14x13 - Low Maintenance

[bunniefuu]

Up next, tragedy at
a Texas college.

She's cold.

She's cold to the touch?

Yes, ma'am.

Oh, my god.

It's very unusual for a


of natural causes.

Tiny drops of blood
could mean an accident... Or a

m*rder.

We had no idea what had
caused her death.

There were just more
questions than answers.

Eyewitnesses place
a man at the scene, but are

their descriptions accurate?

They had us really scratching
our heads.

Bryan, Texas, is a
college town that lies in the

shadow of Texas a&m.

It's home to blinn college,
where Jenna verhaalen and

Spencer hood were inseparable.

Jenna's parents say that he
was just the love of her life,

that they had dated for several
years, went to prom together in

high school... Jenna just
absolutely adored Spencer.

Jenna and Spencer
planned to pursue careers in

either law or government, and
they lived in separate

apartments at the same complex.

The Autumn woods apartment
complex is right next to

blinn college, and so there's
quite a few students that live

there.

It's easy for them, it's
close... easy access to the

college.

On April 9, 2008,
after attending his morning

classes, Spencer stopped by
Jenna's apartment to pick up a

book he'd left there.

When Spencer arrived at
Jenna's apartment, he found the

door unlocked, and he went
inside.

Spencer found
Jenna's lifeless body on the

bedroom floor, and asked a
neighbor to call 911.

Bedroom floor, and asked a
neighbor to call 911.

Police and

paramedics pronounce Jenna
dead at the scene.

The only injuries that we
could find on her were a small

bruise on her forehead.

She had also clenched down on
her tongue with her teeth.

It didn't appear to be any
kind of robbery.

Her purse was hanging on a hook
right next to the door.

Credit cards were there in her
purse.

There was cash in her purse.

Her keys were in the purse.

There were no pills, no
alcohol... there were no

indications that she had
committed su1c1de.

Spencer told police
he last saw Jenna the night

before, around midnight.

The two of them studied, and
then he left and went to his

apartment at 12:30 that morning,
and then made a phone call to

Jenna a few minutes later to
tell her goodnight.

I love you.

Goodnight.

Phone records showed that he
had placed a call at 12:47 A.M.

We know that she was discovered
about 11:30 the next morning, so

we've got, you know, probably
less than a 12-hour window when

Jenna was k*lled.

During the autopsy,
the medical examiner found no

evidence that Jenna had been
sexually assaulted, but he

couldn't rule it out, either.

It has been my experience, in
some 30 years of performing

autopsy examinations, that the
lack of genital injuries does

not rule out a sexual as*ault.

But he did find
small, broken blood vessels in

the whites of Jenna's eyes,
known as petechial hemorrhages.

Petechial hemorrhages are in
that constellation of findings

that we refer to as "stigmata of
asphyxiation."

It tells me that I need to look
for a cause of asphyxiation.

And he found it...
Jenna's larynx had been crushed.

The conclusion was inescapable.

This is a strangulation, and,
in great probability, manual

strangulation by hands.

A background check
revealed that, over the years,

Spencer and Jenna had broken up
several times, dated others, but

always made up and got back
together.

Knowing that there were no
signs of forced entry, I think

you immediately think, "this was
some kind of lovers' quarrel

gone bad."

We did ask Spencer if he had
k*lled Jenna, and his response

was, "absolutely no."

But would the
forensic evidence support his

claim?

As investigators
looked into Jenna verhaalen's

background, they learned she was
well-liked and respected by her

friends and classmates at
blinn college in Texas.

She didn't have any enemies.

She didn't have fights with
people.

She didn't have arguments or
disagreements.

Everybody had nothing but good
things to say about her.

Jenna was a
dedicated student who was

working her way through school
as a waitress at a local

restaurant.

She worked for everything
that she had, and did have, I

think, an almost full-time job
at "wings 'n more" while taking

classes.

On the night of her
m*rder, Jenna worked at the

restaurant until 9:00 P.M.

Surveillance tapes revealed
nothing suspicious.

All we found was Jenna just
walking to her vehicle.

We didn't find anybody following
her.

Jenna returned to
her apartment around 9:30.

Her boyfriend, Spencer hood,
said he stopped by and they

spent about three hours studying
together, and he left after

midnight.

Then Jenna's neighbors provided
a possible lead.

On the night of the m*rder, the
neighbors were playing sand

volleyball in the courtyard in
between the apartment buildings.

Around midnight, they saw a man
walking from the direction of

Jenna's apartment.

He was shirtless, and he was
acting very upset.

We learned that the suspicious
male had come out anywhere

between the hours of midnight
and 2:00 A.M.

In fact, some of the girls that
were playing said that he looked

scary.

Witnesses said the
man resembled 26-year-old

Sean Stevens, also a college
student, who lived in an

adjoining apartment building.

According to friends, he'd once
made a vulgar remark to Jenna in

the parking lot.

