Veronica Blumhorst /// Part 2 /// 426 | Forensic Files

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
with me as always is a man who knows that strange things are a foot here at the Circle K. Here is the captain.
I know that the garage studio smells like a foot. It's good to be seen. It's good to see you. Thanks for listening.
Thanks for telling a friend. Today we are sipping on an IPA called True Believer by Twin Elephant Brewing
and any long time listener of our little garage show knows that I love a little fruit to cut the bitterness of an IPA
and True Believer is a great IPA with honeydew, grapefruit, and a little hint of cantaloupe. Garage grade four and a
quarter bottle caps. And here's a cheers to some of our True Crime Garage True Believers. First up, a big thank you to
Noreen in Highland Hills, New York. And a big shout out to Caroline in Stoneham, Massachusetts.
Next up, captain, we have Vanessa in St. George, Utah. And a big shout out to Taylor in Fort Worth, Texas. All right,
captain, we have Christie in Hillbillyville, Pennsylvania. That sounds made up. That's where I went to
high school. Right. That sounds made up. Not not unlike our parts unknown where we live. And last but certainly not
least, a big cheers to Spencer in Houston, Texas. Thank you to everyone for contributing to this week's beer
fund. Yeah, we couldn't do it without you. And if you'd like to support the show and get something in return, go to
truecrimegarage.com and check out our store page. And that is enough of the business.
All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
Very fascinating case on our hands. Veronica is missing and pretty quickly we have a very
suspicious suspect in her boyfriend, Jeff. Well, where we left off, Veronica Blumhorst has been missing for 14 years
by this point. The Mendota Police Department gave Veronica's family access to her case file. And in that file, it
contained a report that Veronica's boyfriend, Jeff, in an interview, made strange statements and threw out some
concerning hypotheticals. Mhm. That basically added up to Veronica was hurt and killed and placed somewhere that no
one would find her and there were reasons why Jeff could be responsible for this.
Again, this is Jeff's statements after hours of being interviewed with no recording of any kind
to back any of this up and all in a report written after the interview. And the case file report went on to
state that according to people who knew Jeff, after Veronica vanished, that Jeff
voiced two theories he liked to share about what had happened to Veronica. The first was that he thought maybe she
went to track down her birth parents and they were not happy about this and they did something to her.
The second theory was that perhaps an ex-boyfriend had hurt her because he was jealous and the ex decided if he
couldn't have her, no one could. This is all a bit strange to me here, Captain, because
let's let's pretend for a second that Jeff is perfectly innocent. Mhm. The theories
don't seem to be they don't seem to carry water very well, do they? Like the first one of her tracking down her birth
parents, again, I'm getting the impression time and time again with Veronica that she is an open book. Her
family knew what she was up to, what she was into. Her co-workers were always told what her plans were. Yeah, and
question, who took her to find her parents? She left her car. Like if her car was gone,
maybe that's somewhat of a plausible theory, but you also leave at 1:00 a.m. in the morning
to go find your birth parents just doesn't make a lot of sense. Right, poor timing. And to top that off,
look, maybe she didn't want to hurt her parents her adopted parents' feelings for whatever reason. Mhm. But again,
this is a unique situation where she has an older sister who's adopted as well. She could have bounced this idea off of
her. Mhm. And they were close and I don't see why she wouldn't. And then to take it a step further, why would the
parents decide to hurt her and do something terrible to her? Yeah, it makes no sense. Wouldn't you just say,
"Go away. You know, we don't we don't have any life with you." Mhm. Um you know, that so that doesn't seem to carry
much water. But then you do have the ex-boyfriend theory. Maybe that is something that
that Jeff was was right about. Well, this Okay, so the story goes that she dated
this police officer. He became chief. And they only went on a few dates. And he was kind of possessive and was also
like saying, "Well, maybe you should wear this outfit or wear these types of clothes." So it it
it ended as quickly as it began. Mhm. So and there's no evidence that after they
broke up that this guy was in the picture anymore. Right. Right. So I do like the theory of maybe
an ex or something of that nature. But again, then you have to wonder is this just Jeff coming up with alternative
theories that do not involve him being the bad guy. Mhm. But he also came up with some theories
that he is the bad guy. Well, maybe I thought she was pregnant. Maybe I pushed her. Maybe I hit her. Uh so much so that
they looked at his family's property. Mhm. They did not find anything. Now, I believe that Jeff took a lie detector at
some point. Yes, he did. So what we have here with the possibility of any of Veronica's exes,
according to her family, she did not date anyone as seriously as she did Jeff. And remained friendly with most of the
guys that she was no longer seeing. Mhm. Three guys, in fact, were interviewed. They all had alibis and two passed lie
detector test, from what I could find. The investigators considered Jeff the target of their investigation.
From what we have been able to gather, Jeff agreed to take a lie detector test. The results have not been released to
the public, but Veronica's father said in an interview that Jeff failed miserably. Yeah.
