13x15 - Sworded Scheme

[bunniefuu]

Up next, a
college girl goes missing,

and police suspect m*rder.

A cryptic text message
provides a salacious clue.

- And that was code for sex.

Shenanigans is sex.

- In the back of
my mind, I think I

knew that something
wrong had happened.

The victim's
boyfriend had a shady past.

- Whether they had a
relationship, and he also

had a history of sex offense.

Despite some blood evidence,

police can't find
the girl's body,

which raises even
more questions.

- Without anything
pointing us to her,

I don't think we
will ever find her.

Many students at
The University of Nebraska

work during the
school year to pay

for living expenses
or even tuition.


worked as a waitress

in a local steak restaurant.

Her goal was to pursue
a career in childcare.

- She started out as a
social studies major,

and then she worked
at a daycare, also.

And so the more
she worked there,

the more she realized that she
loved kids and had a passion

for it, and decided that
she wanted to be a teacher.

As her sophomore
year was coming to an end,

Jessica celebrated with
friends while making

plans for the summer vacation.

- Jessica was with her
friends that evening.

They'd ordered some pizza.

They'd been watching movies.

She got a message, probably
a text message of some sort,

and she indicated
that she was going

to go over and talk to Chris.

- I know people always
say that and never do it,

but we really need to do it.

- So, I'm actually gonna
go over to Chris'.

- Really?

You're gonna go over
to Chris' place?

- And I was like, you're
going over to Chris'?

And so then, she went into
her bathroom and took a shower

and got ready and
left to go over there.

Everyone assumed
that Chris was Chris Edwards,

Jessica's co-worker
in the restaurant,

and a fellow student
at the university.

- We were actually
in the restaurant.

She kind of, you know,
like, pointed, you know,

so he, so nobody would
be able to see her.

And, uh, so I caught
a glimpse of him.

And, um, and she was
excited about that.

Jessica left her
apartment around 11:30 PM,

and that was the last
time anyone saw her.

Two days later, when
she hadn't returned home

and wasn't returning
phone calls,

her friends and relatives
notified police.

- You know, 98% of the time,
when we receive a missing person

report, we're able to
determine within the first uh,


they're... they're... they're not

really missing.
We've located them.

But this case was different.

Police found Jessica's car
abandoned near the restaurant

where she worked.

Her family knew immediately
something was wrong.

- She wasn't blessed
with cleanliness

when it came to
her car, and there

was hardly any trash in it.

And that was concerning to me.

That wasn't like Jessica at all.

And Jessica's
friend, Chris Edwards,

said he didn't see
Jessica that night.

He claimed he was at a
movie with his friends...

An alibi that checked out.

- We did go to the movie theater,
located video, um, of the movie

ending, and saw him when he
was leaving the movie theater.

- He told me he
hadn't... didn't know

she was coming over that night.

- Here's a young girl,
you know, attractive,

a college student...
What happened to her?

Where did she go?

Why would she just disappear?

And it was clear from talking to
the family, how passionate they

were that she didn't just
walk away from her life here.

Then the police
learned two potentially

disturbing pieces
of information.

First, that Jessica
might have been pregnant.

- Jessica, at that time, had a
belief that she was pregnant.

She had taken a pregnancy
test at her friend's house,

and told her friend and her
mother that she was pregnant.

And they also learned
that there was another Chris

in Jessica's life...
Someone she'd

been dating several
months earlier.

Could this be the Chris
she was going to see?

- I'm gonna go over to Chris'.

- Which Chris was
she talking about?

Which boyfriend
could it have been?

When police first
learned that Jessica O'Grady

was pregnant, they thought the
stress of this unexpected event

may have prompted her
to simply run off.

But as the hours passed, and
there was still no sign of her,

they began to lose hope.

- I mean, she didn't take
any clothes with her, not

her personal items, her personal
hygiene items, those kinds

of things.

- There's no activity
on any credit cards.

There's no activity
on a cell phone.

Um, she's not talking
with any of her friends.

She does that, uh, daily.

She's not talking with
her aunt that she'd

talked to on a daily basis.

The last time anyone
saw Jessica was at 11:30 PM,

when she said she was going to
her friend Chris' apartment.

An hour later, at


sent this text
message to a friend.

