The Unsolved Murder of Jeannette DePalma | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. [Music] This is Morbid.
What is that squishy thing that you have? Uh so this is What is it called? a stress ball?
It's called like NeeDoh or something. Uh yeah, it's like a stress ball, but I actually got it for the kids for like a
stocking stuffer, I think. Yeah. It's like this little teardrop of a thing that's like filled with gel
almost, and you can squeeze it and mess around with it as much as you want, and it just turns back into that shape.
Throw me it. Caught it. Oh. Yeah. Can I have one? Yeah. Oh wow, you can have one.
can like really stretch this. Oh wow, I could work some anger out on this. Yeah, it's literally called NeeDoh.
Nee n e e doh. There's a lot of dough here on me. Yeah, it does. Sorry, that was a really aggressive
throw. Luckily, I played softball, man. Same, but not as well. No, these things are great. I recommend
a stress ball for everybody. I think it should be They should be passed out in the United States right now.
Yeah, honestly. Actually, yeah, I think. Honestly, um as you know, this comes out so much later
than anything, but our hearts really go out to anybody affected by that plane crash. It is We are only a couple days
out from the helicopter slamming into the passenger plane, the US Airways passenger plane in DC at
Reagan Airport. And it has been weighing on my mind so heavy cuz it uh like victims' names, people are being
identified. I mean, there's still people They're still doing the recovery right now.
so many kids. It is so many kids. A lot of them were from like the Boston skating uh
club like locally. Um six victims were from only a couple of towns over from us, I think, so
it's it's like really It's gut-wrenching. It's I can't wrap my brain around it, and I can't wrap my brain around the
response to it. Yeah. I can't wrap my brain around how it happened. I just feel for everybody for I feel really,
really horrible for everybody involved, and it's like breaking my heart. Every time somebody
gets identified, it just like shatters me. So it really stuck and if you're in the DC
area, I'm sure you're just like feeling it extra hard. Feeling the weight of that. And if you
know any of the people that were involved, like [ __ ] I'm so sorry. So, so, so, so sorry.
Because holy [ __ ] this seemed entirely avoidable. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's been a real bummer. We would
be very remiss not to say anything no matter how late this comes out, so we just wanted to touch on that.
sure. Um unfortunately, I don't have anything happier to talk about. I'm trying to think if there's any like
a exciting thing to throw out there. Oh, I think I don't I mean, it looks like it's confirmed, guys. I'm going to
switch gears entirely just to get us into like a at least a neutral space here. Little palate cleanser. Uh
I think Matthew Lillard is going to be in Scream 7, everybody. It looks like he There's a lot of
reports saying he is, and he did a little video where he wrote my mom and dad are going to be so mad at me on a
piece of paper. And I don't know how to properly contain my excitement. he comes back with his wonderful sweater
that he wore in that scene. beige sweater. sweater. I hate beige, but I love that
sweater. was torn to [ __ ] He's going to have so many scars on his face. Oh, he's going
to come back gnarly and thinking when he he comes back. It's going to be awesome.
And Do you think you So do you think he's going to come back current, or do you think it's going to be a flashback
kind of deal? I think I will feel a little cheated if it's a flashback deal. deal, no, same. Um that would not be my
favorite thing. That would not be my favorite thing either. you're listening right now, don't do
that to us. Don't do that. I don't think anybody would be happy with that. No, we need him to come back like
I've been saying this since I've been saying since the dawn of time that Stu lived through that whole thing. John
keeps telling me I'm crazy, but I can't wait to go downstairs and rub this in his face.
No, I was sick the other day, and whenever I'm sick, I watch Scream because it's a comfort movie. It's how
Elena raised me. Um and he he moans after the TV said it. He groans. He goes uh He does a little groan, yeah.
Literally. Yeah. That's the exact noise. uh Yeah, so he's alive. He is, and he's
He's going to be in Scream 7, guys, so to come out? I'm ready for it. February next year, so
only like a straight up a year from now. [ __ ] that's crazy. I I hope it's early
February. February It It is the latest it could be without being the last day of
the 27th. Wow. Wow. I'm manifesting that it's early February. You're like Like close.
Close, but no cigar. Close, but no cigar. It's a short month. Yeah, you know. Yeah, there you go. I made a really good
coffee today. I'm in my at-home barista era. Yeah, you are. You You made a really
yummy one for me this morning. I appreciate it. I got new beans, and they're a lot
better. Yeah, the beans were beaning. were beaning. I've been making this cookie butter latte thing, everybody.
It's the [ __ ] You literally just like smear cookie butter around a cup, and then you put
like a tablespoon of it in your little like glass that you're going to brew your espresso over, put that put some
milk in your cup over ice, that espresso shot in there, that's it. It's that simple. It's that [ __ ] simple.
It's so good. It's like a morning treat. It is. It's delicious. I love it. I don't need to go get coffee anywhere
anymore cuz Ash just brings me one. I'm great. I'm very blessed. Yeah, never stressed.
Still Still very stressed. I literally as soon as I said that, I was like, I'm still very stressed. Still
the most stressed, but very blessed. a whole new appreciation for baristas, though, because that [ __ ] is not easy.
Yeah, it's not. It's a science. I had to order like so many accoutrements Accoutrements my
[ __ ] I was like, oh good, espresso machine, that's it. It was like, buy these other five things if you want it
to taste good. Yeah. It's like it's own thing there. Yeah, but my coffee bar is cute, so So that's
all that matters. Well, that's all the good things we can think of, coffee, NeeDoh, and Yeah. Matthew Lillard.
That's a great thing. It's a rough thing sandwich, is what it is. Yeah, and um we're going to be talking
about an unsolved murder today. This one is This is a very interesting case. It breaks your heart on so many different
levels because we're going to be talking about the murder of Jeanette DePalma. And I do remember this one. Yeah, it
happened it. It was like a It was like the late '60s, early '70s. So I'm sure you've
heard it like Yeah, I remember passing it. Yeah, so like I don't remember the details. It's wrapped up in an era of
satanic panic, and that played such a crucial role in this case to the point where Jeanette's memory really gets lost
and kind of clouded Yeah, I can definitely see that. which is really shitty. Yeah. Um but we're going to tell it
obviously the best we can, and Dave did a really great job with this one making sure to get There's so many people that
thought they knew Jeanette and said all these things about her, but then her family and close friends said things on
the complete opposite spectrum. Yeah. And obviously, they're the people that really knew her, so I'm glad that
he was able to gather a lot more of those quotes. Yeah. So let's get into it. Who was Jeanette
DePalma? She was born August 3rd, so she's a Leo, 1956 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and she was the sixth of seven
children Woah. born to Florence and Salvatore DePalma. Uh Florence was a homemaker, and Salvatore was an auto
mechanic. Right around the early 1960s, the family moved to Springfield Township, New Jersey, which is a just a
quiet suburb. It's about 30 miles away from New York City. It seemed like a perfect place to
Florence and Salvatore to raise their kids. It was quiet. It was far away from a very increasingly violent city life.
One resident said there were no gangs to speak of in Springfield, but there were
a few interesting characters in town. This is iconic. There was Tilly, an extremely short
woman with one huge breast. Oh. There was the lady who swept the moonbeams off her driveway all night
long, I'm obsessed. as well as the mailman who ended up living in a dumpster. Wow. I said, I love an
eccentric group of people. Hell yeah. Sign me up. Sign me up. What an array there. What an array,
indeed. a smorgasbord of humans. Yes, that's That is a That's a town. That's a That's
a group of people. It's weirdly giving like Stars Hollow. Yeah. You know? It really is. Yeah.
I I want to know more about I want to know especially the the lady who's sweeping moonbeams off her driveway.
Yeah. All night. never sweep a moonbeam off my driveway. Tell me a story. I know.
So the DePalma family had always been close-knit and relatively private, which immediately caught their new neighbors
off guard. One of their former neighbors said, "Something wasn't 100% right with
that family. They were weird." And to make matters worse, by the early 1970s, Sal and Florence became the
center of several rumors around the town because the police were constantly being
called to their house. Former Patrolman Ed Kish said, "Sal and Florence would get into a fight, somebody would call
us, but by the time we got there, Florence would turn us away." Sounded like a lot of domestic disputes were
going on between the parents. Rachel Sajeski, Sal and Florence's granddaughter, also remembered the
DePalma house as one of constant turmoil and chaos, and she said her grandfather
Sal was {quote} "rotten" to her grandmother. Oh. So there was a lot going on. That makes me sad. Yeah, yeah. In time,
it wasn't just Sal and Florence that fueled the rumors around town, though, but the children.
A former teacher in town, Margaret Vandrawski, said, "Judging by what I heard from the other students, Jeanette
was a little on the wild side." She acknowledged what a lot of people considered wild in the '70s and late
'60s is pretty different from today's standards. So, she added, "I don't think wild meant anything other than that.
Jeanette was not the perfect Christian child that her mother believed her to be."
Yeah. Which like Which like Who is at that age? Relatively, that's not wild. Exactly. Ed Kish also commented that
Jeanette was what they would have referred to as a party girl. He said, "I can recall quite a few instances where I
had to pull that kid out of the backseat of some guy's car over at Bryant Park."
Oh, man. In my words, she was living her best life. I was going to say, you you know about
that. She's being a teenager. Yeah. Let her live. Yeah. While some of those who knew
Jeanette back then remember her in the terms of rumors around town, those who knew her best completely rejected the
characterization that was being painted of her as like this wild party girl out of control.
Her best friend, Gail Donahue, said, "I don't think that was Jeanette at all. I mean, she and I both had crushes on
these two Italian guys in Berkeley Heights, but I wasn't even allowed to date until I was 16." So, there.
She's like Yeah. She liked people, but it wasn't like that. Yeah. Jeanette's sister, Cindy, was more
to the point in refuting the town elders' opinions. In no uncertain terms, she said, "This cop seems to be feeding
people bullshit." I love how it's just like to the point. Yeah, she's like No, that's just
