Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam, it’s Yeardley. How are you guys? Oh, welcome to Season 19. Boy, we missed you. We really, really missed you. I’m so glad you’re here. We’re kicking this season off with a case from our own Detective Dan. That’s the good news. The caveat is this case is about an assault that’s as brutal as any we’ve covered on this podcast. So, heads up. Of course, Dan does not go into the details of what happened to the victim, whom we call Kate. It is enough to say that what she went through is shocking in its violence and depravity. And yet this is also a story about extraordinary resilience as well as excellent police work. As I listened to Dan tell this story, I remember thinking, how does a person like our piece of shit suspect in this episode end up like he does? How and why?

I’ve actually asked Dan, Dave and Paul if they ever wonder about those things, and they’ve all said they really don’t anymore. Part of it is that even if the perpetrator offers up a reason, it’s probably a lie, or utmost, only partly true. So, why bother asking the question if you can’t trust the answer? What I can tell you is if I were on a boat and the ship was going down, I’d want our victim Kate with me in my lifeboat. The woman is a badass and she does not suffer fools, so I’m naming this episode for her. Here is “Unbreakable.”

Yeardley: Hi there, I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley: Today on Small Town Dicks, my friends, we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hello.

Yeardley: Hello. Hello. We have Detective Dave.

Dave: And hello.

Yeardley: Hello. And we have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: Hey, hey.

Yeardley: Hey, hey and guess what, Small Town Fam. That’s all we have today. That’s right. We have our own Detective Dan on the microphone today. It’s been a while, and I’m super excited about this because I love it when the OG Team brings us stories from their storied careers. So, Dan, you’re an old pro at this. I’m just going to hand it over to you, ask you how this case came to you.

Dan: It’s been a minute. I haven’t given a case in a few seasons now.

Yeardley: Quite a few.

Dan: All right. So, this case came to me almost 20 years ago. I really want to protect the victim in this case because the things that happened to this victim are absolutely awful. And so, I was a K9 officer at the time when this case happened, and it did not happen in my jurisdiction, but I became involved in this case primarily because I was a K9 officer. So, this is middle of the summer, many, many years ago. So, this particular stretch of the summer, I actually remember it because it was very, very hot for a week. And I don’t know, hot weather makes people do weird stuff.

So, we’ve got this woman, Kate and Kate lives alone basically. Kate’s got a husband who works for the local university in a research department, like, 30 weeks out of the year. He’s actually out in the field doing research. So, he spent a lot of time in the eastern part of our state, so he’s not around. Kate and Brian are kind on the outs, and it’s amicable. They’ve just basically agreed that they shouldn’t be married anymore. But it’s not a contentious divorce that they’re going through. They’ve just agreed, like, “Yeah, we’re going to go our own separate ways.” So, Kate’s home alone a lot. And just recently, Kate began living alone. Her sister Renee, Renee used to live with her. Renee had a daughter with a guy named Jeremy. So, Jeremy, Renee, Kate and Brian all lived together for a while for about two years, and then Jeremy moved out at some point.

So, Jeremy moves out. Renee and Jeremy and Renee’s daughter stay living with Brian and Kate for a little bit. And about a week before this incident happens, Renee and the daughter move out of the house. So, now Kate is all alone.

Yeardley: And Dan, the rough age of this crew are they’re all like late 20s, early 30s kind of deal or.

Dan: Early 30s. Yeah. Young daughter. Daughter’s like two years old.

Dave: And did Jeremy move out because things weren’t going well with Renee and company?

Dan: Yeah. So, Jeremy’s a deadbeat. Jeremy never holds onto a job more than a couple months. And then the job search begins that takes another couple of months for him to find a job. And then he goes and loses that job because Jeremy likes to do drugs. And later, in talking to Brian, Brian says that over the two years that he lived there with Jeremy, he said maybe 10 sentences to him in two years. And Kate couldn’t stand Jeremy.

Yeardley: And sorry, is Brian the laconic person? Brian is the one who wouldn’t talk to Jeremy or Jeremy never really talked to Brian.

Dan: I think it was mutual. Like they didn’t have an interest in each other at all. And Brian works at a university and he’s a researcher, educated guy. He’s got a stable job. It just takes him out of town all the time.