It read, "No more
shenanigans for Jessica."

- We knew that it
was from Jessica,

because "shenanigans" was a code
word that Jessica had for sex.

- What did it mean, exactly?
I don't know.

But, um, um, that was
the last text message

that one of the
friends received.

Investigators first
wanted to know where the text

message originated, which can
be identified by the location

of the cell towers
that were used.

- Some of the phone companies
only keep their text messages

for 24 hours, or a very
short period of time.

And we were never
able to retrieve

the text message records.

Next, investigators wanted

to know the identity of Chris.

Jessica's friends assumed it
was the boy she'd been dating,

Chris Edwards.

He claimed he didn't
see Jessica that night

and was at a movie with friends.

And he had a ticket stub
and witnesses to prove it.

The other Chris she
knew was Chris Ryan,

a man she dated
several months earlier.

- Chris had a... a past,
um, that required

him to register
as a sex offender.

And obviously that
was a red flag.

He'd served 2 and


charge and had been out
of prison for 20 months.

But he also had an alibi.

- There was no evidence
from phone records,

from computers, from
friends, that she'd

had any additional contact
with the other Chris

for several weeks.

Investigators
were running out of answers,

until they learned that
Jessica's co-worker, Chris

Edwards, had been
dating other girls

while he was with Jessica.

And one of those girls,
Michelle, was also pregnant.

- Jessica knew who
Michelle was, and Michelle

actually knew who Jessica was.

They had worked, um,
at the same restaurant.

But Edwards told
them both different stories.

- Chris was kind of playing
both of these girls.

On of them, he told her he
wanted to be with her, um,

they were gonna have
a baby together.

And then the... the
other one, Jessica, he

indicated that
the other girl was

more like a fling kind of thing.

Investigators learned
that Jessica had already

informed Edwards that he
was the father of her baby,

and that she had no intention
of terminating the pregnancy.

- She seemed to be OK about it.

She seemed optimistic
and thought

things were gonna work out.

- When she learned, uh, that she
was pregnant, um, she went out,

bought prenatal vitamins, you
know, things that, you know,

that an expectant mother
would start doing.

So she, you know, that showed
us that she had every intent of,

you know, keeping this baby.

Investigators decided
to re-interview Chris Edwards.

And as they spoke to
him about Jessica,

he said something unusual.

- Interestingly, he
talked about Jessica

in both the present
and the past tense.

And we thought that...
We found that to be

very interesting, too.

Chris Edwards lived
in the basement of his aunt's

house in the suburbs of Omaha.

His room had a
separate entrance,

so he could come and
go as he pleased.

When police came to question
him, he invited them inside.

- This was just a knock and talk.

They weren't... You know, wasn't
a search warrant at that point.

They just wanted to, to
just talk to him informally.

Investigators asked if
they could have a look around.

- They asked him, you know, if
there was any part of the house

that he didn't want the
investigators to look at.

He said, well, um, I don't
really want you to, you know,

look at my bed or look
at my camping equipment.

And they really... you know,
obviously that's a red flag.

They kind of wanted to know
what that was all about.

Investigators
asked Edwards where

he was on the night
Jessica disappeared,

and he repeated
his alibi... that he

was at the movies with friends.

Investigators found evidence
that Edwards stopped

at a Walgreens store the day
after Jessica disappeared

and bought some unusual items.

- Someone, presumably Chris,
had gone to Walgreens

and purchased three items.

There was a poster
paint, white shoe polish,

and Wite-Out... the
type of Wite-Out

that you use for
correcter fluid.

Surveillance
images from the drug store

showed without question
that Chris Edwards made

this purchase, and not someone
else, using his credit card.

In Edwards' bedroom,
investigators

noticed sections of
drywall that were

a different shade of white.

Looking closer, they
noticed small stains

underneath the paint.

In fact, there was blood
all over the ceiling.

- And you saw so many blood
droplets and you, you,

you knew that there
had been an attempt

to try to cover that up.

- They said Chris,
you know, there's

some blood... this
is before he went

upstairs... there's
some blood here.

He indicated he cut his finger.

- There was a minimum of seven
cast-off stain patterns.

There was actually six,
um, cast-off stains,

and you add one on, um,
for the first swing,

or for the first strike.

