The Next Casey Anthony? | The Interrogation Room hosted by Vivica A. Fox | Forensic Files

- [Vivica] Observing the signs. - [Darren] By putting the head in the hands, that means that that person's mind
cannot consciously carry on. - [Vivica] Detecting changing stories. - It's a damning piece of information.
- [Vivica] Spotting when to hold back. - [Vivica] And when to close in. - It doesn't hurt to change strategy
'cause it takes everybody off their game. - I'm Vivica A. Fox. And I'm about to take you on a journey
to uncover the secrets of the interrogation room. We'll examine the signs that someone is lying
and watch detectives utilize expert techniques to uncover the shocking truth and get an all-important confession.
- They cut right to the chase. And I'm gonna tell you why - we have a missing child.
- [Vivica] Polk County, Florida. 25 year old Cheyanne Jessie is emotional and exhausted.
Her father and her six-year-old daughter are missing and she's desperate to find them.
Officers Newbold and Clarke are trying to help the distraught young woman. - [Vivica] On July 18th, 2015,
Cheyanne dropped her daughter Meredith off at her father's home. Mark Weekly had agreed to take care of his granddaughter
for a week, to give Cheyanne a rest. A few days later, Mark sent a text to Cheyanne's boyfriend Cody,
saying that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He told them not to worry and said he was taking little Meredith
to visit family in Georgia. By August 1st, Cheyanne had been unable to contact her father
for nearly two weeks. She called the Lakeland Police Department to file a missing person's report.
Later, she helped the cops search her father's residence, then returned with them
to the Polk County Sheriff's Department. Had Cheyanne's father Mark run away with his granddaughter?
Or had a more sinister fate befallen them both. - [Vivica] Despite her vulnerable state,
lead Detective Newbold has no time for niceties. - Sometimes he actually forgets to charge it.
- The officers would've been under significant pressure from their peers to resolve this matter,
to find that child. That child's wellbeing is paramount. - [Vivica] First, the officers want to get a read
on the family dynamics, in particular between Cheyanne and her daughter Meredith,
who'd previously been treated for psychiatric issues. - [Maleary] Anything to do with a child is very emotive,
understandably so. And you can understand why the police are determined to find this child.
It's quite evident that the child has problems. But it's... it's quite sad because the issues that she's describing for a child,
but I would imagine these are issues that this woman has gone through herself.
- [Vivica] Struggling to cope with her daughter's behavior. Cheyanne had recently asked her father
to consider taking long-term custody of Meredith. - [Vivica] Cheyanne only became concerned about her daughter
after her boyfriend Cody received a message from her father about his cancer diagnosis and their trip to Georgia.
- [Vivica] Two missing persons, and the clock is ticking. But Officer Newbold is struggling
to get any sense out of Cheyanne. He asks about her education. - [Maleary] Cheyanne Jessie is one of life's social misfits.
She has had no chances in life whatsoever. I don't believe at any point they've taken into account
that she struggles with reading and writing, she's illiterate. - [Vivica] The police have made certain
that Cheyanne is fit to answer their questions, but they're left confused by her often random statements.
Out of the blue, she makes a bizarre claim about her father's girlfriend and her possible connection to the disappearances.
- [Vivica] What began as a missing person's case... - My father's missing. My daughter's missing.
I need to find them. I want to know what happened to them. What's going on? Can you please help me?
I'm gonna cooperate. I'll give you anything you need. Whatever you want, just so you
bring my daughter and father home. - [Vivica] ...has suddenly taken a sinister turn
as Cheyanne reveals her suspicions that her father and daughter may have been harmed
by her father's girlfriend. Why didn't she raise this at the outset? - [Dr. Ross] Moreover, if your child is missing,
why haven't you call the police? If you care about your child, why didn't you go and see if she's okay?
It's like none of this stuff is adding up. - Is Cheyanne a confused mom, desperate to find her missing family?
Or could she know more than she's letting on? Coming up, Cheyanne's integrity is tested.
- There's inconsistency in how she's behaving, which tells me it's completely fabricated emotion.
- [Vivica] And the detectives drop a bombshell. - The police, of course, have been to her father's house,
and it doesn't smell too good over there. - [Vivica] Cheyanne Jessie's father Mark
had disappeared with her six-year-old daughter Meredith. From the beginning, the Polk County police
were worried that things were not as they seemed. Could they get Cheyanne to help them understand
what might have happened? - [Maleary] The officers appeal to the good nature of Jessie.
They ask her to assist them with their inquiries. They plead with her to show that
she cares about her missing daughter and father. - (Cheyanne stammers) - Everything that's coming outta her mouth indicates to me
she's lying, she's creating, she's manufacturing. Certainly the police believe that.
And that's why there's no pretext of, "Hey let's all just get along "and solve this terrible mystery of where everybody is."
They're not believing a word of it. - [Cheyanne] I did find rats there... - [Ciolino] Some people watching this are gonna go,
"I mean, they went hard at her, quick." There was no soft-shoe approach. There was no easing her into
this whole thing. Man, they cut right to the chase and I'm gonna tell you why. We have a missing child, a missing vulnerable child.
Nothing gets a cop's blood boiling quicker than a dead kid. And if they think they're working a dead kid case,
the stakes raise dramatically. - It's my opinion that Cheyanne has suffered terribly in her life
and has been abused significantly. And the harder questioning from the one detective
is almost something that she's used to. - [Vivica] When detectives first met with Cheyanne
at her father's home in Lakeland, Florida, they were confronted by an overpowering smell.
Cheyanne said she too had noticed it. But put it down to dead rats and the body of a raccoon trapped underneath the porch.
- [Robyn] There's definitely signs that something bad happened. They just don't know the extent.
There's a smell of blood, there's evidence of a... ...possible homicide, and they've got two missing bodies.
So now the hunt is on, and they need to find out what happened to this child and what happened to the father.
- [Ciolino] The police, of course, have been to her father's house, and it doesn't smell too good over there.