He did as well as O.J. did. Police conducted a search of Jeff's family's property. They followed him on
a daily basis. Before too long, Jeff lawyered up and stopped cooperating with police.
He has made only one public statement, which was, quote, I have been told not to say anything, end quote.
In September of 1991, so more than a year after Veronica disappeared, Mhm. police dogs searched Lee County
farmland that was owned by the Veverka family on Maytown Road with cadaver dogs, but again, found nothing. Yeah.
Because Jeff stopped talking to police and nothing has been found that connects him to Veronica's disappearance,
he has never been charged or even named as a suspect or a person of interest at the public level. Right, but he also
hasn't been cleared. So, I think that's something. Now, a lot of people go, hey, big red flag,
he failed this test. We don't know, obviously, if that's true. I think if there was information given
to the father and he's saying that he failed, I believe that. Seems like the father's a stand-up guy.
But the red flag for the family is that he lawyered up. Now, I'm actually going to go against
the family on this one because we have an individual that had an accident, has issues with memory loss.
He seems, obviously, a little unhinged by the whole situation to the point where he is
actually making up scenarios that don't involve him, but making up scenarios that do involve him. At some point, you
have to protect this individual if this is your family member. Well, right. And if the hours-long interview, again,
I take a lot of what I've been told was said in that interview with a grain of salt.
But, if maybe the hours-long interview unnerved him so much that either he's guilty and
he lawyered up or he's perfectly innocent and he's just feeling like, "I'm really uncomfortable. They're
trying to put this thing on me. Mhm. I need to protect myself." And I do want to champion something you said uh just a
minute ago in regards to the father's comments about Jeff and his lie detector and failing miserably.
I I feel like you feel. Her father seems to be a stand-up guy, a very honest guy. He does not strike me
as the type of person to say something just to say something. He doesn't strike me as the type of person to say
something unless he believed it 100% to be true. And as you pointed out in yesterday's episode, he had friends, he
knew some people at the police department. He was very likely behind closed doors told that information.
And he's saying this years and years after the fact. He doesn't even strike me as the type of dude that is saying it
just to throw Jeff under the bus. No. So, I absolutely believe that if Jeff, in fact, failed at that that information
probably found its way to Veronica's father, Paul, and he's saying it decades later in an interview. Well, in a normal
situation I'd say cuz I like lie detectors. I know we can't use them in court, but I
like it. I think it gives us a a barometer. So, I don't think we've used the word
deduce yet. Which I think we by law, because we're a true crime podcast, we have to use the word deduce.
But what we can deduce from this also is or what you can deduce from it is what is his capability of passing the
test anyways if he has short-term memory loss issues because of his accident. Yeah, and not only has he not been
cleared, as you said, but it also appears that he became the focus of their investigation
and remained the focus of their investigation for many, many years to come. Mhm.
The case file also reflects a police theory of what they believe might have happened to Veronica
in which it says that she got into a vehicle with someone she knew, person unnamed, some type of argument ensued
and she got pushed from the vehicle suffering a fatal or near-fatal injury and then the driver
of the car then hid her body in a panic. Mhm. It's weird that they come up with that
theory not because it's unlikely, but because it also kind of echoes some of the things
that Officer John P was saying he was able to pull from Jeff during his interview. Mhm.
Naturally, police also looked at anyone who could have followed Veronica home from work that night to see whether
someone else could have harmed her. I think we're going to get to the guy that I got a little gut feeling about.
Female employees at the Supervalu told investigators that a guy who tended to loiter inside the store and flirt with
female employees may have been in the Supervalu that evening during Veronica's shift.
Sharon Vandiver, Veronica's friend, said this guy often came in between 9:00 and
11:00 p.m. two to three times a week and he rarely bought anything other than something
small and cheap like a pack of gum. Most of his time in the store was spent talking to female employees, this
obviously including Veronica. Mhm. He creeped out the women who worked there. This guy also bragged to the female
workers that he was an EMT or some type of security guard. Cops looked at this guy. I could not
find his name, but obviously they know who he is. But he is said to have had an alibi for
the evening of September 19th and 20th. Yeah, but here's what I don't like about
this. This is also a guy that's rumored, I don't know if you found this, but he They're like, "Well, we don't know where
he was at that night." But there was rumors by the the people that she worked with,
Veronica's coworkers, that say that the guy came in the next night asking about her.