- There was some paint
that have been used

and some shoe polish
that had been used

to try to cover up those stains.

But there was so much
blood up there, um,

you would've had to of
repainted the whole wall,

or the whole ceiling several
times to cover it up.

Local television
news crews found out about it

and broadcast the search
on live television.

- We actually got a tip that
the CSI and investigators we're

going to be out there searching.

We could see the
investors working

in the garage with
the lights off,

special alternative light
sources that they use,

spraying the luminol,
that sort of thing.

- I probably had 15
phone calls from people,

are you seeing this?

Are you watching this?

Did you know this was happening?

Investigators also
turned over Edwards' mattress.

It was covered with
a huge blood stain.

- It went down within the
bedding of the mattress,

and I believe, um, it took
up about approximately

like eight square feet
onto the mattress.

I believe he had stated that
it was from menstrual blood,

um, on the mattress.

And, um, I was looking
that going, um, no.

- Oh my god.

Uh, definitely
something happened here,

and it was not, um,
something that somebody

could've survived from.

More evidence was
found elsewhere in the house.

- The garage was actually
kind of a gold mine.

In the back of the
car, in the trunk,

we found, um, some
transfer blood.

In the back seat
on the floorboard,

there were a pair
of hedge clippers.

Investigators
found a dirty shovel

in the back of Edwards car.

But a geological
analysis of the dirt

was unable to determine where
this soil sample came from.

- We found some
grass on the shovel.

They took it to the
agricultural college,

and they determined that they
believed it was potentially

the kind of grass that
would grow on a golf course.

Edwards' mattress
and a four-by-four foot section

of his bedroom
ceiling were removed

and taken to the forensics lab.

Identifying the blood
with DNA testing

wouldn't be easy,
since they didn't

have Jessica's DNA profile.

Law enforcement canine units
and more than 150 volunteers

searched the countryside
looking for Jessica's body.

But with so much open
space in Nebraska,

a body could easily be
hidden and never found.

- That is the big mystery.

What did he do with her?
Where is her body?

To identify the
blood found in Chris Edwards'

bedroom, scientists needed
Jessica O'Grady's DNA profile.

But without her body,
they didn't have her DNA.

- The way we were able to
establish Jessica O'Grady's

identity based on DNA was from
items of hers that collected

at her house... including her
toothbrush, a comb, a razor

that was... that she used,
and a pair of her underwear.

Um, from these items,
DNA was collected

and compared against each other.

The DNA sample
matched the DNA sample

of the blood in Chris
Edwards' bedroom.

- I had to tell my daughter.

She started to cry.

But, you know, the
resilience of kids,

she said, Mom, I don't
want you to worry.

I said, OK.

I said, why?

And she said, because
Jessica's an angel now.

And she's right here
with us, right now.

The next step was to attempt

to identify the m*rder w*apon.

The nature of the
blood spatter made

it apparent that the m*rder
w*apon was a large knife.

Investigators couldn't
find any such w*apon

when they first
searched Edwards' home.

But when they returned
a second time,

several days later,
they found something

that wasn't there
before... a box containing

two swords with 18 inch blades.

- Did he think he
was out of the woods

and had put them somewhere
else for a while,

knowing the police
might search, and then

put them back in,
in this closet?

That's a possibility.

- How stupid is this kid?

I just couldn't
believe that he had...

If these were the weapons,
he had brought 'em back.

Um, he probably didn't think
that we would be coming back.

The swords, called
Bangkok Battle Swords,

are often used in martial
arts performances.

They could have caused the
small elliptical castoff blood

splatters in Edwards' bedroom.

- That evening on the news,
they showed the detail

of what a Bangkok
Battle Sword was.

It made me sick to my stomach.

You couldn't have
prepared me for that.

A knife, a g*n, you know,
any of those kinds of things.

But it was a sword.

Though the swords
had apparently been cleaned,

analysts found traces of human
blood along one of the blades.

The sample was sent
for DNA testing.

The blood was Jessica's.

Skin cells on the blade's handle
also produced a DNA profile.

It belonged to Chris Edwards.

- It didn't actually sink
in until we got the,

the DNA results back
that we realized

this is her DNA on the tip,
and it's his DNA on the handle.