Yeardley: And Jeremy is a jobless deadbeat.

Dan: Yeah. And I think Renee knows that Jeremy is a deadbeat, but they have a kid in common. So, she’s trying to hold on for their daughter. And she believes that she’s seeing a little movement out of Jeremy, that Jeremy is trying to get his shit together. So, we’ve got Renee and the daughter. They move out. Jeremy has moved into a trailer, and Jeremy moves down to his stepfather’s property about 15 miles south of town. And so that’s where Jeremy’s living. This particular day, Renee picks up Jeremy and the plan is they’re going to go over to– Renee is now staying with her mother Tina. They’re going to go, have a family dinner. So, Renee picks up Jeremy.

What Jeremy tells Renee is, “Hey, before we go to dinner, I left my backpack at the dental office.” Which is weird, right?

Yeardley: What?

Dan: So, Renee’s like, “Okay, yeah, whatever.” Renee drives Jeremy over to the dental office and he picks up his backpack. She notes it’s like a regular backpack, but it’s camouflage.

Yeardley: Are we to understand that Jeremy had a dental appointment and that’s why he left his backpack there?

Dan: I don’t know. I’m wondering if it was over in the bushes. And let me qualify, this whole investigation is done by the neighboring agency. What I did is I filed a FOIA, a Freedom of Information Act request with that police department. And I read over 187 pages of reports trying to put this together.

Yeardley: Wow, you were involved because you had Fido at some point down the line, they’re like, “We need Dan.”

Dan: Yeah. The lead detective, his name is Ted did a really good job. I just don’t know Ted. Otherwise, Ted would be here telling the story and not me.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Shout out to Ted.

Paul: Dan, just curious, what is Jeremy’s drug of choice?

Dan: Meth.

Dave: Explains the dental appointment.

Dan: Yeah, so frequently meth users, especially if you smoke it or you eat it, it rots your teeth because of those harsh chemicals that are in methamphetamine. So, Renee and Jeremy go pick up the backpack and off they go to Tina’s house, which Renee and Jeremy and Renee’s daughter are now staying at, and they have dinner. And of note during this dinner is that Jeremy has a half a piece of cornbread. That’s all he has to eat, which is odd. And Jeremy and Renee hang out at Tina’s house until about 9 o’clock and Renee’s like, “Hey, I’m going to take you home now.” What Renee didn’t know is that during the course of this dinner, Jeremy got to Renee’s set of keys and he removed a key from her key ring. So, Renee runs Jeremy back out to his trailer.

Dave: Renee takes Jeremy from this dinner back home, south of the city.

Dan: Yeah. And so, Renee goes into the house because she knows Jeremy’s stepfather and Jeremy’s brother. So, we’ve got Kyle and Tom. Tom is a stepdad, Kyle’s the stepbrother. And then Kyle has a girlfriend named Ashley who also lives at the property, but they don’t live in the trailer, that’s kind of Jeremy’s spot. They live in the house. And according to Kyle, Jeremy cannot wait for Renee to get out of there to leave. And normally she hangs around for a bit, but not tonight. Jeremy’s like, “Hey, shoo, get away. Go, leave.” And Kyle and Ashley notice that Jeremy’s kind of on edge. He’s pacing back and forth. He seems really angry. He’s distant. They describe him as being flighty and that he’s complaining about money, that he doesn’t have any money and he needs money.

And so around 11 o’clock, Jeremy goes to Kyle and Ashley and says, “Hey, will you drive me back to town?” Which this isn’t just like driving around, like a mile away. This is 15 miles south of town. And it’s 11 o’clock. And so, they’re like, “Okay, where are we taking you?” And he says, “Hey, I want to go over to this part of town.” And it’s the western part of town.

Yeardley: What’s the excuse for why he needs to leave at 11 PM?

Dan: So, Jeremy, even though he’s trying to get back with Renee, Jeremy likes women. And Jeremy has lots of girlfriends. So, he tells Kyle and Ashley, “Hey, I want you to take me over to this woman’s house. And I’m going to stay there tonight.” They’re like, “All right, fine.” So, they drive him into town. And when they start getting close to where this woman lives, Jeremy says, “Hey, just pull over right here and you can drop me off.” Kyle and Ashley drop Jeremy off, which is weird at this intersection. They don’t take him actually to the house. And Jeremy just gets out on foot. He’s got his backpack, and off he goes into the night. Where they actually dropped him off is about a block and a half away from Kate’s house, Renee’s sister.