And stating which movie she rented the night before. How How would he know that if he wasn't
in there that the night before? Right. And or let's say maybe he was in there the night before. Mhm. But maybe
his alibi His alibi only needs to be good from 1:07 a.m. and on. Mhm. So he could have been in the store
before. Maybe they had that conversation. I'm with you. I don't think it's very likely that that
conversation took place. I think it's suspicious that he would know that she rented a movie one and be
so inclined to even say what the name of the movie was. Well, not only did he have a history of
talking to, you know, people in the store, an extensive history of talking with Veronica. Mhm. And I think she had such
a nice demeanor that she this individual probably didn't creep her out. She probably enjoyed a
little bit of the attention or maybe just thought he was being friendly. The other thing that's tricky, too, is
I've heard people say that he was going into the store two or three or more times a week up until the disappearance
of Veronica and afterward he really backed down on the number of times that he was going into the store on a weekly
basis. Right. Which would lead you to believe that the motivation for going into the store was Veronica. Mhm. Be it
good or bad. Police also questioned an 18-year-old man who stopped at Super Value on
September 19th just to pick up a few items. Veronica was his cashier. He checked out at 11:49 p.m.
This guy told police that while in the store, he heard Super Value employee Jason Stepanich, also 18 years old,
telling Veronica he'd be back to pick her up at the end of her shift. But both the customer
This This is a confusing part in the story, so you need to follow along with me here, everyone out there
in listener land. But both the customer and Jason denied that this ever happened.
Mhm. Okay. Mhm. So, frankly speaking here, Veronica had her own car at work. We know that. Nobody's arguing
that at all. Why would she need anyone to pick her up at all? It doesn't make any sense.
The customer said in the Jim Haggerty series series that this is absolutely not true. He never told the police any
of this. So, this is just some made-up report that they have. He says Mhm. He says, "I'm guessing they fabricated
that into the report because I never said that. There was nobody else in the store besides two employees and me when
I checked out. I don't even know who that is." Referring to Jason Stepanich that we mentioned earlier.
Right. Jason, for his part, admitted talking to Veronica, but denies telling her he would return for her to pick her
up. Mhm. Both of these men, you like the lie detector test, both of these men took
polygraph test and were later cleared. Okay. Per the police report, it says, quote, "Jason stated that he did talk to
her, but does not remember saying anything like that." Mhm. So, this doesn't really help clear anything up.
These potential suspects did not go anywhere and failed to lead to any clues about what happened to Veronica. The
problem I have with this statement is you have police saying in the case file this customer overheard another employee
say to Veronica he would return later to pick her up. And then you have both of those
individuals going on the record and telling the media and the Blumhorst family that no
neither one of I didn't say that I heard this employee say that he was going to pick her up. And the employee says, "I
never told Veronica I was going to pick her up." Why is that in the police report? Why is that in the case file
when both of these witnesses say this did not happen? I have a word for you. Can you say
conspiracy? It makes me question the interview with Jeff even more. Is there somebody adding
or manipulating things that go into the file Mhm. for their own benefit? Well, well, hold on.
The reason why I I do not like how it went down with Jeff and how they you know, sat down piece after and said,
"Yeah, let's write down those statements that he made." That doesn't work for me.
But we also have people talking and saying that they they talked to Jeff and he was coming up with theories and
even putting himself into those theories. So, it doesn't seem like they fabricated the whole idea. Well, we
need to be clear here because that the people are saying the theories that he presented to them did not include Jeff
as being having carried that out. Well, see, I I thought there was some people saying that he
wasn't making full theories, but he was saying, "What if I got mad at her and pushed
her? Or what if Those were the theories that he told to the police in that interview.
So, those were never told to other people. Cuz I From what we just reviewed, it's it's he
told police, according to the police file, again, according to the police file, he told
Officer John P in that closed-door interview a hypothetical that he could have killed
Veronica in an argument and maybe it uh that she was pregnant or maybe she wasn't. Right. It was several different
versions of that same story. But the people in the case file that are cited as saying Jeff is spouting off
theories about what happened to Veronica, he's not including himself. Right. I I
thought I heard from her family that he was maybe not given full theories, but it was maybe we
got in an argument or maybe I did pick her up. I I thought that was said to the family, but I I could be mistaken on
that. It's difficult because we later have the statements of another individual and I believe that they remained
nameless, but uh we'll we'll continue through that. Before we get into that, I just want to talk about the difficulty
of collecting DNA in a case like this. If you recall, Veronica was adopted by the Bloomhurst. She was not in contact
ever with her birth parents and neither were Paul and Betty, Veronica's adopted parents. In the interest of having
Veronica's DNA on hand in case a body was found and for evidentiary purposes, should there be a suspect, investigators
collected some of her personal items from her parents. As we shall see, that did not go as planned.
And after time passed, the availability of Veronica's DNA was significantly decreased
as items that she definitely came in contact with were harder to come by. Attempts were made by authorities to
unseal Veronica's adopted adoption papers, but the Catholic charity that handled the adoption refused. Okay, so
what does this mean? There's a couple different versions of the story whether the parents willingly
gave this stuff to police and investigators or if the police collected it, whatever. Nobody is arguing
that they had it, that the police had it. Forget about how it was obtained, but they all agree that police had items
that could have contained Veronica's DNA. Very likely could have contained her DNA. Yeah, one of the things that
the father did was he took their bed sheets, her bed sheets, and gave it to police. So, what we learn after all this
time is that those items have magically disappeared. Yeah, and this is where it gets a little
tricky for me is they claim, "Well, we moved buildings and that's how we probably lost it."