It was, more or less, just
some cat-calls and stuff from

Sean's balcony down to the
girls, and there were some words

exchanged between Jenna and
Sean.

Sean's apartment had a
direct line of sight to Jenna's

apartment.

We contacted him.

Sean was extremely nervous and
was, literally, shaking.

Sean denied any
involvement in Jenna's m*rder.

He also said he wasn't the
shirtless man walking from

Jenna's apartment on the night
of her m*rder.

But he couldn't provide
accurate information about where

he had been that night due to a
large consumption of alcohol.

Then police
uncovered a startling piece of

information.

Two months before her m*rder,
Jenna told her family about an

incident involving her
apartment's maintenance man.

It happened one morning after
she got out of the shower.

She found the

maintenance man standing in her
living room.

He was there when he wasn't
asked to be, and she didn't know

that he was there.

What are you doing?!

According to Jenna,
the man claimed he didn't hear

the water running, and,
believing the apartment was

empty, walked inside.

It's creepy.

It's creepy just to think about.

You don't stick around while
someone's in the shower, and

then, when they come out, leave.

Jenna became very upset and
contacted the supervisor of the

maintenance worker and explained
to him what had happened.

The worker's name
was Jeremy rosser.

He was 29 years old, divorced,
with two children.

He had never been in trouble
with the law.

He comes from a religious
background.

His father is a pastor in a
nearby town.

But police were
more than a little suspicious,

so they conducted an experiment
to see whether rosser's

explanation had been truthful.

When detectives fry and
mathews go back to the apartment

complex, they actually stand
right at the front door and have

someone go into Jenna's bathroom
and turn the shower on, close

the door to the bathroom, and
they say from the front

threshold of the door you can
clearly hear that the shower's

running inside that apartment.

Coincidentally,
rosser was fired one week after

Jenna's m*rder.

He had been terminated, or
fired, because he wasn't coming

to work anymore.

Police wanted to
question rosser, but he left

town after he lost his job, and
no one knew where he was.

They also discovered that
Jenna's boyfriend, Spencer hood,

was missing, too.

Certainly, our first area of
focus was on Spencer, as he was

the last one to see her and the
first one to find her.

It did not help his case any
that he had suddenly left town.

That left
Sean Stevens, and he was

nowhere to be found, either.

He's gone.

He's not at school anymore, he's
not at his apartment complex

anymore.

It made us a little bit
suspicious.

I started to realize they
just have no idea.

They have no idea who did this.

Police had three
persons of interest in the

m*rder of Jenna verhaalen... her
boyfriend, Spencer hood,

Sean Stevens, who matched the
description of the man seen

leaving Jenna's apartment
building the night of the

m*rder, and Jeremy rosser, a
maintenance man at Jenna's

apartment complex who had once
entered her apartment under

suspicious circumstances.

Investigators hoped scientists
could find forensic evidence

that would help narrow their
search.

We're looking for biologic
evidence.

Is there skin?

Is there hair?

There may be fibers, there may
be bits of material from a

scene, or from dirt or
something, on a person's

clothing.

First, scientists
discovered skin cells under

Jenna's fingernails, which is
not unusual when the victim is

involved in a struggle.

They extracted DNA and
discovered there were two

genetic profiles... both male.

One a minor contributor and
one a major contributor.

Investigators also
found a drop of blood on Jenna's

shirt collar, and two drops of
blood on the carpet near Jenna's

body.

One of those did come back to
be Jenna's DNA, and the other

one came back to be the same
unknown male contributor that

was detected in the nail samples
and on the neck of the shirt.

She was fighting for her life.

She is scratching him,
scratching him deeply, and hard

enough that he's actively
bleeding.

This DNA evidence was
extremely exciting to us,

because we knew if we could ever
get DNA from a suspect that

matched, we would have our
k*ller.

Armed with the
k*ller's DNA, investigators

wanted DNA samples from Jenna's
boyfriend, Spencer hood, her

neighbor Sean Stevens, and the
maintenance man, Jeremy rosser.

Mysteriously, all three left
town after Jenna's m*rder.

While police searched for them,
they also conducted a DNA

dragnet.

They asked other men who lived
in her apartment complex, as

well as male co-workers, for DNA
samples.

Nearly 50 people willingly
complied, but no one matched the

DNA from the crime scene.

If we're eliminating people
that are around her, that have

connection with her, if this
is a completely random act, then

how are we ever gonna locate
that person again to get their

Eventually, police
found Jenna's boyfriend,

Spencer hood, three hours away
at his parents' home.

We ended up driving to
wimberley to try to track him

down, because at that time we
believed that he may be our

k*ller.

I ask him the question about
why he left town.

What he'd explained was, he was
just upset, him and Jenna were

very close, and he wanted to be
with his family.

Spencer was
entirely cooperative.

He allowed police to photograph
him without his shirt, and

police found no scratch marks on
his body.

He also answered questions
without an attorney present, and

willingly provided a DNA sample.

Next, police tracked down
Sean Stevens at his parents'

home, 450 miles away in
Oklahoma.