In fact, it smells really bad, like, oh, I don't know, rotting, decaying human bodies.
The police aren't buying the dead raccoon stunk story. They're thinking the worst.
They don't have any forensic yet to back it up, but they know decaying flesh when they smell it,
'cause they've all smelled it at some point in their careers, and there's nothing like it.
Certainly not a dead raccoon. - When a person is lying, and they're thinking about the story
as they're going along, it's really hard for that person to recall those facts when the detective comes back to it.
A person who's telling the truth doesn't have a hard time remembering a story
because it's what, in fact, happened. - I think that the detective realized that the raccoon aspect of her story
was very far fetched, and he wanted to trip her up on that part of the story first
because that would allow him to trip her up on other facts at a later stage. - [Vivica] Convinced Cheyanne is lying,
and up against the clock, officer Newbold now cranks up the pressure. - [Vivica] As the interview continues,
Cheyanne becomes visibly distressed, and withdraws into her shell. Officer Newbold demands that
she sit up and stay engaged. - The detectives want her to sit up more because they want to hear what she has to say.
They wanna watch every reaction she has. Her body language, what her face is telling them,
what her words are saying. If you're lying down on the desk, it's very hard to hear.
You're mumbling. It's very hard to see what your facial reactions are to questions.
So he wanted her to sit up so that they can have a conversation. - (Cheyanne mumbles)
- [Newbold] Yes, you do. - [Darren] Emotion comes in waves. But what I observed from Cheyanne
was the fact that emotion was not driving that behavior. The officer pointed out to her
that she wasn't producing any tears. So we can see there's a complete inconsistency
in how she's behaving and the behavior that she's producing, which tells me it's a completely fabricated emotion.
- Within a police interrogation, it's all about trust and rapport. So the officer moving closer to her,
can basically operate on two levels. It can increase the amount of stress anxiety,
pushing her even more. But also, it can be like a reassuring gesture. But I feel in this particular context,
I think he's raising the stakes. - It's part of his strategy. He's really hard.
This is the way he wants to set the tone. "I'm in control. "You're going to listen to me
"and you're going to talk to me "the way I want you to talk to me." (siren wailing)
- [Vivica] The whole Polk County community is deeply troubled. Is Meredith still alive?
Can she be found before it's too late? The police are extremely concerned, and it's led them to take an aggressive line with Cheyanne
in the interrogation. So far, it hasn't paid off. Coming up, the detectives switch tactics
and make a breakthrough. - It doesn't hurt to change strategy, because it takes everybody off their game.
- [Vivica] And the boyfriend Cody turns on Cheyanne. - The idea that he was giving her up
was so devastating to her that she basically lost her will to fight. - [Vivica] Despite mounting evidence
and aggressive questioning, 25-year-old Florida mother Cheyanne Jessie continues to deny any involvement
in the disappearances of her father, 50-year-old Mark Weekly, and her six-year-old daughter, Meredith,
or any knowledge at all of their whereabouts. - [Dr. Ross] Cheyanne's behavior during the interview
is quite interesting. She is perpetually in denial. She never gives an edge. Everything she's accused of, she denies.
She's not the problem, there's something wrong with them posing these questions.
Like, "How could they?" "What are you talking about?" That was her repeated response, or "No, I did not do it."
And I'm wondering to myself, is it possible she didn't do it? - Okay. - [Ciolino] So the one detective
who's primarily banging away at her leaves the room. And the other detective goes,
"Let me take the soft approach, alright?" And this is a good approach, because they've got her hyped up now,
they got her at a heightened state of anxiety and they've been banging away at her for a while,
and they've been calling BS on almost everything she has said. And so now he's gonna soft-shoe it,
and try and take the soft approach with her. - It doesn't hurt to change strategy.
You know, you're going hard, going hard, and then you go soft for a little bit 'cause it takes everybody off their game, right?
It all of a sudden she's like, I'm used to getting, you know, jumped on, and now I have this happening.
And guess what. Psychologically, she appreciates that, because she's been under immense pressure to this moment.
- Watching this interview felt like the detective who was using a softer approach with Cheyanne
was getting a little further with her. I think she responded well to it. - The officers begin to show some caring
around her as an individual. Jessie explains that she has been the victim of abuse
by her father. That her father was verbally and physically abusive towards her.
And I think that this is a genuine position that she found herself in. - [Vivica] Cheyanne has opened up
about her father's abusive behavior towards her, and it could prove to be critical.
The officers can use this information to try and draw the truth out of her. - You must have been in fear of your life.
It must be a self-defense case. Something must have happened to make you do this.
And now what's the subject of the interrogation thinking? "Ah, maybe I have my out here. Maybe this is my out.
"Maybe this is how I justify "this horrid, unbelievable behavior." - [Vivica] But first,
Officer Newbold has another card to play. While his colleague has been empathizing with Cheyanne,
he's been talking to Cheyanne's boyfriend, Cody Munroe. Cody has told him about
some unusual questions Cheyanne asked him about body decomposition. - To ask how long it takes for a body to decompose
is compellable, to say the least. It's a damning piece of information, given that the father and the daughter are missing.
- I think once Cheyanne realized that Cody was giving information that was incredibly incriminating against her,
this changed everything for her. - [Robyn] This was a man that she totally loved,
and she was willing to do anything to experience that love. And the idea that he was giving her up...
was so devastating to her that she basically lost her will to fight in the interview.
- [Vivica] Sensing that Cheyanne is close to making a confession, Both detectives leave the room to confer...
...and to give her time to think. - Very often, detectives leave a suspect in an interview room
to let them stew with their own thoughts. It's a lonely room. Your mind is playing tricks on you.
You're feeling more and more isolated in that room. You're starting to panic. And that's what they put you in that room for.