[ __ ] That's a bunch of [ __ ] That's a sister right there. That is a sister. Florence, Jeanette's mother, also agreed
but disagreed, excuse me, with the opinion that her daughter was this crazy wild child. When Jeanette's body ended
up being found in 1972, Florence told reporters, "My daughter was more a Christian than anything else. I think
the most important thing she loved to do was lead children to Jesus. She loved to
help the kids out with their problems." Well, that sounds nice. Yeah. Which I was at least partially
true, because when she wasn't at school, Jeanette actually worked part-time at the community office of the
uh Evangel Church in a program that was supporting at-risk youth in the area. Damn.
So, she was giving back to the community. And it's really [ __ ] up that everybody's like, "Oh, I had to pull her
out of the backseat of a car and, you know, I heard from other students that she was so cuckoo."
Yeah, and it's like she was doing more for her community than most teenagers are, to be honest.
Literally helping at-risk children, but okay. Yeah. Even Detective Sergeant Sam Calabrese,
the lead detective on Jeanette's case, told reporters that Jeanette, quote, "had no record of trouble with
authorities." See, so that's all just like hearsay. So, it's like she can't have been too
wild because there's literally no reports. Yeah. Unless she was like a criminal genius, criminal mastermind out
here getting away with everything. And also giving back to her her community. At the same time. Yeah.
Yeah. It's really unclear why the locals in Springfield have such dramatically different memories of Jeanette DePalma,
but it's very highly possible that in the 50 years that have passed since her murder, the rumors surrounding her death
have tainted the recollection of those who didn't really know her very well. That absolutely makes sense. And just
like with a lot of female victims of crime at the time, people were quick to question the victim's behavior Oh, yeah.
straight-up blame the victim for what happened instead of placing the sole blame on the person who committed the
heinous crime in the first place. favorite pastime. Yeah. But to those who were closest to
her, Jeanette was a pretty ordinary teenager. Her cousin, Linda, said, "We were hippie Jesus freaks who smoked
weed. We used to smoke and listen to rock music. Janis Joplin was her favorite." Damn. Hippie Jesus freaks
listening to rock music and smoking. Like that's literally what you pretty much picture for teenagers of the '60s
and '70s. Absolutely. not so much the Jesus freak part of it, but honestly, probably, yeah. Fairly
common. Yeah, absolutely. And when it came to the rumors of Jeanette being promiscuous or engaging
in heavy drug use, people started saying that kind of thing. Lisa just rejected those claims with an
uh with an emphatic hell no. Cuz like uh-uh. Now, in 1970, Jeanette convinced her
parents to let her transfer from Union Catholic School to the public school, which was Jonathan Dayton High School.
Former teacher, Margaret Vandrawski, the one we were talking about before, she said, "The impression that we had was
that Jeanette's mother was convinced of her daughter's religious nature and had removed her from Union Catholic because
kids in the public school needed her example more." Wow. Which is nice, but like
it doesn't sound like this teacher was Jeanette's teacher because she literally said like, "From the account of other
students and the impression that I had." I'm like So, did you know her firsthand?
like did you ever talk to her? Yeah. Uh it appears her memory could be clouded by the passage of time because
she only knew Jeanette by sight and reputation. And then on the flip side of that coin, a close friend of Jeanette's
from school, Grace Petrelli DeMuro, said, "She never mentioned to me that she was religious or devoted to a
Christian lifestyle. Although, if being a good Christian meant being a good friend, looking out for you, helping you
if she could, that's what I saw." Aw, that's nice. Yeah. But how weird. It's so wild that a
lot of people are like Very conflicting ideas. Complete opposite ends of the spectrum, but it's the people who were
not close to her are like, "Oh, this Want to hear this fact about Jeanette?" And then the people who actually knew
her are like No, like She was a good friend and she was pretty fun to hang out with. She liked Janis
Joplin. She liked Janis Joplin. Like that's it's like that seems more the real thing. I think a lot of people
in town had opinions of the family as a whole, and Jeanette kind of got scapegoated in a way there.
Yep. I think so, too. And I also think, and we'll come to find out, that the rumors, like I said in the in the
beginning of this, the rumors surrounding the nature of her death really made an imprint on people's
Colored in what what the image of her now is. Yes, exactly. Since Jeanette's case gained a certain
amount of notoriety once details became public, it's difficult to discern the real Jeanette DePalma from the murder
victim of local legend, which is really sad. really sad. But relying more on the
information from her friends and family, again, she just seemed like an ordinary
teenager. Yeah, who was a good friend, a good example, did some stuff for her community, helping at-risk kids. Yeah.
She sounds like a cool girl. A cool chick. She loved music. Like we know she loved Janis Joplin. She loved clothes.
She was into her style. She liked boys. And like other teenage girls, she allowed her parents to believe the best
in her, even if that wasn't always what was true at the time. course. Who among us? Retweet. Her
friend, Grace, said, "The thing about Jeanette was this. When you first saw her, you assumed this preconceived
notion of her being this tough, fast, wild girl. But when you would start talking to her, she was so sweet,
honest, and funny, but she didn't take anyone's crap." Good for her. Yeah. [ __ ] yeah. Like maybe she had a
duality that literally none of you could understand. Yeah, maybe that's what it was.
Maybe she was so far ahead of her time in that she could That you just couldn't grasp that she could be multifaceted.
Exactly. She could lean on both sides of her personality. Well, in the early summer of 1972, Jeanette's
cousin, Lisa, who she was always really close to, ended up running away from home.
It was not the first time that Lisa had run away. So, the family assumed that she would come back in a few days, and
they figured it was best not to tell Jeanette cuz they didn't want to upset her for no reason.
But after a month passed and Lisa still hadn't returned, Sal and Florence decided finally to sit Jeanette down.
This was on the morning of August 7th, and they told her what was going on with her cousin.
Lisa later remembered hearing about Jeanette's reaction and said she was pissed. She was very angry that her
parents had waited so long to tell her. So, she left the table and stormed off back to her room. Oh, man. Which like I
don't blame her. I'd be pissed if they kept that from me. But as a punishment for her behavior
that morning, Jeanette's mother gave her additional chores to do, even though she
actually had plans to meet up with some friends that afternoon. I think it was like a
you know, you got an attitude thing. You're You can't act like that in the house.
you stormed off into your room. Now you get an extra chore. Right. So, according
to her friend, Gail Donahue, their plan was to meet up at Echo Lake Park with two boys from school, and they'd both
really been looking forward to it. So, Gail was upset when Jeanette called and had to cancel. Gail said, "I'm not a
bully, but I bugged her to come over because she put me in this position, and she told me, 'All right, I'll hitchhike
over.' And that was the last time I heard from her." Oh, no. Yeah. Now, there are, again, varying accounts
of what happened that afternoon, but they all end the same way. According to Jeanette's sister, Cindy,
Jeanette asked her if she actually would come with her to Gail's house in Berkeley Heights, about 8 miles away.
Cindy said, "Jeanette was seeing a guy named Tommy who I had never met. She wanted to meet up with him at Gail's
house before work." At the same time, though, Cindy was having trouble with her own boyfriend and said she didn't
feel like going out, so she declined. But then, on the flip side of the coin, when asked about this, Gail Donahue
denied Cindy's version of events and said she didn't remember anybody named Tommy that Jeanette was seeing,
and said Jeanette had never said anything about even bringing Cindy with her this afternoon. She said Cindy was a
year younger, and they didn't really hang out with her often. Huh. So, again, Very conflicting.
50 years had passed by the time a lot of these people started talking or continued talking about this. So,
your memory's not going to serve you perfectly well, but No, I mean, no. Like my memory is
terrible. I barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I could not remember any kind of intricate de-
I don't know. Cuz I always think about it, I'm like, but if it's like an event like this, does it help your memory or
hurt it? You know what I mean? Cuz it's such a tragic and life- tainting event, you know?
Yeah. I don't know. It's just interesting like some people are like, "Oh, she was going
to meet Tommy." And then other people are like, "I'd never heard of Tommy. Like who are you talking about?" But who
knows? I mean, people have secrets that we don't know about That's very true. While they're living.
Like the memory of Jeanette herself, the time that's passed has clouded a lot of
people's memories of the day she went missing. But the details could have been more important than just trivial plans
of teenage girls. Given the circumstances in which Jeanette would be found, the existence of this secret
boyfriend actually could have been a pretty significant piece of the puzzle. Yeah. But unfortunately, throughout the
investigation and the years that followed, no one could actually settle on whether or not she had a boyfriend.
Ah, that's so hard cuz it's like you want like it makes I get so scared of like teenage years
with you know what I mean? Cuz you're like you want to maintain such consistent communication, but sometimes
kids throw up roadblocks. Oh, and they can shut you out completely. shut you right out and that's like my
biggest fear. It's like not having that consistent line of communication where they feel
like they can tell you anything. I think luckily the these days you're in a lot better of a situation because the amount
of [ __ ] you can put on those kids now. you can track their ass everywhere. I like what parents in the 60s and 70s,
how the [ __ ] did they do it? it was the wild west out there. Cuz if your kid wasn't telling you what
they were going or saying, "Oh, I'm going to go do this." But actually they went and did that, which how many of us
do as teenagers? Oh, yeah. They were it's like they just went around the dark side of the moon.
You just lost communication and hopefully comes back. You can't see them, can't hear them, and
you're just like, "Oh, I hope they come around the other way." Yeah, it's scary.
Yeah. But those that believe Jeanette did have a boyfriend at this time couldn't remember a name or any details.
Mhm. Which, you know, doesn't help. No. So anyway, after finishing her chores that afternoon, Jeanette told her
parents that she was scheduled to work a shift that night. And she made another call to one of her friends and then
grabbed her purse, told her mom she was going to walk the 3 miles to the train station in Summit and had to work. Okay.