That was huge.

With that evidence, Chris

Edwards was charged with m*rder.

But he continued to
deny any involvement.

- Many people, even with,
when they're confronted

with as much evidence as
you can muster in a case,

are still going to
continue denying that they

did anything until
the end of time.

That's just the way it is.

- We still have to
prove that Jessica

was dead and not just missing.

And so we looked
at... common sense,

you look at the mattress, and
you look at the blood spatter,

and the detectives and
everyone, and common sense

tells us whoever shed this
blood is not coming back.

This is a lot.

Prosecutors believe
Chris Edwards didn't have

any serious interest
in Jessica O'Grady.

So when she got pregnant,
that caused problems.

When Jess originally
told him, he

was somewhat, uh,
upset about it.

They argued about it.

And then later on,
as time progressed,

um, he seemed to
calm down, and they

were going to have a meeting
to talk, to talk about it.

Friends said Jessica had

no plans to terminate
the pregnancy.

And Edwards other
girlfriend, Michelle,

who was also
pregnant at the time,

was the more serious
relationship of the two.

- He was in love with Michelle
and wanted to marry Michelle.

- There were a lot of
questions that came up,

uh, from that relationship
with Michelle.

And obviously,
he's seeing Jessica

O'Grady at the same time.

So certainly that
would be a, that

would be a problem for him.

On the night of the m*rder,

prosecutors believe Jessica and
Edwards talked by text message

and set up a meeting that
night around midnight.

According to
friends, Jessica said

she was going to
Chris' apartment.

Although Edwards did go to the
movies with friends that night,

the movie was over early enough
to meet Jessica at his home

around midnight.

Prosecutors have no idea what
transpired between the two,

but they obviously discussed the
status of their relationship.

Friends said that
Jessica knew about

his other pregnant
girlfriend, Michelle.

- Did you ask Michelle if getting
rid of the baby was an option?

- We're not talking
about Michelle.

More than likely, they also

discussed the status
of Jessica's pregnancy.

- We're not in this
together, we have

to get through it together.

In any case, Edwards
had to realize that no matter

which girlfriend he
chose, he'd be supporting

two children on
his cook's salary.

- No, Chris.

No.

At 12:29
in the morning,

Jessica sent a text
message to her girlfriend,

"No more shenanigans
for Jessica".

Her code word for, "There
will be no sex tonight."

The forensic evidence
shows Edwards hit Jessica

at least seven times with the
sword while she lay on the bed,

creating the blood spatter
on the walls and ceiling.

Blood evidence shows Edwards put
Jessica's body into the trunk

of his car, but no one
knows where he took her.

At some point, he
took Jessica's car

and left it near the restaurant
where they both worked.

He later tried to clean up
the blood in his bedroom,

but there was simply
too much of it.

- He's tried to cover it up,
and then he just gave up?

Like, come on, man.

If you're gonna... If you...
If you k*lled somebody,

do whatever you
got to do to make

sure that nobody can see this.
And he just didn't do that.

And then our job real easy.

Despite being offered
a lesser sentence in return

for disclosing the
location of Jessica's body,

Edwards refused to talk.

From the human aspect,
we want to get her back

for, you know, for her family.

Um, because, uh, they're
good people, uh, you know,

they're concerned for
her, and, uh, you know,

they need her back.

A jury found Edwards
guilty of second degree m*rder

and sentenced him to 100
years to life in prison.

Is there anything you'd

like to say to
Christopher Edwards?

- Yes.

My, my statement to
Christopher Edwards

would be, it's over now.

Please tell us where she's at.

We deserve that.

We've suffered through


and it's time for us to
know, so that we can give her

a peaceful burial
that she deserves.

This marked
the first ever no-body

conviction in Nebraska
state history.

- I don't think there would have
been any conviction if that...

If the CSI and the
forensics hadn't been there.

- I think she was a
girl in love that

wanted to make it work,
and look what happened.

- I mean, for me, it's at least
once a month where I'll say,

you know, where,
where do you think...

Where do you think she is?

Where do you think
her body's at?

- The forensics told Jessica's
story, plain and simple.

They spoke where she could not.

Where her body could
not tell the story,

her blood spatters, um,
that told the story.