And they leave you there specifically for the purpose of creating that tension. So when you finally walk in,
they're almost relieved to see another human being. - [Ciolino] A common way to get people to admit
to a violent act is to help them justify it in their mind, right? "We want to justify your behavior."
And we start off with, generally, "Hey, I know you're not a really horrid person.
"Something terrible must have happened to make you do this." They are now straight-up accusing her of murder, right?
And they're putting it to her. But they're, they're softening it with, "Hey, there's gotta be a good reason."
Because what's our goal here? The goal is we need an admission of some sort. We'll work from that admission, back, okay?
But right now we need an admission. So if we gotta be nice, we gotta give you an excuse,
we gotta BS you a little bit to get there, we're gonna do that, because we need to break the dam and get that first admission.
- [Vivica] With their strategy set. The officers return and read Cheyanne her Miranda rights.
- The officer's basically making her stay very much in the interview. Not allowing her to close her eyes,
put her head down and disassociate from what she's being asked. Dropping someone's head down
or putting their head in their hands, it's very much a sign of guilt and a sign that she's being deceptive.
And that means that that person has come to such a point in their mind that they're entering another stage,
which we call cognitive overload. And that just basically means that the mind cannot consciously carry on.
It's like a computer wanting to go into sleep mode. - [Newbold] Did you have to stab him?
- Now the thing about people is once they've given a little bit of information or a little bit of truth,
they feel much better. The old expression is "get it off your chest". Once she'd done that,
she began to unravel quite quickly. (indistinct sobbing) - After nearly three hours of interrogation,
Cheyanne has finally confessed to killing her father Mark in self-defense. She also claims that it was her father,
who, in the struggle, stabbed and killed her six-year-old daughter Meredith. The detectives now face the grim reality
of finding and recovering the bodies after two weeks in the Florida heat. - [Vivica] Coming up, the detectives test the details
in Cheyanne's story. - [Darren] Now if the person's just come up with that account on the spot,
or they're lying, it won't feel natural. - [Vivica] And things get physical in the interrogation.
- [Robyn] Her story was so unbelievable. This was part of him trying to break down
the self defence argument. - [Vivica] 25 Year old Floridian, Cheyanne Jessie, claims she killed her father in self-defense
after he stabbed her six-year-old daughter Meredith. But will her claims hold up to scrutiny?
- Her story of self-defense was so unbelievable, the story she was giving him. This was part of him trying to break down
the self-defense argument. - Now, if the person's just come up with that account on the spot
or they're lying, it won't feel natural. If it's an innocent person that's said,
"This person came up with a knife "and I just instinctively lashed out," because it's the truth,
it will just come out unconsciously. Whereas if someone's made it up, it will look clumsy, it will look disjointed.
And that's exactly what happened when he ran that with Cheyanne. - [Vivica] It's clear that Cheyanne
didn't kill her father in self-defense. It was coldblooded murder. Even more shocking, it's now clear to police
that she also stabbed and killed her own daughter. - I personally believe that these murders took place
for the following reasons, that the father had been abusive towards the daughter
and she killed him. As simple as that. I think the murder of the daughter was because she stood in the way of happiness
between Jessie and her boyfriend Cody. I believe that the life experiences that Jessie had been through,
she'd never had real love. She'd never had anybody show her true affection. And I think that Cody was the person for her,
or she saw him as being the person for her, and she would do absolutely anything
to gain that love on a permanent basis. - [Dr. Ross] The Cheyanne Jessie case is an interesting case because in this case,
it involves a daughter who winds up killing her father and her own daughter, which is rare, very rare.
So begs the question why would you kill your father? And, even worse, why would you commence to killing your daughter?
What were the dynamics of those relationships? What was going on that brought her to this point?
- [Maleary] Cody had given her an ultimatum that it was either him or her daughter.
And she took the opportunity, having killed her father, to kill her child. (sobbing)
- [Vivica] Forensic examinations of the bodies and the crime scene will ultimately tell a story
of extreme and frenzied violence. Cheyanne's Father Mark was stabbed 12 times in his chest,
and shot twice in the back of his head. Tragically, Cheyanne's daughter Meredith
was stabbed multiple times in her neck and also shot in the back of her head. - The level of violence that has been administered
is overwhelming. She is small, by comparison, to her father. And whether that's her payback
for all the pain that he delivered to her in previous years, I don't know. Only she would know this.
It's quite heartbreaking that she's done this to her daughter. The level of violence meted out, I can't explain.
At the conclusion of the interview, you can see Jessie clearly crying. (sobbing)
And she is crying on this occasion. She's killed her daughter. She may have no remorse for killing her father,
but she gave birth to that child, and she's taken the life. - [Vivica] The crimes were so shocking
that prosecutors demanded the death penalty. Lawyers argued that Cheyanne wasn't mentally competent
to stand trial. A psychological assessment found that she was. - [Juror] We the jury find that Cheyanne Jessie should be sentenced to death,
and the answer to that is no. - The jury in this trial found Cheyanne guilty on both counts,
and recommended the death penalty. The judge in this case made the determination
that Cheyanne had suffered enough in her life, and looked at the abuse that she had suffered as a child
and decided, ultimately, not to impose the death penalty in this case. - [Dr. Ross] As for the case in general,
I think it's really unfortunate that a mother would betray her own daughter in the interest of a lover, or a man or a mate.
That's very rare, to be quite honest. Most mothers protect their kids to the bitter end
and they prioritize their children over men, especially men they've just met. - [Vivica] Matthew "Cody" Munroe
denied any involvement in the murders, and was never charged or prosecuted. Cheyanne Jessie was just 29 years old
when she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She will now spend the rest of her life
in a Florida prison for women. (intense music)