From there, she actually planned to take the train to Berkeley Heights to go see
Gail to follow through on their plan. Which, you know, Florence obviously didn't know. She was concerned enough
about her daughter walking the 3 miles to the station by herself, but she did agree to let her go.
Had she known that Jeanette's actual plan was to hitchhike to Gail's house, obviously Florence never would have let
Jeanette leave the house that day. Now, one of the last people believed to have seen Jeanette that day was her
friend Donna, I believe it's Balatis, who lived a few houses down. According to Donna's husband now, John Resensky,
Jeanette stopped at the house on her way to Berkeley Heights and tried to get Donna to go with her.
He said Jeanette was having a fight with her boyfriend and was looking for a ride
somewhere. According to Resensky, Jeanette even went so far as to ask Donna's mother for a ride, which
Jeanette's friends later said would have been pretty unlikely because I guess Donna's parents didn't really like
Jeanette. Oh, okay. But whatever the case, Donna's mother refused. So Jeanette left the Balatis house and
continued down the road in the direction of Berkeley Heights Okay. intending to continue hitchhiking.
Mhm. Later that night, several hours after Jeanette should have returned home, Sal and Florence DePalma started
to worry because she wasn't in the habit of coming home late regardless of where
she had been. And on the occasions where she would have been late, she always called them.
So after a few hours of waiting, they decided it was time to start reaching out to some of Jeanette's friends and
classmates to find out if anybody had seen her or heard from her that afternoon.
But none of the people they spoke to had heard from Jeanette at all. Oh. Now, when their phone calls failed to produce
any information, the DePalmas gave in and they reported Jeanette missing to the Springfield police.
To their surprise though, they were told that they would have to wait a full 24 hours before reporting their daughter
missing. That's that's wild to me. Nothing about that makes sense. No. Ed Kish said it was strange how
runaway situations were not handled the same way back then as they are today. Back then, runaways did not garner much
attention because they left willingly and running away from home wasn't a criminal offense.
That's so scary. Just like so many aspects of the case, there are also discrepancies around the DePalmas call
to the police. Sal and Florence maintained that they reported their daughter missing when
they called the police. But according to several retired Springfield police officers who were with the department at
the time, Sal and Florence quote claimed that Jeanette had run away when they reported her missing. Oh. So there's
major discrepancies there. Yeah, and it's like where's the record? Exactly. Where any of the records?
That's a big question. That's the thing. Clearly the rumors around town about the DePalma family and
Jeanette's behavior started affecting the case almost immediately. Even as they took down the report, the
responding officers noted that Sal and Florence were giving short and vague answers.
Former officer Don Schwartz said, "There was talk in the station house that they
weren't very cooperative. It was like let's keep this quiet and not be out in the public with it. The family didn't
really come out right away and give interviews or anything as far as I know at least."
Okay. Which is like they don't have to. Maybe they don't want to. Also, they're already the center of a lot of rumors in
town. This is probably the last thing that they want getting out is that their daughter's now missing. You know, like
you're going to the police, the people who are going to help you here and hoping for the best.
I'm sure they don't want to just fuel it. Mhm. And you don't know what you would do unless you're in that position.
Yeah, and also at the time of Jeanette's disappearance, again like late 60s, early 70s, parents weren't encouraged to
react as quickly as they would be today. And it wasn't customary for ordinary people to reach out to the media and
arrange press conferences or other media events. different now. That's something that happens more often
now. Yeah. But of course, even though the the behavior of parents in the wake of their kids' disappearances always
pretty relevant to investigators, we all know that people deal with stress in different ways. It's so tough.
It doesn't always seem rational. It doesn't always make sense, but it doesn't mean they're guilty always.
the thing. It's like it is 100% human nature, not a great part of human nature, to look at how
somebody's reacting to something and deduce what you will deduce from it. That is human nature.
Nobody's a bad person for, you know, being like I don't know. They seem We all do it. We all do it. Again, not our
best our best, you know, little quirk that we have as a species, but there it is. But also we know that it is not
always helpful and it is not not always indicative of what they are actually feeling. People in shock act crazy.
Mhm. They will just straight up shut down and it looks like nothing is bothering them when in fact their entire
nervous system has just gone into orbit. really just the body's response to this
trauma. Because our bodies self-preserve in these situations. We're designed to do
that. We are. And everybody's body does it a little different or they react to it a
little different or they allow their body to do it in a certain way. Right. So it's like
I know it's easy to do that and again, human nature. And sometimes it's dead on. Oh, yeah. Sometimes how they react
to it and you go that's [ __ ] up and then yeah, it was [ __ ] up. can't be the only thing we rely on.
Chris Watts is a perfect example. Haunting. I watched that man's haunting [ __ ]
little interviews and I said that man knows something. Yeah. I knew it the second there is a science to some things
like you know, body language and all that ticks that people do. But it's such a tight it's a
it's a dangerous and tight line to walk. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. I'll get off my soapbox now. I know,
it's it's it's that's not even a soapbox. I feel like No, it's just and it comes up a lot.
straight up. Yeah. But regardless of how cooperative Springfield police remember Sal and
Florence being at the time, they were never considered suspects and no one investigation-wise ever really thought
they had anything to do So that tells you anything they they weren't the reason that their daughter
ran away. they knew anything. Exactly. Yeah. The rumors about the DePalma family also
might have contributed to the relatively underwhelming response from the community once word got out that
Jeanette was missing. That's pretty shameful. It's really sad. That's pretty [ __ ] shameful of the
community. She's a teenager. That literally just missing. disappeared into thin air. And then when you find out
what did happen to her, you're like, "Cool that nobody was searching." Yeah. Years later, William
Nelson said, "It was my understanding that Jeanette just ran away." assumed or had heard that Jeanette ran away rather
than she actually disappeared. Yeah. Mary Starr, another neighbor at the time, heard the news framed in
similar terms. She said, "I did hear the rumor that Jeanette was running away. Jeanette would not have surprised me if
she had run away from home. Jeanette would have been more inclined to go against her parents, I think." Huh. See,
even more more mystery. Cuz it's like everyone's got a different idea of what she would or wouldn't have done. Even if
it was a case which I'll tell you right up at the top, it's not. She didn't run away. That's not what was happening.
But it's like so many people could have pictured her running away. Yeah, it's just very
I just feel bad that she's been categorized in such a way after she's unable to defend herself.
And especially when like you don't know who she is. Yeah, and when it's clear that like obviously she was dealing with
a lot at home. I mean, the like no matter what, the police were getting called to that house frequently and
she's, you know, like their own granddaughter said that Sal was pretty awful to Florence.
Yeah, like that's She was seeing that and dealing with that. You should have empathy for her. Yeah, and it doesn't
really seem like a lot of people did at all. She's a child. She's still a kid. And like this is a teenager. No matter
what, she's troubled if that's going on. And if that's the case, then she does need help and everybody needs to be
cuz no matter what, even if she did run away, she could still be in danger. Like
she's a kid on the run. Absolutely. Yeah. It's unclear why rumors of Jeanette having run away persisted as long as
they did. According to authors Mark Moran and Jessie [ __ ] Florence and Salvatore DePalma made no reference to
Jeanette having run away during several interviews that they gave to the Elizabeth Daily Journal and the Newark
Star-Ledger, each time insisting that their daughter had simply left home to visit her friend in Berkeley Heights.
But either way, the rumors absolutely affected the response to her disappearance. After several days passed
with no word from Jeanette or the Springfield Police Department either. Like they
called, reported their daughter missing. The Springfield Police Department said,
"Okay, you have to wait a full 24 hours before we're going to do anything about this." And then more days passed and
they didn't do anything. It makes no sense. So Sal and Florence ended up organizing their own search
party for their daughter. But by then it was too late. Yeah. Which is like The first 48 hours
are like the most That's why that always astounded me that it was like we have to
wait 24 Let's cut that in half. Yeah. Let's Let's cut our time that we could find them in half.
When do you know when that was that they established that the first 48 are the most crucial? It had to have been after
this time period because clearly nobody was following it. Cuz that's actually such a good point.
Yeah. Cuz you're literally just chopping it in half. Throwing those 24 hours to the wind. So
this is this is according to Google's AI. There isn't a single definitive date marking
when the first 48 hours concept was established as crucial in investigations, but it's generally
considered to have gained widespread recognition and application with police practices over the course of the late
20th century. Due to advancements in forensic science That makes sense. and investigative techniques that
highlighted the importance of immediate evidence collection in the initial stages of a crime investigation.
the beginning they were like like that it became that it came to a point where they were like
[ __ ] we should probably pay attention. It would be awesome if we collected evidence right away. Now. Like it's just
like who came who was like who was like light bulb moment? Whoa, if evidence doesn't get to be
disturbed and decayed, it might be more helpful. We might do better at this. Who Who Who
before that was like we should just let evidence get tainted for a little while.
Yeah. And then we can just work harder to try to figure out who did it. A lot of people actually. A lot of
people were in that boat. Like what an aha in that boat I meant to say. What an aha moment for that person to be like,
"Wow, the earlier we do this, the easier our job is." And the funniest thing to think about too is that not funny but