I think these are good cops years later trying to come up with a explanation of what the bad cops did.
Mhm. Because they would have been moved out of that one building, it would have all been sorted out by the
time she went missing. So, I think it's good cops looking back on going, "How how do we not have these
bed sheets in evidence?" Well, must have been when we're moving stuff from this building to
that building and things probably got lost. What that means at the end of the day is they do not have her DNA on file.
Mhm. So, if a body who is that has been hidden for 30 years is recovered or a body that was hidden for 5 years 25
years ago and and uncovered, if they cannot look at the remains and go, "Yep, that's Veronica." There is no
DNA to test to confirm if it is her or not. That's a very big problem for this investigation. Now,
let's go to the glass half full end of it and report this. It has been stated that Veronica had extensive dental work,
which could be used to identify her, but that means her skull has to be found. The records have been added to the
national database. So, we do have dental records for Veronica. Again, no DNA, which
really freaking stinks. All right, we're back. Cheers, you filthy animals. We've touched on the
frustrating lack of evidence in Veronica's case. No evidence to lead investigators directly to a suspect.
This case went cold and remained so for years and years, decades really. Mhm. Despite the lack of movement, Veronica's
brother Todd continued to campaign to find his sister. He created a website dedicated to her and started the
Facebook page that gathers information and has directly challenged the manner in which the investigation was
conducted. He also engineered searches of the nature preserve and other areas. Unfortunately, Todd died in 2013
from a rare genetic cancer. He died believing that the boyfriend, Jeff, killed his older sister
and never giving up his fight to find her. Todd's mission to find Veronica has been
taken up by family friend Doug Truckenbrod, who was designated the Bloomhurst family spokesperson. Here's
where the case gets interesting. Doug lived across the street from the Bloomhurst as a kid, and Doug is in some
ways also a potential witness. Per the Rockford Advocate, the day after Veronica went missing,
Doug recalled vividly something he had observed the day before. At around 11:45 p.m. on September 19th,
1990, Doug was on his way to his third-shift job at R&R Donnelley when he pulled into a gas station.
There he noticed an SUV with a camouflage paint job and a logo indicating it was a security vehicle for
Woodhaven Lakes, a camping resort which was about 12 miles away. At that moment, he didn't think much of
it. When Veronica vanished, Doug became fascinated with the case, as many did in
the small town. He says, quote, "I was talking to my mom about the boyfriend, and she mentioned
his dad that he was the head of security at Woodhaven." End quote. This is what Doug told Jim Haggerty.
Doug pointing out that the presence in town of the security vehicle on the very night Veronica was last seen
and the connection of the vehicle to remote property accessible by the VerVaeke family. Mhm.
Doug reported the sighting of the vehicle to the Mendota Police Department, this again investigator John
P. Doug Truckenbrod became one of the Mendotans who who the whispered theories that Jeff had
done something fatal to Veronica. The 2004 release of the police report highlighting Jeff's suspicious
statements solidified him as prime suspect number one in the eyes of many including Doug and Todd Bloomhurst,
who did not try to hide the fact that he suspected Jeff of killing his sister. But when Doug took up the mantle from
Todd in 2013 and began carrying out his promise to continue to pursue justice in Veronica's
case, he started to unveil some startling information. His public pleas for people to come
forward resulted in people starting to talk. And now, after 30 years, this case has
been substantially advanced over recent months by his efforts. Doug spent years digging into the case
and keeping his ear to the ground for rumors and information that could be helpful.
And someone who wished to remain anonymous came forward and told him some interesting information.
The local source had heard that, quote, Veronica was strangled, possibly shot, wrapped in a blue tarp, and dumped over
the west side of a metal bridge in Knox Road near Bartlett Woods. This area was near the part of the
nature preserve that had already been searched, but the source said the search area needed to be expanded. They didn't
search far enough. This bridge is about 3 mi from the Verbic property, and per the Jim Haggerty series,
early searches had focused on a small area northeast of Knox Road between Henkel Road and Big Bureau Creek, about
3 mi from the town of Sublette Illinois. The preserve had been searched in 2012 with cadaver dogs and searches organized
by Todd based on psychic evaluations of the case. Now, the source says police continued west.
If they would have continued west, they would have likely have found clues about
475 to 500 yards downstream near creek belly that's about 10 to 12 feet deep. Mhm. This is a tributary of the Illinois
River. I cannot say within feet but she's either in the belly of the creek before the 90° bend or around the
area of the hay bales next to it, possibly even under them, the source said. If they search in that area, they would
either find her remains in the water or some sign of her buried near there. The source also said he believed that a
gun was used to kill Veronica and this gun was disposed of in a creek in Mendota in 1992
by a woman who had received the gun from someone else. So, this does not sound like a murder
committed by a controlling boyfriend to me in a crime of passion who then panicked and hid her body. This
might sound like someone getting rid of Veronica in a methodical killing. Mhm. Someone who knew what he was doing and
who had knowledge of how to dispose of a body. This is where we have to look into
the idea of did the police bungle the investigation or is there a cover-up? Because this case is one of those in
which it is easy to see why people believe that there was some kind of police cover-up.