Yeardley: Okay.

Dan: So, now we’ll switch over to Kate. It’s 11:15ish. She’s locked up the house. She’s lying in bed watching the 11 o’clock news. And she hears the deadbolt turn in the front door.

Yeardley: And Kate lives alone.

Dan: Kate lives alone. Jeremy used to live in this house with Renee like a year prior. Kate hears the deadbolt turn. She’s like, “My sister and my mother came over.” Because she knows her husband is in the eastern part of the state. So, she gets up, she goes to her bedroom door. She opens it, and guess who’s standing there? Jeremy. He immediately tackles her to the ground. She’s right by her closet. He reaches into her closet. There is some belts that are hanging on some hooks. He yanks a few belts off these hooks, and he starts binding her hands and her ankles. And what he says to her is, “Now you understand, bitch.”

Yeardley: Oh, God.

Dan: Kate never cared for Jeremy, ever. She hated the fact that Jeremy lived in the house. She avoided him at all costs. Jeremy was not allowed to come over the house unless he was with Renee after he had moved out. So, Jeremy’s got her on the ground, he’s binding her, and he can’t get the bindings tight enough. So, she’s got some shoes in the closet nearby. He pulls out a knife. He’s got his backpack there too, right? So, pulls out a knife. He starts cutting shoelaces from these shoes. And he ties her hands and her ankles. And then he puts a dog collar around her throat.  And he uses this dog collar as basically a handle for her so he can control her. And over about the next four hours, Jeremy does everything imaginable to Kate. Just victimizes her over and over and over again and sexual assaults.  During this process, on multiple occasions, he has her either shower or get into the bath.

And one time that he had her get into the bath, she’s bound, her hands are tied behind her back and her legs are bound. And he puts her stomach down, face down in the bathtub with water in it. So, she’s like struggling to like not drown. And then he assaults her again in the bathtub. The other thing that he’s doing throughout this ordeal that Kate is trying to survive is– Jeremy is smoking meth. And Jeremy is trying to get Kate to ingest the meth. So, he’s putting it up by her nose and covering her mouth so she has to breathe it in.

Dave: And Kate’s not the type of person to be using drugs.

Dan: No, she’s not. She had a bong in the house. She later says, “I haven’t smoked weed in four years.” She has alcohol every now and then in social occasions, but she is drug free. And so, Jeremy’s trying to get her to ingest meth and she keeps blowing her nose and blowing the meth away. She does not want meth in her system. And at some point during these assaults, Kate tries to escape and she kicks Jeremy in the face. It doesn’t really have an effect on him. Jeremy’s taken quite a few punches and probably kicks in his life because he fights mixed martial arts.

And she tries to make her way to the door. If you’ve ever seen someone in Hobbles back in the day, they call it the Joliet lockstep. When your feet are handcuffed basically, ankle cuffed, you can take these short little steps, right?

Dave: Like three inches at a time, shuffle.

Dan: Yeah. She’s trying to make her way to the front door. She can’t make it. He grabs her, he pulls her back into the room, throws her on the bed, assaults her again. What she endured that night is just unthinkable. It’s every woman’s nightmare, I’m sure.

Yeardley: And it goes on for hours, doesn’t it?

Dan: About four and a half, five hours.

Yeardley: Dan, talk a little bit about what meth does to people because obviously meth is playing a pretty big role here in encouraging Jeremy’s impulses. Not that he’s not also a piece of shit separate from that, but explain a little bit about what meth does.

Dan: So, meth is a CNS stimulant, central nervous system stimulant. Basically, it’s an upper. A lot of times you see people energized.  People use meth to stay awake.

Yeardley: It also makes them hypersexual, you guys have said.

Dan: Makes them hypersexual. Some people, it can push them into schizophrenia– [crosstalk]

Dave: Psychosis type stuff.

Dan: Yeah. Some people hallucinate on it sometimes. I don’t think that that’s a common side effect of meth, but I have heard of addicts when they said that they were hallucinating. It’s not like a psychedelic.