Sean said he went home to see
his brother, who was on leave

from m*llitary service in Iraq.

So this gave us an
explanation of why Sean left

town.

When asked, Sean
willingly provided a DNA sample

without police having to resort
to a court order.

The only remaining suspect was
Jeremy rosser.

Police were finally able to
locate him through his ex-wife,

who provided an important clue.

She said Jeremy had shown signs
of v*olence at the time of their

divorce.

They got in an argument.

He shoved her to the ground,
and, while she was on the

ground, he kneeled over her and
put both hands around her neck.

Coincidentally,
this incident occurred right

around the time of Jenna's
m*rder, but for investigators,

there was still one problem.

A criminal check was done of
rosser's background, and we

found no instances where he had
been arrested in the past.

This made him somewhat of an
unlikely candidate for a crime

of this type.

When police
questioned rosser, he denied any

involvement and was happy to
cooperate.

He was very calm, very
cool... not someone that you

would pin a m*rder on.

But in rosser's
truck, investigators found a

laptop computer.

The serial number was traced to
a tenant living in Jenna's

apartment complex who'd reported
it stolen months earlier.

They also found rosser still had
keys to the apartments.

This indicated to us that
rosser had likely gone into many

apartments during his term there
as a maintenance worker.

But Jenna's
apartment key was not among

those found in Jeremy's
possession.

And, just like the others,

Jeremy willingly provided a DNA
sample.

My feelings with Jeremy was
that we might not have our

person, being how cooperative he
was, and his demeanor.

So investigators
had three possibilities.

Would a DNA match be among them,
or was the k*ller still at

large?

I have other cases where I
know who did it, I just can't

prove who did it.

This case is different, whereas
I can prove who did it... I just

don't know who did it.

With DNA samples
from three suspects, scientists

hoped to determine who k*lled
college student Jenna verhaalen.

And had it not been for science,
there's no telling what would

have happened.

Had we not had the DNA under
her nails or on the collar of

her shirt or on the carpet, we
may never have solved this

crime.

Without the forensic
evidence, I don't think there

would have been an arrest.

The DNA results left no doubt.

Jeremy rosser was in Jenna's
apartment on the night of the

m*rder.

What snapped?

What made him want to do this to
her?

It's just... It's weird.

When police
arrested rosser, he wasn't

surprised.

There's no screaming,
yelling, "I'm innocent.

What are you talking about?"
It's just, "oh, okay."

And so, that was a big
indication.

Prosecutors believe
that rosser's intrusion into

Jenna's apartment while she was
in the shower was no accident.

After that encounter,
prosecutors believe rosser used

his master key again, on the
night of the m*rder, to enter

Jenna's apartment while she was
at work.

This time, they believe he hid
in Jenna's second bedroom and

waited for her.

Jenna came around home around


Spencer hood, also stopped by...
Something rosser probably didn't

anticipate.

This forced rosser to wait
another three hours.

Think I'm gonna get going.

All right.

I hope I do well on this test.

Oh, you're gonna be fine.

Don't worry.

Thank you.

I love you.

I love you, too.

Spencer left
shortly after midnight...

Love you.

Bye, sweetie.

I love you, too.

But he called

Jenna at 12:47 to say goodnight.

After that call, Jenna went to
bed, and at some point, rosser

att*cked.

Jenna fought for

her life, scratching him,
collecting his skin cells.

He strangled her to death.

Tiny drops of rosser's blood
landed on Jenna's shirt and on

the rug next to her body.

I would like to say that
Jenna, in her last moments, I

guess, fought like she always
fights, and she's been a

fighter, and that was enough to
help us identify who this person

was so that we could try and
achieve some small sense of

justice for her and her family.

When charged with
Jenna's m*rder, rosser admitted

he was guilty, in order to spare
his family the ordeals of a

trial.

Rosser never revealed his
motive.

It's possible that Jeremy
entered Jenna's apartment to

burglarize it, and then, once
Spencer left, Jeremy may have

exited the bedroom, hoping to
get whatever he was there to

steal, and was caught by Jenna,
and then subsequently had to end

up murdering her, being that she
knew his identity.

It's also possible
the as*ault had something to do

with his marital problems at the
time.

Jenna looked very similar in
build to rosser's ex-wife.

He may have assaulted Jenna
based on the fact that he was

angry with his ex-wife.

The forensic evidence was
crucial to this case because we

don't have a motive.

Without his DNA, we don't really
have a motive for him going into

that apartment.

Regardless of his
motive, Jeremy rosser was

convicted of Jenna verhaalen's
m*rder and was sentenced to 55

years in prison.

He has two children.

They're gonna grow up with a
dad in prison, so... There's a

lot of people affected by the
decisions that rosser made.

This case stands out to me,
and I consider it to be one of

the most important cases that
I've worked in my career, based

on the type of person that Jenna
was.

She was a young person that had
her life ahead of her, and it's

just a tragic event that it has
to happen to someone like her.