like ironic that they were probably met with pushback. 100%. It's like the first
person who was like, "Hey, we should wash our hands if we work in a hospital." And people were like throw
that guy in jail. It's a [ __ ] crazy person. He wants us to wash our hands. Well, this is about to take a very I
mean it's already very sad, but it's about to take an even sadder turn. So on the morning of September 19th, a
resident of the newly built Baltusrol Gardens, I looked up how to say that, so don't come at me. It was an apartment
complex. One of the residents opened the back door to her apartment for her dog who immediately darted out of the
apartment in the direction of a nearby quarry. Unbeknownst to its owner, that dog would
return a short time later carrying in its mouth a badly decomposed human arm, which it dropped in the yard just before
heading back into the apartment. Holy [ __ ] Again, unbeknownst to the owner. Oh my god. Just moments after the dog
had entered the apartment, the building superintendent stepped outside and made her way down the steps onto the lawn,
where she then found the arm lying in the grass. Officer Don Schwart recalled, "The call
came in around 11:00. Dispatch radioed me that this woman had found an arm on the lawn of her apartment complex where
she lived. I honestly thought it was a prank. I figured it was going to be a mannequin's arm because this lady was
always being harassed by a few kids that lived in that apartment complex. But when he arrived at the complex, he
quickly realized that this was not any kind of prank. He said, "I looked at it and I said to myself, this is human. I
could see the fingernails and the color of the skin." Oh my god. So Officer Schwart grabbed his camera
and took several photos of the arm before returning to the car to report that what he had found and requested
additional officers be dispatched to the scene ASAP. The superintendent told the officers she
thought it was entirely likely that her dog, who she also let out earlier that morning, had found the arm in the woods
and brought it back to the yard. But when the officers saw the dog, they knew that probably wasn't what what had
happened. Schwart said, "The lady brought me over to a puppy." So he he didn't think that that puppy
would have been able to carry the arm most likely. Okay. I guess. Yeah. Although it was unlikely that her dog
had found the arm, the notion that a dog had found it and dropped it in the yard
did seem like the most likely scenario. So the officers went door to door looking for other large dogs until they
finally found one resident with a large Dalmatian. Schwart said, "That tenant told me she had let her dog out to run
earlier that morning and we we determined that this Dalmatian had most likely brought the arm home from
wherever it had been roaming." Okay. So the officers packed the arm into a cardboard box and returned to the
station. All of them considering whether or not they just found Jeanette DePalma,
part of Jeanette DePalma. That afternoon, the on-duty members of the Springfield Police Department broke
up into small teams and they started combing the wooded area behind and around the apartment complex, including
the Houdaille Quarry. Located a short distance from the apartment complex, the Houdaille Quarry
was this large open area that actually at the time was being mined for greenockite, which is a mineral a
mineral rich with cadmium, I think it is. Okay. It was also a spot known to be popular with teenagers and other locals,
including the Springfield Police who actually used the area for target practice. Oh. Schwart said, "We were
over by the quarry searching the bed that had been laid out for Interstate 78 when we found the upper portion of the
arm." So they found the other part of it. Once they found the upper portion of the arm,
investigators assumed that the rest of the remains couldn't be far. So they spread out across the quarry and kept on
searching. A little after 6:00 p.m., remember that arm was found earlier in the morning at
about 11:00. It took them until 6:00 p.m. Schwart and one of the other officers found Jeanette's badly decomposed body
about 400 yards from the road at the top of a steep cliff that the locals referred to as the Devil's Teeth.
So that ended up gaining a lot of traction later, even though it's literally just a made-up name for a
[ __ ] cliff Yep. by locals. Wow. Jeanette's body was laying face down at the top of the steep incline just a few
feet from the edge actually. She was found fully clothed in a blue T-shirt and tan pants and a pair of
flip-flops were lying on the ground nearby. Schwart said, "I immediately remembered
that this was the description of the clothing Jeanette DePalma was wearing on the day she went missing."
Also on the ground near the body was a woman's pocketbook. Detectives at the scene opened it hoping that they might
find something inside to identify the body, but it contained nothing of note. Okay. Jeanette's remains had been
exposed to the element at that point Six weeks had gone by. Wow. So they were badly decomposed by
the time they were discovered. Remember, she went missing in August. Holy [ __ ]
Yeah. To make matters worse, the parts of the body that were uncovered, primarily her
feet, ankles, and head, had been eaten away by animals and insect activity. Other than that, there were no apparent
signs of trauma or an immediately recognizable cause of death at that point. But still in a press conference
the following day, Assistant Union County Prosecutor Michael Mitsner told reporters, "Jeanette's death is being
treated as a homicide by the police." But they confirmed they had no leads. Zero.
Of all the details of the case that are shrouded in rumor and myth, none are more heavily debated and controversial
than the scene where Jeanette's body was found. According to Don Schwart, "There was a
wooden cross over her head that was made out of two sticks. There were also some
stones arranged around the top of her head in the shape of a semi semicircle, almost like a halo." Okay.
Which would have been strange. Absolutely. Schwart was just one of the officers at the scene who found the
arrangement of sticks and rocks to appear intentional. To Howard Thompson, who arrived at the top of the hill
shortly Schwart, the objects around Jeanette's body looked like {quote} "witchcraft."
Oh. Personally, I don't know any witches that do anything like that, but okay. A few minutes later, a number of
detectives arrived at the top of the hill and effectively took over the investigation from that point forward.
Schwart said, "Once the detective bureau came on the scene, we were pushed aside
and everything became secretive. They treated the rest of us patrolmen like a bunch of dunces."
Anyway, Silence is deafening. Yeah. Because of the steep incline, detectives opted to remove Jeanette's remains by
using a stretcher lowered down the cliff face by means of a rope and pulley system. So this was tough. Yeah. Once on
the ground, Dr. Bernard Ehrenberg pronounced the victim dead and the body was taken by ambulance to Sullivan
Funeral Home for an autopsy. During the autopsy the following day, Dr. Ehrenberg had the body x-rayed for
any evidence of bone fractures or any other skeletal damage, but it seemed like there was none.
There also appeared to be no external signs of physical trauma. There's no bullet hole, no knife wound that they
found. So ultimately Ehrenberg concluded that the body was too badly decomposed to determine the cause of death. That
sucks. But suspected that strangulation could have been the cause. Okay. That evening, Jeanette's body was
identified by a dental comparison, which is just whenever that happens, that adds such a
layer of like sadness. Well, like the reason I said that sucks is like just to not know what happened
to her and like her family, Absolutely. And that must be tough. To not have it be 100% concrete.
Yeah, you just don't know. You're just left to wonder. You'd wonder for the rest of your life, exactly.
Now according to Ed Kish, the autopsy was poorly performed by Dr. Ehrenberg, who Kish felt was not trained or
experienced enough to conduct pathological exams. Oh, good. Yeah, awesome. That's great. Kish said, "Bernie
Ehrenberg was not competent enough as far as I'm concerned to have been conducting forensic autopsies." Wow. And
he might have been right because it does appear that the autopsy wasn't held to any rigid standards and a lot of the
samples and tests conducted at the time have since been lost. Wow. Like completely lost.
how that happens. So there's no hope of determining whether she had, you know, drugs in her system, alcohol in her
system, anything like that at the time of her death. Wow. not saying like that she did drugs, but
But you don't know if somebody like poisoned She was poisoned. Yeah, exactly. drugged her, did anything like
that. Exactly. There's that's a huge piece of the puzzle missing. How do you lose samples like that?
Couldn't tell you. We couldn't if we tried. In the morgue. We couldn't have lost
that [ __ ] if we tried. Yeah. Well, in the absence of any evidence or viable leads, the investigation and press
coverage quickly turned to the more sensational and dubious aspects of the case.
Within a week of the discovery, the local press started reporting that the police were, quote, "investigating the
possibility that black witchcraft and Satan worship were involved in Jeanette's death."
Or you could just look for a murderer. Yeah. You could do that. Because usually that's who kills people.
I mean, 99.99999, if not 100% of the time, it's a murderer. who murders people. It's not a
ritualistic sacrifice. It's not just they want to murder somebody. hiding in the woods. It's not the devil
reincarnate. It's When had how many like how many times has it been a random witch coven hiding in the woods that has
been responsible for a murder? I would say approximately zero. Like let's let's be like real here.
Like be so for real right now. Like be so for real and start looking at actual suspects instead of this
[ __ ] That did not happen. This is only going to get why this is unsolved is exactly why. Oh,
just wait. Just wait. It's exactly why. According to one article in the Daily Journal of Elizabeth, searchers who
found the girl's body said pieces of wood were crossed on the ground over her head and more wood framed the body like
a coffin. No one ever said that. just going to say, where did that come from? These rumors and reports were often
contrasted with quotes from Jeanette's own parents describing their daughter as somebody who, quote, "tried to lead
others to Jesus." The black magic angle, though, was quickly associated with the murders of
the List family in nearby Westfield, which had happened less than a year earlier. In that case, if you're not
familiar, five members of the List family were shot and killed by the the father of the family, John List, who
went on the run after committing those murders. In the search of the List home, investigators found a, quote, "number of
books on witchcraft" in 16-year-old Susan List's bedroom and were, quote, "trying to determine if the crimes had
any link to a coven or witchcraft group thought to exist in that area." Nope, just her mentally ill father.
Yeah, and it's like killed the entire family. Like let's not make a joke of it. Because you're being like, "Oh, it's got
to be witches." Must be witches. It's just it's usually just a man. It's usually just a man and like that's
statistically true. Like can we stop with like the the fakery here? It doesn't help anything. It makes cases