Either the Mendota Police Department, Mhm. a small-town force with zero experience investigating disappearances
and possible homicides, was borderline incompetent, or it was the typical story of a bad
seed cop who was, at least, to a certain extent, sheltered by some of his own. There is some evidence for
this latter theory. Right. It has more legs than you're giving it. When Veronica went missing,
the Mendota police collected some of her personal items, Mhm. as we said, a toothbrush,
hairbrush, and bedding from her room. Of course, potential sources of DNA, but no
one knows where any of these things are. So, is that somebody removed these items from police
evidence, or did they just screw it up? The other thing you have to think about,
too, is Veronica's car and garage, the area surrounding the garage. This was never processed when she went missing.
Right. Was this on purpose? Or was it just, "Oh, she's missing. We think we'll find her. There's no need to search for
footprints or tire tracks or hair or any type of other evidence that could have been found at the time?"
But why a conspiracy? Why a conspiracy? Yeah. Why are they covering up? Well, I don't
know that I would go as far to say that the entire police department would be covering this up.
Right. And to me, you might only have to have one person covering their own tracks. So, not a
conspiracy at all, just really one person manipulating everything to remove themselves as a potential suspect.
Right. Despite the small-town nature of the police force and the inexperience of
its officers in handling these types of cases, the MPD repeatedly turned down request
from the Bloom Hurst family to call in investigative assistance from the Illinois State Police.
Was this because they were certain that Jeff was their man or because someone did not want an outside agency meddling
in the affairs of the Man Dota PD? And of course, we have already covered that the police
seem to have failed to record or properly transcribe Jeff's interview with all of his supposedly incriminating
statements. Again, this is either small-town incompetence or something much more sinister.
So now, 30 years later, Doug and others are calling into question the police placement of blame
on Jeff. Recordings and transcripts that do not exist, they all seem to point to Jeff being the
guy. That's the only red flag that goes up and circles itself around Jeff. And further, some of the things Jeff
said, supposedly said, made no sense. It really does not seem likely that he would have thought Veronica was pregnant
at all. He knew all about her mono and her upcoming doctor's appointment for that ailment.
Yeah. Veronica's family says they have proof that Veronica was not pregnant at the
time that she disappeared. The only thing I have a problem with that is again, we don't know his extent
of his condition of memory loss. So, is it possible that he did forget that she was sick?
We also don't know again, it's it's fool's gold, right? We we have nothing to back up these
supposed statements that he made to police. Other than the word of of one man who
should be in the circle of suspects in this case. So, here's the thing about you you talk
about his memory loss. He had a a motorcycle or dirt bike accident when he was like 14 or 15. So, this is something
he had suffered for years before Veronica and him were even an item. Mhm. One thing that's interesting now, it
emerged recently that on the day before Jeff was questioned by police on September 23rd, Jeff participated in the
Bloom Hurst family session with psychic Greta Alexander. She is the psychic that led them to
search the nature preserve. In the course of this search, Greta mentioned that Veronica was hurt by
someone in the course of an argument about her health or possibly a baby. She stated that Jeff's motivations were
suspect. Jeff heard all of this as he was present. And also privy to this psychic's
observations was John P. Who the very next day would question Jeff, supposedly enlisting comments
about how maybe he went crazy thinking about her being pregnant. Mhm. As we said, a cadaver dog search was
eventually conducted of property owned by Jeff's family a year after Veronica went missing. Nothing was found.
But but not the property his dad worked at. Correct. Of course, there are plenty of places to
dispose of a body in the area. And it's not clear whether Jeff really has an alibi for that night. You know,
was he at home watching a movie as he said? His mom said that he was home as well, but we know how those family
member alibis can be erroneous. Mhm. But on the other hand, there is nothing whatsoever tying Jeff
to Veronica's disappearance because it seems to me a little too good to be true that he just walked on into the police
department and basically offered up all of those semi-incriminating statements. Clearly, he did not offer up a full
confession because he was never charged, never arrested, never named publicly as
a person of interest. Well, didn't he also get rid of his car like pretty early?
I don't have any information about him getting rid of a vehicle. Well, so supposedly he gets rid of his vehicle.
He was looking for a new vehicle before she went missing. But so she goes missing, he gets rid of
it. And then he gets the same exact car as Veronica. And then he doesn't get a license plate for it
and she had something where it was like her initials, some lucky number, or her initials, and then like her birthday or
something. And he did the same thing. So, got the same exact car and did the the whole initial birthday
type thing on the back of his car as well. Mhm. And it's kind of a odd car. Her car wasn't like
It was a Chevy Corsica. Right, but it wasn't like a I don't think they were super popular. I
don't know much about the the vehicle. I always thought of Corsicas as a pretty common vehicle back in the early '90s.
