these kids were hanging out parents leave for a little bit and they decide
to do some experimenting with some drugs and some things happen well so but Denise would go on to further say that
she did hear a rumor that Jeanette was at Donna's house that night she's the same woman saying that there's there was
no party that night she's saying however that Jeanette had stopped by there on her trip walking that she had stopped by
Donna's and was looking for a ride to get to her friend's house right and she when she gets there she finds
out that Donna was actually grounded and could not drive her over to Gail's home
and from there the rumor she heard was Jeanette had just had to leave on foot because her friend was unable to drive
her there yeah didn't I I also heard that maybe she asked the mother like the girl was grounded but then she
was like well let me ask your mother okay like she was she was really into uh finding a ride but either
way I think that backs up the story that she was at least there and maybe you know again quote unquote there wasn't a
party and if that verse yeah that version that you had heard there would have been no no party I would assume now
what do the investigators think when retired investigators and police were were presented with these rumors
regarding the party there's a man by the name of Ed kitch now Ed was the juvenile
officer back then and he was a juvenile officer for over 20 years in the area can't believe that
kids do that they let them take the job Ed believes that the blattus theory is the one that holds the most truth the
blattest Knight and the Pips out of all the theories that he's heard over the years and rumors he believes this one
holds the most truth he he would go on to say that he's 90 sure that something happened to Jeanette in the blattus home
that night and that Mark blattis this is one of the uh Brothers was rumored to have been involved and he
he believes that that's where the truth in this case lies all right so in your personal opinion
do you think a group of teenagers could hold on to a story like this I mean I've seen I Know What You Did
Last Summer yeah and then you have to wonder not only are they holding on to a lie you're talking about keeping it
quiet and holding on to a lie for four decades over four decades but if it's family members
then I'd be easier to do I tend to when when we look at a lot of cases and the first thing that I look at when I'm when
I'm looking at a case is was this committed by an individual or committed by multiple people a group of people
that's interesting they start with Wikipedia and the thing here is with especially
with these older cases that's usually the assumption that I make that it's probably an individual rather than a
group of people because it is often hard to keep a group quiet there's usually one person that will come out at some
point and say hey this is what happened or I know something you know we have drunken confessions that we've heard of
on the show and reported about we've had deathbed confessions that we've reported
about so often I find that this is not the case that it that is would be very tough for a group of people to keep this
quiet now but keep keep this in mind we're talking about did a group of people actually keep this quiet because
there's rumors out there that this is what in fact happened right so where it it's it's now boils down to how can you
trace these rumors back what is the root of these rumors and do they stem from somebody that was at that house that
night right at night that Saul Janet Janet so what you're saying is is it speculation and that's how we got to
this point and we know that she was at this house and we know that kids hung out at this house so is that where it's
coming from that and it's just pure speculation or did somebody say something and because of that the rumor mill
started up and I don't want to upset anybody because you know when I make this statement I thought about this last
night when I was thinking about this case and I was like do I say this because I'm afraid that
people are going to be like well then everything you just said is hogwash no but I think this should be taken into I
have to say a captain because everything I think you have to take it with a grain
of salt because this case almost reminds me of the serial case of Adnan Saeed and
and uh Heyman Lee we're talking about a girl that disappeared she's not found until
weeks later and then I think we have we have teenagers that are being questioned
they're like when did you see her last did you see her on this night and I think they start wondering well yeah I
saw her yeah I saw her on uh what was that a Tuesday no it was a Monday oh okay well maybe it was a Monday yeah I
saw her maybe you didn't you get into a point where you start to wonder the I'm not I don't want to call these
people Liars if somebody believes something they're not Liars they're just misremembered right right misremembering
they they don't have the date it was it should have been a normal day it should have been an ordinary day there was no
reason to remember if that was the last time you would see this person or not yeah so I see the similarities I mean we
have similar ages we have somebody going missing for a period of time and then their body was found but a difference
here is Hayman Lee was um reported missing where Jeanette was reported as a runaway yeah so I said we
would get to this later and this is where we need to get to that right so her parents reported her missing the
same night uh that we had already discussed her parents are salvatory and Florence
De Palma now keep in mind Jeanette was scheduled to work that evening or at least she told her parents that she had
to work that evening so she was going to go to work after going to her friend's house she never returns home that night
her mother starts making calls to Jeanette's friends and to their parents as well nobody seems to know anything
she didn't arrive at her friend's home not only did they not know anything in fact no one had anything to report to
them you know having heard from her or plans changing anything like that there was nothing to report
now when they called the police to report their daughter missing the police gave her the old same old troubling
story that we've heard a hundred times when we talk about these older cases you know we've seen this a lot they they
get the old she needs to be gone for 24 hours before she can be reported missing
according to the police it was the De Palma's the the family themselves that reported Jeanette as a runaway right and
that might have been they could have been assuming because of her cousin because of the cousin and remember you
and I had talked that there was probably at least two arguments that took place that day between her and one of her
parents before leaving the house the thing here though Captain where this gets real screwy is you know back then
police would not really this isn't something that you investigated when somebody's reported
missing it's investigated when somebody's reported as a runaway you might look around for the person you put
out a you know you you alert the officers that this person is uh has left their home and that the parents are
looking for this home and if somebody matching the description go up and talk to them but they don't really do any
work when somebody's reported as a runaway that because they're under the belief that this person left of their
own will that they wanted to leave the home and in most these cases when that does happen the teenager
returns after a couple of days the thing here Captain I wonder about you know when when a girl is reported
let's say she was reported missing let's say she was reported as a runaway let's
let's let's take that aside but she's reported as not being where she's supposed to be okay and then six weeks
later she's found dead out in the middle of the woods somewhere and you come back
as an investigation and you say well we can't come up with a cause of death but we're going to rule it a suspicious
death or a homicide because she was found somewhere that she should not have been that we don't expect her to have
gone on her own so therefore we're going to we're going to investigate it as a homicide so now your department has
declared this a homicide the problem you have here is if when you took the missing persons report you
decided or officers amongst your group decided she's not missing she's a runaway and then you find her dead out
in the middle of the Woods well then there's a problem with the Department there's a problem with
somebody in the department one of the detectives or one of the cops because the public wants to know well why did
you call her a runaway it's very likely she did not run away if she was found murdered somewhere
man so here's my big question my big question is that later the police stating that the family reported her as
a runaway this wasn't our problem this was not our doing nothing that we did wrong was it to cover their ass right to
cover their butts problem I have with the family let's say the family did report her as a runaway
I understand that yes there was an argument or two and I understand that maybe because her
cousin had taken off you thought maybe she was doing the same thing there's a couple problems with these
stories one is if the cousin had been gone long enough that the family not only the immediate family but the
extended family were growing concerned because she was gone a lot longer than typically she would be gone
to the point where you tell your daughter that starts an argument with you that morning because she's mad you
waited so long to tell her wouldn't you have enough concern of the cousin of your niece
that your daughter all of a sudden missing would wouldn't she fall into that same concerned department for you
like naturally for me it would the second part that I have an issue with is if your daughter ran away she didn't
take anything with her and you had 24 hours to figure that out I would be a little if if my daughter or
son which I don't have they don't exist but if if one of them existed and left you know said say they took off and they
were gone okay and the police tell me I can't report this for 24 hours I'm gonna
do a little investigating on my own and one thing I'm going to first look at is did they take anything with them you
know it a kid a 16 year old kid that packs up a backpack full of items is a lot different than somebody that just
leaves walking on foot with nothing um did you ever try to run away when you're a kid not like a real runaway you know
like the silly like maybe rode my bike too far and stayed gone a little you know like hours longer than I was
supposed to but not overnight I don't think I ever made it yeah but that's not running away you just stayed out later
but no no no but I think I I think my intent at one point was like like that's it I'm out of here and then it's like
three hours later you get hungry and it gets dark and you're like okay well I'm going back I was in kindergarten and I
had this duffel bag I remember thinking I'm going to run away and uh so I put the duffel bag and
there's no like strap right so I put the the handles around my neck right and I have this stuff bag filled you aren't
going to make it very far no so I got to the like the end of the court and I couldn't breathe
teaching moment this is what you get for running away this is what she's a strong
teaching moment here my my mom looked at me and said this is what you get for giving handjobs
all right well Captain I think what we've brought up here is that there's a lot of questions about her friends and
certainly questions about her own lifestyle and character but where I think that we need to hone in on and
talk about when we start off the next episode there's some questions about this family and about the parents as
well what what truly happened to Jeanette De Palma and we never even got to the aspect of possible Satanism or
witchcraft being involved in this murder and that is a huge Topic in this case foreign
thanks for telling a friend thanks for sharing on social media until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter
[Music]