like this remain unsolved for decades. of it all. And it makes their family and their loved ones
have to wait wait for so long, if forever, to get answers. When they could have got It's just makes me mad. Like do
actual detective work. Yeah. Stop looking to the forces of the dark world. That's silly. And there's no time for
silly. No. Like come on. Silliness is for fiction stories. Now, any belief that Jeanette's death
was related to the List case would soon be abandoned, but the witchcraft angle would remain the central piece of this
case. And that's where we get to the satanic panic of it all. So let's talk about
that for a little bit. Throughout the '80s and early '90s, a wave of what we now refer to as satanic
panic swept across North America, fueled almost entirely by rumors and widespread
religious fears. In a very broad sense, satanic panic was what's known as moral panic or this
widely shared fear among a group or society that some negative influence poses a threat to the safety and
well-being of one particular group. In this case, apparently New Jersey. Yeah. The majority of New Jersey. Just New
Jersey. The majority of these panics usually surround kids or young adults and they tend to come out during times
of generational shifts and social transformations. In the case of satanic panic in North
America, rumors and false reports of these ritualistic child abuse at schools and day care centers fueled the belief
that secret groups of witches and devil worshipers existed across America and were involving young people in their
rituals for evil purposes. Yeah, for sure. We found that to be the case in a lot of a lot of these Yeah.
cases, right? Even though there was actually no evidence of any such groups or activities existing in the US and
tons of tons of people were swept up in false and completely outrageous claims that in some cases led innocent people
to become outcasts in their community or led people to even be jailed for long periods of time based on rumors and lies
and just Tom [ __ ] foolery. Ridiculous. Be so for real. Yeah. Now, the origin of the satanic panic of
the 1980s is actually most often traced back to the book Michelle Remembers, which was a supposedly true account of
satanic ritual abuse, which was published in 1980. And while it's true that Michelle
Remembers kicked off the widespread fears of ritual abuse, it's fair to say that the roots of the panic can also be
found in America's suburbs in the 1970s. According to the independent scholar Sarah Hughes, the panic was part of a
backlash to social movements in the late 1960s and '70s that challenged white patriarchal norms. Mhm. In simple terms,
to older generations, the culture among young people in the '60s and early '70s was so foreign and posed such an
existential threat that they just had to attribute it to some outside nefarious dark influence.
And theories about this supposedly evil influence reached into suburban homes were ultimately supported by the release
of movies like Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, the whole nine. Yeah. Just basically depicted the lives of
ordinary Americans being upended by witchcraft, satanic influence, and demons. Demons.
It's never a demon. In suburban New Jersey, it wasn't just the discovery of Susan List's books
about witchcraft that ultimately took Jeanette DePalma's case in a strange direction. The books were part of a
series of events, actually, that spurred the fears of Satanism in this area. Because the year before Jeanette's
death, the drowning death of 20-year-old Patrick Newell in Vineland, New Jersey,
about an hour south of Springfield, shocked the region when it was initially reported on.
The case prompted one reporter to ask, "Is it really possible that the pleasant town of 48,000 people could harbor Satan
cults?" Wow. No. The answer is no. Well, the reason she they asked that is because early in the
summer of 1971, Patrick's body was discovered floating in a pond in Millville, New Jersey. His hand and feet
were bound with adhesive tape and upon investigation, two of Patrick's closest friends,
Richard Williams and Wayne Schwaitzer, told police that Patrick Newell, quote, "belonged to a Satan worshiper sect" and
felt that he had to die violently in order to be put in charge of 40 leagues of demons.
I I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say about that. I'll tell you more about what they said
so you can you can just sit tight. Yeah. So they said he enlisted the two of them
to aid him in a, quote, "satanic ritual" where he would be the sacrifice and they
would push him in the pond and allow him to drown so that he could die violently and be in charge of this
league of demons. During the investigation, police did find a, quote, "considerable amount of
literature on satanic cults and witchcraft" in Patrick Newell's bedroom. And they also learned that, among other
things, this is very sad, he had previously attempted suicide on multiple occasions and this is trigger warning
for animal cruelty. Oh. He had, quote, "sacrificed hamsters by shaking them up in a wooden box into which sharp nails
had been driven." Oh my god. Yeah. Awful. Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
investigators learned that, quote, "hard drugs were involved in a party prior to
the killing." So what you're seeing here is that this actually really doesn't have anything to
do with, quote unquote, Satanism or black magic or any of that dumb [ __ ] that people want to label it with. It
has to do with mental illness and drugs. drug abuse. situation. Yeah. Drug abuse. Like there's plenty of
factors here and I can tell you that Satan isn't one of them. He's absolutely not.
Patrick Newell's death was ultimately listed as a, quote, "suicide with assistance" and would likely have been
assumed to be a very tragic result of drug abuse {slash} mental illness had it not been for Reverend Harry Snook,
pastor of the Chestnut Assembly of God. Snook spent a lot of his time doing outreach to local teens and adolescents
preaching in what was described as a, quote, "fervent Pentecostal style of old-time religion." So very like
theatrical and shouty, like That's it. scare tactic-y kind of preaching. That's literally nightmarish. It is. It's very
scary. It's what you would picture, I think, in a lot of horror horror movies, you know?
He claimed that he, quote, "talked with half a dozen or more young people who confessed to having taken part in devil
worship rots." I like how you went back to like your preacher voice there. That's my preacher voice. Uh
no, I no. I I don't believe him. I think he's one I think you scared these kids.
Yeah, I just don't believe him. I think unfortunately this is the only thing they're allowed to do so they
don't get to use their imagination elsewhere. So you're giving them the perfect place to use it. And you're
heard of the Salem witch trials? That's exactly exactly what it reminds you of. You know where that started? Bored kids.
Yeah, bored kids being influenced by religious trauma essentially. Yeah. Exactly. But he wasn't the only
one who claimed that Satanism had infiltrated the region. Reverend Joseph Donchez, I believe, a pastor at the
First Presbyterian Church quote estimated the number of young devil worshipers in Vineland at between 80 and
90. Oh, okay. I don't know what fact that's based off of but he said I'd I'd say 80
or 90 give or take, you know? Let's take this guy into one of those contests where you get to guess the
amount of jelly beans in the jar and you get something special. Yeah. He sounds really good at it.
I think he might be. Cuz he can he can pick out the devil worshipers. Yeah, just like 80 or 90 yourself. Just
like the jelly beans. It's unclear where either of these bozos got their information because like I
said earlier there has literally never been evidence of an organized group of devil worshipers active in the United
States. No. Uh but in most crimes where ritual sacrifice or other occult symbols are
involved it's obviously the result of mental illness unfortunately drug abuse or teenage pranks.
Exactly or just somebody knowing that a bunch of bozos will latch on to it if they put a pentagram at a crime scene.
Yeah. And that it will take them completely in the wrong direction leaving that person to scoot scoot scoot
away and never get looked at. Exactly. I mean let's It's like you're giving them you're
giving them a route to take. to rub some neurons together and see what like it's so easy.
it a shot. easy. It's literally the look over here. Yeah, it is. tactic It is. And everybody looks over there.
It's the Jada Pinkett Smith Hall. Look over there. Yeah, stop looking over there. This person's running away and
they're getting away with it now. Well in fact Snook and John Donchez themselves and even the investigators in
Patrick the Patrick Newell case acknowledge the prominent role that drug abuse played in the lives of these
supposed devil worshipers who did that. So it's like let's blame it on what is actually the root cause here and
actually try to do some work on that. Yeah. Maybe. Exactly. Instead of being like it's the devil.
And it's like no they're just seeing things cuz they're on many drugs. Yeah, exactly. Maybe you should help.
Maybe. Make this not a thing not an epidemic. Yeah. In November 1971 Richard Williams and
Wayne Schweikert pleaded guilty and they were both sentenced to a maximum term of
10 years at the correction center at Yardville for their role in Patrick Newell's death.
However, while their sentence may have effectively brought that case to a close the supposed influence of satanic and
occult beliefs would just go on to spread around the state and become the defining aspect of Jeanette's murder at
least as far as the police and the press were concerned. Yeah. Although the cases of Patrick Newell,
the List family and Jeanette DePalma weren't linked in literally any evidence or any fact they still became associated
with each other because in the absence of evidence at all or a suspect investigators turned to the more
sensational rumors of devil worship and this youth culture that had as far as adults could tell gotten completely out
of control. Yeah, it was nuts. It's also unknown whether it was Don Schwartz or one of the other officers at the scene
but somehow the news about the supposed evidence of witchcraft at the site where
Jeanette's body was found was leaked to the press which just renewed the and fed
the fears of the occults being in suburban New Jersey. In no time at all Jeanette's murder was
being mentioned alongside other evidence of the occult in the area including police having found quote
burning candles and a bowl of blood and feathers and pigeons with their necks snapped at a nearby reservation.
And elsewhere in the area somebody said they found a dead goat that they believed had been sacrificed. This is
always what happens in these cases. It's crazy. mentioned this must be the devil
worshipers all of a sudden people are finding dead animals. Yep. It's so true. They weren't finding them before. The
same thing happened it gets mentioned all of a sudden dead animals all over the place.
The same thing happened close by to us. Was it Mariana Ruda? Yeah, yeah. She was
killed by a monster of a human being. Literally monster. And everybody claimed it was like the
satanic cult but it's like no it's a monster of a human being. Yeah. And they were like oh we're
finding all this stuff around the Bridgewater triangle and it's all so spooky and blah blah blah. It's like