The weird thing, too, is their initials are very similar, as well. Mhm. Now, Jeff
was Mendota PD's focused from from day one, day two, however you want to argue it. That's clear.
Doug Trank and Brad does not mince words about Jeff's supposed involvement. He says, quote, "I think he was manipulated
into saying what he did in the police report. And once he lawyered up, the person who killed Veronica was free to
fumble along and destroy any trails he himself left." Furthermore, not only might Jeff have
been railroaded, but there may have been someone else who was responsible for what happened to Veronica.
There was one more person reported to be in the Super Value store on the night that she vanished.
According to the Rockford Advocate series, a source has indicated that an unnamed man was in the Dempsey's Super
Value on Veronica's last night, there for about 30 minutes, but purchased nothing.
He left the store at 11:39 p.m. The presence of this man in the store did not appear in any of the police reports,
and he was never questioned. What does this have to do with Veronica and her still being missing 30 years
later? Family spokesperson Doug Trank and Brad says that his team of citizens, just
like himself, who have been sleuthing around Mendota, uncovered evidence that Veronica kept certain things about her
personal life private, and that they may have contributed to her disappearance. Mhm.
And Doug has a theory about who this man at the Super Value may have been. Apparently, there were reports from
several independent sources that Veronica was seeing another guy on the side, unbeknownst to her family, and
certainly unbeknownst to Jeff. And this man may have been a police officer. Per the Rockford Advocate,
quoting family spokesperson Doug Trank and Brad, quote, "We are looking into details about that
reported relationship. It may have been going on for some time before her disappearance. What we are
fairly certain of is that this man Veronica was seeing was married. He was someone who was familiar to her
and not someone she had recently met. Apparently, Veronica also knew this man's wife.
The rumors are that she had tried to end things with Jeff in order to be with this other man,
although these may have just been that, rumors." Right. Okay, so this could be far-fetched, right? The Bloomhorst
family does not seem to endorse this theory, even though the spokesperson seems to.
Mhm. According to Carolyn, Veronica's sister, who spoke publicly for the first time
earlier in 2020, Veronica was not a duplicitous person. She was not capable of hiding things
that were going on with her. Again, we talked about the possibility of Veronica being an open book. She says
that she was one of those people who wears her heart on her sleeve. Carolyn does not believe that Veronica would
have been cheating on Jeff with a married man. She and Jeff have been they were discussing marriage, as we
said, and she seemed to be happy with Jeff at the time. Right. Carolyn also says, "If she had been seeing someone
else on the side, she would not have been able to hide it for very long." Now, on the other hand, Carolyn did
reveal to Doug that things were not all as it seemed with Veronica and her relationship with
her family. She and her mother did clash, and she had a little bit of a wild streak. It is
not at all clear what Doug is referring to when he says Veronica was hiding things because those things have not
been made public. Right. But maybe there was a side of Veronica that her family didn't know about, including Carolyn,
her sister, who didn't live with the family at the time of the disappearance. One didn't live with her for quite a
while, so give a couple years and and she's a little and Veronica was getting a little older. Here's where
things go off the rails. The sources who were telling Doug that Veronica was seeing a married cop,
they even provided Doug with a name. The married boyfriend was a cop who lived right across the alley behind the Bloom
Hurst family. Mhm. This person would have had a full view of the Bloom Hurst garage and from his
property. This married cop was also seeing another neighbor on the street, which this woman
admitted to later. In other words, this 20-something cop was a womanizer. Carolyn later said that this cop would
stare at her and her sister as they went in and out of the yard and then it made them feel
very uncomfortable. Who is this guy? Don't squeeze your beer cans too tightly. Or your testicles. The married
cop who was alleged to have been in some kind of relationship with Veronica was John P.
Officer John P. The one who lived right behind her house and was the first on the scene that day
when Jeff reported her missing, the one who was in charge of the investigation into her disappearance, the one who
focused the blame on her boyfriend in his police report, the one who possibly deliberately messed up the examination
of her car and who may or may not have seen to it that her personal possessions with her DNA on them went missing from
the Mendota police station. Mhm. Yeah. Go ahead. Because the what I heard at first
I didn't actually hear about this idea that Veronica had a intimate relationship with the police
officer. The idea was that he would have been coming home, you know, he he was married. He he he
had his wife at home. He was coming home from the neighbor's house that he um was having an affair with and somehow
got caught by Veronica and you know, made her go missing so he didn't get busted. That was the first that I heard.