Cheyanne Jessie lands herself in the interrogation room after reporting her daughter, Meredith, and her father, Mark Weekly, as missing. As police race to find Meredith Jessie and her grandfather alive, detectives in the interrogation room grow suspicious of Cheyanne. Hosted by Vivica A. Fox, THE INTERROGATION ROOM is a brand new true crime series that brings viewers behind the scenes, where real-life murderers and detectives play cat and mouse. Behind every shocking crime is a detective racing to uncover the truth, and it all comes down to the wire inside the interrogation room.

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Brief Summary

Cheyanne Jessie confesses to murdering her father and daughter during an intense police interrogation after they went missing.

Key points

Cheyanne's Desperation. Cheyanne Jessie pleads for help as her father and daughter go missing.
A Sinister Turn. Cheyanne reveals suspicions about her father's girlfriend, complicating the investigation.
The Police's Urgency. Detectives express their determination to find a missing child, raising the stakes.
Confession of Violence. After intense interrogation, Cheyanne confesses to killing her father in self-defense.
Shocking Details of the Murders. Forensic examinations reveal the brutal nature of the crimes committed by Cheyanne.
Death Penalty Recommended. Prosecutors demanded the death penalty due to the shocking nature of the crimes.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I need to find them. I want to know what happened to them.

Cheyanne's desperate plea for help.

8:08WatchJul 6, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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