no. Yeah. This is a human being who's responsible for this. Maybe we should go find them. Can we stop blaming it on
some like it's it's just ridiculous. It's so annoying. But within a few days of the new angle being pursued in the
press Sal and Florence DePalma both like we know deeply religious people were being quoted in the press as agreeing
that their daughter quote could have been the victim of black witchcraft and Satanism.
There were also rumors that with no leads to go on the Springfield police had actually consulted with an area
witch on the case. Florence told a reporter we were afraid the witch would try to bring Jeanette back from the
dead. The police on the other hand refused to comment on the rumors of a witch being
involved in the investigation. Police Chief George Purcell said I heard that some people from the department brought
a witch out there but I know nothing about it. It's getting kooky. It's getting kooky.
It's like like guys can we put the nose to the grindstone here and actually look for the person who did this?
Let's look for evidence. This is a teenage girl who was murdered in the woods. Let's look for evidence. Let's look for
evidence. Let's try to find the person who did this to her. Let's look for Look into the boyfriend
and look start talking to more people. Like what are you doing? Yeah, come on. You had a perfect angle going there that
there might be a secret boyfriend go look into it. Mhm. Why did that suddenly come to an end?
It's like nah it's probably not that. It's probably just this fictional group of witches that we've come up with. It's
like no. Or the devil. real avenues to go down here and no one's going down them. Yeah. Meanwhile
Jeanette's just her case is just going to be unsolved to this day. It and it is.
Within a few weeks of her body being discovered Jeanette went from being the victim of a tragic and mysterious murder
to the potential victim of a quote sacrificial rite of black magic with both theories being treated as equally
valid which is insane. Yeah. In the span of just a few days the news about the arrangement of sticks around Jeanette's
body spun into something far more sinister than they were originally described to be. Reverend James Tate
told a reporter the logs and branches were supposedly arranged in a manner that would have indicated occult
symbolism and perhaps a human sacrifice. I'm sure Jeanette herself was not involved in anything like that but I
know that many of the other young people in this area are involved. Can I name one? Nope. Could I point one out to you?
Absolutely not. tell you maybe 10 to 12 people are involved. tell you. Yeah, give me that jar of
jelly beans I'll tell you. Yeah. Like the religious leaders in Vineland Reverend Tate was convinced that
Springfield had some sort of organized group of occultists or Satanists operating under the cover of darkness.
Though why he believed that is entirely unclear and doesn't seem to be supported
by literally anything other than rumor. Cuz why not? But further complicating that theory was that while Don Schwartz
and one or two other officers remembered seeing what appeared to be that intentional arrangement of sticks at the
crime the cross and like the semicircle. Other officers remember no such thing. Huh. Ed Kish said of the discovery she
was found lying in the middle of the woods for Christ's sakes. There were sticks and stones everywhere.
Yeah. Like hello. That's the thing. And even Don Schwartz who was one potential source of the story eventually told
reporters from Weird New Jersey magazine he had quote no memory of any sticks or
branches framing Jeanette's body like a coffin. Huh. So he was like I wouldn't go that far.
Well and even if there was a cross what does that have to do? Is it upside down? Yeah. What does it have to do that
to me that looks like a grave marker. Right, exactly. That's a Christian grave marker to me. Like you
know what I mean? Like I don't understand why the cross would immediately lead you to Satanism unless
it's upside down. Also if anything I feel like that would just lead you more to the pathology of
your killer. Exactly. Like look more into that. And like take really look at it, you know? Don't look at it and go
Satanism. Look at it and be like why would they do that? Did they do that? But unfortunately profiling was No, of
course not. far off back then. just common sense. Like just start thinking. With your brain. You would
think. And then to hear all these dudes be like some of them are like yeah there
was a cross and a semicircle around her head of of like sticks and stones and all that. And then the other one to be
like there's sticks and stones everywhere. I didn't see anything like that. How did one like how did somebody
see that and another person at the scene didn't? It obviously wasn't that obvious
if it was there which makes me think it wasn't intentional and it was just sticks looking a little weird in the
woods. I mean you could walk through the woods and find any number of arrangements of sticks that are
naturally occurring that would make you be like woah. Ever since I've seen The Blair Witch Project I see crazy [ __ ] in
the woods all the time. Yeah and it's like so it obviously wasn't if they were really do setting
this up so that when she was found this was a main attraction. would have said it.
They all would have saw it because it would have been obvious it would have been made to be obvious it would have
been made to be something you saw. Yes. To me it sounds like it wasn't it sounds
like it could have been either Yeah. not intentional and just organically there or
it was like an afterthought. Well that's exactly it. Yeah. Given the general imperfection of human memory
especially in this case and the number of times that this story changed over the years we'll likely never know why
the sticks and rocks were interpreted as evidence of witchcraft or perceived to be arranged in a way that associated
them with the occult. And And something you would remember. But the thing is, in the year leading up
to Jeanette's death, New Jersey residents had followed two highly unusual murder cases, both of which had
some supposed supernatural or occult influence on them. There you go. So, under those circumstances and the
growing fears about the occult influence on American teens, it's possible that the officers there saw what they wanted
to see. Yeah. Some of them. Or interpreted random the random arrangement of nature
as something that it wasn't just out of fear. Yeah. But regardless of their motives or their
reasons, the belief that Jeanette's death was somehow related to devil worship stuck to the case and not only
influenced the investigation, but ultimately how Jeanette was remembered by those who didn't really know her very
well. Yeah. To some, like Reverend James Tate, Jeanette's devout faith made her a
target. He said she was so religious that she would often talk to friends and acquaintances about God, which we've
already heard is not the case. I'm like her own friend Some Some of her closest friends, like I
think it was Gail Donahue earlier, was like, "I didn't even know that she was that religious."
Yeah. That's interesting. That's really crazy. But it was his belief that Jeanette had met some local occultists,
No. of course, just out and on around town. Yeah. And she, quote, "tried to lecture them about Jesus, the person
these people detest. Their fanaticism arose and they killed her." So, he thought that whilst hitchhiking
or, you know, going about her merry way, Jeanette came across a came across a group of occultists. How she would known
who hate Jesus. Well, how she would have even known that they were occultists, I'd love to know.
Maybe they were dressed in all black. Shrouded in fingernails. Come on. Yeah, like weird
makeup. Who knows? And she said, "Can I Can I tell you about Jesus?" And they were like,
"Absolutely not. We're going to kill you." "That guy, I [ __ ] hate that guy." That's literally they don't believe in
that. When has that ever happened? be the whole shindig? It's like When has that When?
ever happened? And also, where did this happen? Where did she run into occultists? In the
woods. And no one just in the woods. Excuse me. Just in the woods. I forgot. They're
You know, I'm always thinking that. I'm like, I better knot the devil's teeth or whatever it
was. know, we better not take a walk through the woods because we'll run into some
occultists. It's actually why I just wait. why I head into the woods. Yeah, let's go. Just making friends.
That doesn't make No. No. literally any sense. No. And again, to have they are spinning this narrative that is
so infuriating. That's like Her friends are literally saying, "I didn't even know she was that Christian."
Yeah. Like I did She wasn't out here a cool person and a good friend. to all of us. Like it just She was just
a good person and a nice friend. the reverend has to be like, "She was trying to tell them the word of God."
there spreading the word of God. And it's like she wasn't. First of all, if she was, she was. But
it's like second of all, if everyone close to her is saying that's not the case. So, I don't think she was just
randomly doing it one day. And again, I don't know. And for them to be sitting there saying this like I
don't know Jeanette the trauma. No. I know what I'm finding out about her through people that knew her. And these
people who don't even know her are sitting there being like, "I know exactly what happened. She was out there
preaching the word of God to some occultists that she met randomly in the middle of the [ __ ] woods." And it's
like, "No. No. What are you doing? Like what to derail a case like this with this nonsense
is criminal. is infuriating. It should be criminal. Because she She should have been the focus and the
focus became Look at the They used this. Oh, yeah. They used this that this like
particular branch of this community Yep. 100% used Jeanette's murder to further their whole conspiracy of the
youth of today is getting corrupted by Satanists that are wandering around the woods. And it's like, Okay, so we're
just going to forget about Jeanette, 16-year-old Jeanette who got murdered. Right.
going to forget about her because now she's furthered your narrative. Well, it's like your case that you just
covered, Bobby Dunbar. It sold papers. Yeah. Salacious, weird [ __ ] sells papers
and people take that and they run with it and then the truth of what the poor victim went through is literally lost
forever Oh, yeah. their memory. It's tainted forever. their own humanity at the door Yeah.
before they go and print this [ __ ] Yep. They pick it up on the way out. But it's like it's
so gross. It is. They used her to further this [ __ ] conspiracy a scapegoat. worshippers wandering
around in the forest. And it's like, "Nope. The focus should be on Jeanette and what was going on here and figure
out who did this to her." Exactly. didn't. Well, and on the completely flip side of thing, other people took a far
less sympathetic approach to the story and just associated Jeanette with hippie culture and blamed her murder on drugs.
Wow. Even though there was literally no evidence that she had done drugs. Wow. And it's like, "Okay, and if she
had done drugs, does that mean she deserves to be murdered in the middle of the woods?"
To some people. Like, "Damn." Yeah. That's nice. That's cool. That's awesome. Apparently everybody's checking
their humanity somewhere. Yeah, I don't know what was going on. Jesus. on these parts.