That's an interesting theory, too, because either way it's presenting a theory where the two
Officer John and Veronica had some other type of relationship that wasn't just we
we're neighbors. Right. That either Veronica had some dirt on him or she was involved with him. It Well, and
give a reason for them crossing paths that night. Right. Yeah, so I'd like to know what
his alibi was. So, it seems like something out of a movie, something fake, something unreal, but what makes
this crazy tale somewhat believable is that the sources who told Doug about the relationship between John, Officer John,
and Veronica. Whatever again, whatever the nature of that relationship was. Doug says that these were law
enforcement officers that told him this. Right. That there was some some kind of
relationship. These were guys in the area of law enforcement groups who knew John.
One of them also knew the police chief at the time, Ken Hahn, who apparently also suspected John.
This crazy story appears to have some legs to it. Some hairy legs. Some hairy disgusting spider legs.
Dirty legs. One way that this story would make sense without Veronica being someone completely
foreign to her family, someone who would would date a married police officer, betray her boyfriend and
and behave in ways that her family and friends found unbelievable is if John made up the whole thing.
Okay, this guy was a known womanizer and creep whose illicit relationships ended
up ending his marriage. Mhm. And remember Carolyn said he would watch girls from his own yard across the way
in a creepy fashion. So, what I'm getting at here, Captain, is it possible that maybe Officer John bragged to some
of his cop buddies about relationships with women that he was not in fact actually having? Yeah, or did he prey on
weaker individuals and possibly it wasn't as consensual as he made it out to be. And that's where you go with this
thing, right? What if in some weird way he's bragging to his cop buddies, "Hey, that 21-year-old good-looking girl over
there, me and her are a bit of a thing." But in reality, he's stalking her. Yeah,
or yeah, sexual fantasy. Or again, he he might have sexually assaulted her. Maybe he raped her.
And like we said, he he's somebody that's in the area that would have had knowledge of just
you know, not not that she's gullible, but it would be a individual, like I said, a
weaker individual that may you possibly could control. Yeah, and you don't even have to dub her
as gullible because for all we know, Veronica thought of Officer John as as most probably would,
as he's a police officer, he's a neighbor, maybe he's a nice neighbor, maybe he's nice police officer. When
your dad is a part of the first responder family, cops are part of that. They're all good guys. And this guy
might just be number one creepo. Could be a wolf in sheep's clothing, as they say.
So, what if he pulls up that night a little after 1:00 a.m. She's making her way from the garage up
to the house, as she did several times a week, which he could see that from his house, from his yard. Mhm.
He pulls up in a vehicle or asks her to come over to his his yard or garage. Because the way that if if you view
these on a map, the way that these two houses, they more so back up to one another, where it looks to me like the
backs of the houses face one another. So, the garages are closer to each other than the actual houses would be.
Could he have asked her to get in his car and help him with something? Or talked her into some kind of ride. And
then they're out somewhere, he tries to move on her, things go wrong, and he freaks out and does something bad. Mhm.
You can see the way that this would play out. The other thing, too, is if he was in
fact the one that was in the store, in the Super Value Store that night, that in there for a half an hour, and didn't
buy anything, then it looks even more sinister. It looks like he was setting this up, he was stalking her, or they
were in fact having some type of relationship. Was he just in there to to chat and interact with her? Right. And
let her know that he'd meet her at her car after she got off work or whatever. You mentioned earlier, and this is a bit
of an aside, another potential conflict of interest in the case. And you find this
typically in small towns. The current police chief, Greg Cullen, went on some dates with Veronica, but
this is going to be way back in the day. You know, this case is 30 years old. Well, I
wonder if he was the {quote} "unquote" possessive guy. He was. He was the one that Carolyn said
Veronica had told her that she was uncomfortable with Greg for whatever reason. He was either possessive or a
bit controlling. Ple- Please keep in mind, this man was not the police chief back then.
He was He was very low on the totem pole and um yes, he is he went on to be a chief of police,
but other than this little aside to it, it doesn't seem like there was much more
to the story other than they went on a couple of dates. Veronica, for whatever reason, didn't really like the guy and
she broke it off with him. Right. In December of 2019, Doug Truckenbrod announced that a civilian search was
planned for the spring of 2020 near Knox Road and Big Bureau Creek, about 8 mi north of Mendota.
The area is near the forest preserve that was searched previously. This is because the family stated in a
release that they had received information that Veronica was strangled, wrapped in a tarp, and dumped over a
Knox Road bridge into Big Bureau Creek near Sublette. This was the information from the source
that we discussed earlier. The land that was subject of the upcoming search was private, and the
owner, a local farmer, he granted permission. But this search has been put off indefinitely thanks to COVID.
Doug Truckenbrod stirred up enough movement flushing out sources who claimed to have material information
that the Cold Case Foundation with its seasoned investigators agreed to take on the case. Good for them and and good for
him. And based on all the suspicious findings and information, they have managed to
get the case in front of the FBI who is now actively working the case. Mhm. Got him. Well, good for us. We I helped
raise a little money for the Cold Case Foundation in July to help those guys out.