The Devil's Teeth ////// Part 1 of 4

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Episode 179- This case begins with a teenager who goes missing. Several weeks later in September of 1972 a body is discovered atop a cliff, above an abandoned quarry in Springfield, New Jersey. Later it was determined this was the body of the missing teen, Jeannette DePalma. Along with the body it is said that cult related items were recovered from the area. Her body was said to have been resting on a makeshift altar in the woods. The murder of Jeannette DePalma is very bizarre and is still unsolved. This case is not known to most outside of the state of New Jersey. We gather in the garage to try to shed some light on this cold case.Beer of the Week - Secret Stairs by Trillium Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5True Crime Garage would like to thank the following sponsors!

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

The episode examines the unsolved murder of Jeanette De Palma and the surrounding controversies, including potential cult involvement and police mishandling.

Key points

The Devil's Teeth. The case of Jeanette De Palma, a missing teen found dead under mysterious circumstances, raises questions of ritualistic murder and police cover-up.
A Severed Arm Discovery. Police respond to a call about a severed human arm found near an apartment complex, leading to a chilling investigation.
Identification of the Body. A dentist confirms the identity of the decomposed body as Jeanette De Palma, who had been missing for weeks.
The Devil's Teeth Origin. The area known as the Devil's Teeth got its name from a natural rock formation resembling a skull.
Jeanette's Last Day. Jeanette De Palma was last seen on August 7, 1972, on her way to a friend's house.
Conflicting Stories. Conflicting accounts emerge about Jeanette's character and her last day alive.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This case is not known to most outside the state of New Jersey.

Highlighting the obscurity of the case

5:53WatchNov 26, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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