Well, about a year into the investigation, a young man referred to as Terry Rickel. I don't know if that
was like a um pseudonym. I kind of seems like it is. Um he approached Ed Kish and officer Ed
Kish and said he had some information about the case. According to Terry, there was a local unhoused man who went
by the name Red Kira, I think it is, and he was living at a campsite at the quarry very close to where Jeanette's
body was found. Terry said he was a weird-looking guy. He looked like an old hippie. Okay. Kish and his partner went
out to the campsite and found that it was abandoned. But eventually, they did locate Red Kira and they interviewed him
about the murder. Apparently, um like I'm like just on the suspicion that he lived there and looked strange.
Yeah. That's That's the thing. It's like, "Really?" I'm like, I feel like we're doing the the same thing over and
over again in this case. We're not getting the best results. Kish said, "I want to say that Red was
cleared and that he was no longer a viable suspect. I was told this was because of the differences in age and
lifestyle between Red and Jeanette." But I'm like, it can't have just been the difference between age and lifestyle
because Yeah. older people in very different lifestyles murder people in younger,
very different lifestyles literally every single day. Yeah. So, I That makes more sense.
But he was cleared. The press continued to focus heavily on, you know, of course, the supposedly
occult aspects of the case, going so far as to literally interview members of the
Church of Satan for their perspective on the case. Behind the scenes, though, investigators
were getting nowhere, of course. And with the exception of Red Kira, no new leads had been uncovered. Zero.
By the following year, the case had gone entirely cold and the story slipped further and further from the front pages
of the local papers until the press just stopped reporting on it at all. Wow. Because satanic panic eventually did die
down. Wow. So, they I mean, they they really showed their ass on that one. They were just like,
"Well, we were using it to further this narrative that sold papers and got everybody riled up. And now that that's
over, we don't really care what happened." People are interested in something else
now, so let's let's put that to rest and shameful at all. just forget the memory of the
16-year-old girl who was murdered brutally in the woods in the middle of the day. Yeah.
Well, by the late 1990s, Weird New Jersey magazine started writing about Jeanette's case and through their heavy
reporting on the case, they sought out anybody associated with the case for comment.
The resulting articles attracted the attention of several members of the Springfield community who remembered the
case and soon anonymous letters started coming into the Weird New Jersey office.
Jesse [ __ ] a correspondent for the magazine, remembered, "We got a tip from a relative of one of these other victims
found in the area. They said, 'You better take a look at this because the MOs are very similar.'" Now, this is the
first time you will ever hear actual investigation into this and it's compelling.
But it's literally like New Jersey It's done by Weird New Jersey. Good for them. Who they love. I was just
going to say Weird uh There's so many like different state offices. There's so much fun.
but good for them. And it's like I can't believe it came down to them having to do it. Yeah. Well, and
when you hear what they found, you're like, "How was that not investigated at the time?"
wasn't important. Because this is genuinely so compelling. Yeah. None of this was important. It was
furthering that narrative of satanic panic. Which is devastating. Yeah. Jesse and his writing partner, Mark
Moran, I think it was, started digging into similar murders committed around that part of New Jersey in the few years
before and after Jeanette's death. And they discovered a number of murder victims who were very similar to
Jeanette. Jesse said, "All were young, attractive brunettes with the same hairstyle. Come on.
All were between 16 and 24, average height, all thin, Caucasian, and all supposedly picked up hitchhiking.
All were killed by obstruction to the airway. All found dead, arranged face down in a wooded area."
Come on. There are not that many [ __ ] coincidences in life, everybody. Let's be real.
Holy [ __ ] same MO, same victim profile, same dispo- like body disposal, same method
of killing. What the [ __ ] the same area within a span of years before Jeanette was killed, when
Jeanette was killed, and after Jeanette was killed. I'm shook by the fact that they were
they just ignored all of this before. New Jersey had to be the people that reported on this.
And like decades later. Decades later. That the police And I'm like, there's no way that the
police that didn't come across their desk that, you know, all of these thin, young, attractive brunettes with the
same hairstyle between a very similar age were killed similarly. to see if there was anything anything
connected. I think all they were looking for slap you across the face though. All they were looking for
to look for that. Well, because it didn't fit their narrative. So, they're not going to look
at it because it doesn't fit what they were trying to get across. They went looking for ritualistic
crime scenes and things to do with Satan and things to do with like leading a [ __ ] band of demons and all that
[ __ ] All the really important stuff that you should look at when you are trying to solve a case of a 16-year-old
girl's murder. Meanwhile, look at all of that stuff. you're supposed to be saying, "Huh, are
there any victims in the area that are of the same profile, were killed in the same way? Are there anything that we can
link to this?" None of them did that. Tons. None of them did that because it didn't
further that narrative. It's insane. preconceived idea of what they wanted to get across when Jeanette was killed and
she was used for that purpose. How wild is that though? Now, I want to get these guys on the
podcast. I'm like, let's [ __ ] solve Jeanette's case, man. If you guys want to come on the show,
guys, cuz you're needed anytime. That's very impressive that you guys were able to do this.
Insanely impressive. And we love your books. We literally have many of them in the office. We do.
We've used them for like cryptids and [ __ ] before. We have, yeah. They're awesome. But,
back to this story. At the time of the murders, law enforcement agencies operated independently and like we've
seen in a lot of cases, they were not very good at communicating with one another.
And even if they had been able to, the concept of a serial killer was still a few years away from entering the public
consciousness. So, it's really actually unlikely that they would have had the resources and relevant information that
would have led them to that conclusion way back then. But still, Jesse Pollock and Mark Moran
believe one man was responsible for several of these murders committed in the area during the '70s, including
Jeanette DePalma. Pollock said, "Either one person committed all these crimes or
the other option, which is a lot scarier, is that you have multiple killers operating in the same area at
the same time with the same MO." Yeah. Which is even scarier. Even scarier? I don't think that's the
case. I think somebody was operating in and around New Jersey, had a victim profile, was murdering these young women
in the same manner, and disposing of their bodies in similar ways, and got away with it because
everybody was like, "Satan." Satan. I agree. I think they are onto something huge. Now, more than 50 years have
passed since Jeanette's body was discovered at the quarry, and police have made no additional progress toward
closing this case. To some, the occultist and devil worship angle is still a sufficient explanation for
Jeanette's death, and to them I say, "Grow up." Yeah, do better. Seek help. Yeah. But others, like
Pollock and Moran, believe the more modern theory that Jeanette was murdered by an experienced killer who would go on
to kill again and again and again. And then there are those who hold onto their biases and preconceived notions.
In 2019, Don Schwart told a reporter, "They were probably doing drugs and she OD'd."
Wow. Despite a complete lack of evidence of drug use. no evidence to that, but sure. But yeah,
totally. The circumstances of Jeanette's death, honestly, at this point might not ever
be known and her killer may never be identified. In a 2024 interview, Ed Kish summed things up and agreed, telling a
reporter he didn't believe the case would ever be solved. He said, "The cops are only as good as the evidence left
behind, and in this case, there was virtually no evidence left at the scene." And according to Kish, "Kids
tend not to talk, and whoever had knowledge of what may have happened would be taking it to their graves."
Wow. That's devastating. Unreal that that is the turn that that story took. I just like
I and I I hate hearing it's probably never going to be solved because I refuse to believe that.
to believe that, too. I think I think the work that the guys over at Weird New Jersey did
has some [ __ ] legs. Yeah. think you get the right eyes on that. I mean there has to be some kind of DNA left at
one of those scenes, and genealogical DNA is so fascinating to me. I think it really is going to solve so many more
crimes. if you can connect those things, connect a few of those figure out who it could be, and then
trace backwards and see if you can connect her back to it. There's got to be a connection.
There's got to be. Like it's there's got to be something there. the thing that's awful about Jeanette's
case is that they really I mean, they lost vital records. And it looks like they half-assed the autopsy.
half-assed the autopsy. I don't even know I don't think anything was even discovered. That's pretty shameful.
But It's got to be something there. hope that they can do something. I know at one point, I think as recently as
2019, they wanted to test her clothing, but it was being left up to decision, and I
don't know if they came to a decision about that. So. Come on, guys. I know. I know. Let's push to get it done.
Like come on. Like look at the Lady of the Dunes. Look at the Somerton man, the boy in the box. These are the things
that give you hope. They've so old so cases that they never going to be solved. Yeah. Even older
than this case. I mean, the Golden State Killer, obviously not older than this case, like around the same time.
massive one. It's like, holy [ __ ] Mhm. That guy thought he was going to live Joseph James DeAngelo, whatever his
name is, thought he was going to go live the rest of his days. Yeah. Boom, interrupted. Let's interrupt the
[ __ ] who took Yeah. them. And let's cuz then it would it would take away from the whole satanic panic and
occultist thing of it all. It would be like, "Nope, that's stupid. It's this guy."
of the story. Remove it. Yeah. And then it can be what it is what we've been saying it is, which is
[ __ ] and a distraction. It's a monster of a human. Yeah. Ugh, so sad. Damn. So sad, but I really hope that at some
point it can get solved. Yes. And in the meantime, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it
weird. But not so weird that you don't go tell the weird New Jersey guys that we want
to have them on to talk to them about this case because how great would that be? Mark and Jesse, let's go. Are you
listening? Are you listening? Love your books. Oh my god, I love your work. [Music]
[Music] [Music]