Good. So, this is an active FBI investigation now and we have seasoned investigators working this very cold
case. It's 30 years. And and by the way, I cheered you all and I'll cheer you again.
Cheers. So, you have to wonder is it possible that finally after 30 years, does Veronica's family
will they get some justice done? Hopefully, but it's it's sad that her brother didn't live to see
the work that he started be finished. John P. left the Mendota Police Department about 14 years ago. He's
currently retired possibly living in Florida. It sounds like the FBI may want to talk
with him. Veronica's family via Doug Trockenbrod still maintains the Facebook page called
Remember Veronica Jill Bloomhurst. Started by Todd, her brother, to memorialize his sister and document her
case, it is very active with updates on her case as well as links to Jim Haggerty's
series and posted regularly. One thing I like about this case is it I feel within the last 2 hours
that we have said the three most likely suspects in this case. Mhm. I think that
Jeff he's an interesting one. I think that former officer John P is very interesting as well. As well is the
creep guy that was going into the Super Value store two or three times a week to
just bother the female employees. And dress the women with his eyes. Yeah, I mean who's to say he didn't follow her
home or had not followed her home before. Mhm. And she having spoke with him many times just thought, "Oh, he's a
nuisance, but he's harmless." Right. And she went over to talk to him or got in the car for any number of reasons.
I think that what we have here Captain is a trail that doesn't lead specifically to any of
these three. Really all we have is the supposed incriminating statements that Jeff made to officer John P behind
closed doors. What we also have is the rumors that makes John P have some kind of different
relationship, be it either Veronica had dirt on him or they were involved somehow.
And then just the suspicions of the creepo workers of this creepo guy coming in a couple times a week. Oh, creepo.
It's really sad because until she is found there's nothing left to work on at the moment. So, I hope and pray that
this search gets underway and that they do find something to lead them to her. And possibly lead us to the actual
person that did this. One thing that I call into question here and would love to know
is the actual time of events and how they were supposed to go down once it was known that she was missing.
And what I mean by that is when was it discovered that Jeff and Veronica were going to have a lunch that
day? Was it just that day when he called and all of a sudden he discovers that she's missing? Oh by the way, we were
going to have lunch. Or did you know, did Jeff know about the what time the doctor's appointment would be?
And did he magically time up that call perfectly to her father shortly after the doctor's office called? Mhm.
And really and it's hard to say looking back 30 years ago what the actual events
were supposed to be in their order and the times that they were supposed to happen because I think that could shed a
little more light on what category to put Jeff in in this case. Again, thanks for listening. Thanks for
the support. If you're looking for our old episodes, we have over 400 episodes to check out and you can do so for free
on the Stitcher app. And if you're looking for even more, we have over 100 of our bonus show called Off the Record
and that's on Stitcher Premium. Do we have any recommended reading for this week? This week we are recommending Tam
O'Shanter The Pursuit of the Freeway Phantom Serial Killer by Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester. We have recommended
this awesome true crime writing duo before. These two great authors are putting out some really fascinating cold
case true crime stuff. So, you'll want to check out Tam O'Shanter and other great recommendations at our website
truecrimegarage.com and while you're there, one thing I've been doing at my house, Captain, I have the beer fridge.
I like to put a lot of stickers on my beer fridge. Pick you up some True Crime Garage stickers to decorate your beer
fridge. And go with the super pack. If you If you buy pack one and pack two, cost you a little more money, go with
the super pack, you get them all. Little discount there for you. And until next week, be good, be kind, and don't
litter.

Veronica Blumhorst /// Part 2 /// 426

Part 2 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we feature the case of a strange disappearance of a young woman back from 1990 in Mendota, Illinois. As of this week it will be 30 years since anyone has seen Veronica Blumhorst. For years Veronica’s little brother Todd kept the investigation organized and ongoing. Recently new information has come out that we could possibly be dealing with a cover up.

Beer of the Week - True Believer by Twin Elephant Brewing Garage Grade - 4 and a quarter bottle caps The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

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

Brief Summary

Veronica Blumhorst's disappearance raises suspicions about her boyfriend Jeff and a local police officer's involvement, with ongoing efforts for justice.

Key points

Veronica Blumhorst's Disappearance. Veronica has been missing for 14 years, with her boyfriend Jeff as a suspicious figure.
Jeff's Theories. Jeff presents strange theories about Veronica's disappearance, raising more questions than answers.
Lie Detector Test Results. Jeff allegedly failed a lie detector test, adding to the family's suspicions.
Missing DNA Evidence. Crucial DNA evidence from Veronica has mysteriously disappeared, complicating the investigation.
The Search for Veronica. Despite decades of searching, evidence remains elusive in the case of Veronica's disappearance.
Todd's Fight for Justice. Todd Bloomhurst dedicated his life to finding his sister, even after his passing.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Very fascinating case on our hands.

2:56WatchNov 11, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

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