This episode will be released on all platforms on Monday 2/17/25.

On the afternoon of August 7, 1972, sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma left her house in Springfield, NJ and was never seen alive again. Six weeks later, Jeannette’s remains were discovered when a neighborhood dog returned to its owner at a newly built apartment complex, carrying Jeannette’s badly decomposed arm in its mouth.

The news of Jeannette’s death spread quickly around the small town and the rumors about the circumstances were not far behind. According to witnesses, the girl’s body was surrounded by occult symbols and objects, and within a few weeks news outlets began reporting that Jeannette had been the victim of ritual human sacrifice.

For more than five decades, the murder of Jeannette DePalma had fascinated New Jersey residents and has even captured the attention of news outlets from around the country and occasionally around the world. Yet the more coverage the case receives, the more the rumors of occult murder and Satanism seem to grow, obscuring the more relevant facts and the tragedy at the heart of the case.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Associated Press. 1972. "Police probe death of girl." Asbury Park Press, October 3: 11.

—. 1972. "Witchcraft seen possible in teen-age girl's death." Central New Jersey Home News, September 30: 3.

—. 1972. "Was girl black magic victim?" Courier-News (Brunswick, NJ), September 30: 1.

Burks, Edward. 1971. "'Satan cult' death, drugs jolt peaceful Vineland, N.J." New York Times, July 6: 35.

Chadwick, Bruce. 1972. "Priest's theory: devil's disciples killed girl." Daily News (New York, NY), October 4: 399.

Hughes, Sarah A. 2021. American Tabloid Media and the Satanic Panic, 1970-2000. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lenehan, Arthur. 1972. "Springfield cops find girl's body." Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), September 21: 10.

—. 1972. "'Witchcraft' implicated in DePalma murder." Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), October 3: 8.

Muscavage, Nick. 2019. "What happened to Springfield teen found dead near Watchung Reservation in 1972?" Courier News, August 23.

Pollack, Jesse, and Mark Moran. 2015. Death on the Devil's Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey. Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press.

Schwartz, Art. 2015. "Conspiracy or serial killer?" Hudson Reporter, January 25. Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

The episode discusses Jeanette DePalma's unsolved murder and the impact of a recent plane crash, alongside Matthew Lillard's potential return in Scream 7.

Key points

Matthew Lillard in Scream 7. Excitement builds as news breaks about Matthew Lillard's return in the upcoming Scream film.
The Murder of Jeanette DePalma. A deep dive into the unsolved murder case of Jeanette DePalma, exploring her life and the rumors surrounding her.
Conflicting Accounts of Jeanette's Plans. Jeanette's friends provide differing stories about her intentions the day she went missing.
Delayed Missing Persons Report. The DePalmas report Jeanette missing but are told to wait 24 hours, highlighting outdated practices.
Rumors of Running Away. Despite the DePalmas' insistence that Jeanette left to visit a friend, rumors of her running away persisted.
Discovery of Jeanette's Body. Jeanette's remains were found in a wooded area, leading to a homicide investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I love an eccentric group of people.

Commenting on the quirky residents of Springfield.

8:38WatchFeb 17, 2025

Tension

70/ 100High tension

More from Morbid | Podcast

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.