Dave: Cocaine is a very expensive but very short duration high and meth is a relatively cheap and long duration high. So, you get hours out of meth, where you get minutes out of cocaine. And so, it’s more affordable and you get a longer high. And there’s so many cases where we’ve had suspects that did horribly violent, awful things. And the common denominator is meth. It’s like horrible, horrible stuff. And every person I ever asked you to arrest somebody with a warrant, and you get in their pockets and there’s a little bag of meth. And I used to ask folks that were agreeable to have a discussion, I’d say, “Hey, the first time you use meth, do you wish you’d never done it?” And every single person said, “I wish I would have never– would have never even tried meth. Because after the first time, that was it.” Horrible stuff.

Dan: Yeah. So, at one point during this assault, Jeremy says that he doesn’t have any money and that between assaults, he would walk around the house and he would look for items to take. I mean, similar to D’Angelo sounds like.

Paul: Yep.

Dave: I mean, there’s only so many ways you can do this, but it’s uncanny.

Paul: It’s obvious to me, Jeremy has developed a fantasy, a violent fantasy related to Kate, and he finally got his opportunity to carry it out. There’s preplanning going on. He’s being dropped off a distance from Kate’s house. He’s got the key to be able to come in. I’m kind of curious what’s in the backpack? [laughs] Sometimes these guys will come with what I would call, a sexual assault kit.

Dan: I’m glad you brought that up, Paul, because it reminded me of a couple other details. So, also in the backpack is masking tape, and he uses the tape on Kate. And Jeremy has also got his cell phone out, and he’s documenting his assaults on Kate while he’s doing it. So, he’s taking photos and he’s taking videos while he’s assaulting her as trophies, so he can relive it. And, Kate is trying to survive. So, Kate is running through every survival instinct in her brain, and she’s saying, “Hey, take my laptop. What else do you want?” And Jeremy tells her, “That ain’t going to work for me, money, there’s more things that I need to do with you. And so, at one point, he makes her pull out her laptop and unbinds her. And she’s able to log into her banking account and show him, “I don’t have any money, look at my balance, you can’t steal from me, I don’t have anything.”

And Jeremy comes up with this plan that he’s going to drive to an ATM. He’s going to file a fraudulent deposit slip, put it into the ATM for $300, and then he’s going to withdraw $200. Because this banking system, apparently if you deposit a certain amount, you can withdraw a portion of that automatically without the bank ever knowing that there’s not a check in this envelope. So, Jeremy walks Kate out to the car. She’s bound still. Her feet and her hands are bound. And he has a dog collar on her. And he actually ties shoelaces to the dog collar down to her hands behind her back. Her movement is so restricted at this point. And he puts her in the passenger seat of her car. He reclines the passenger seat, and off they go. He drives away. And he goes to this ATM that is near our city.

Yeardley: And Jeremy puts the passenger seat down so nobody can see Kate.

Dan: Yeah. And so, this is about 4 in the morning. They go to the ATM. Later, Detective Ted gets video of the ATM. The camera doesn’t capture a whole lot. It really captures the top of Jeremy’s head, but you can see the headrest on the driver’s side, but you can’t see the headrest on the passenger side. So, that corroborates what Kate later tells the police that he had me in a reclined position. So, he makes a $200 withdrawal, and then they begin driving again. And they drive south of our town near a lake where Dave and I used to spend a lot of time when we had our boat. And he takes her out in the woods, and he assaults her in the woods again. He gets her back in the car, he assaults her in the backseat of the car, and he tells her, “Yeah, I’m probably just going to drop you off out here in the woods. But there are so many camping spots around here, you’ll be able to find help too fast. So, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to keep you.”

And so this whole time they’re driving around, the fuel light on this car is on, and Jeremy’s trying to find fuel. So, out there by the woods, there are a couple gas stations that are nearby, but they’re closed because it’s like 4:30, 5 o’clock in the morning. Nothing’s open. And in our state at the time, you couldn’t pump your own gas. You had to have an attendant.

Yeardley: Oh, that’s right.

Dan: So, Jeremy’s trying to figure out what he’s going to do with Kate. Kate fully believes that Jeremy is going to kill her and throw her in the woods somewhere, and for good reason.

Dave: And Jeremy’s carjacked a car with less than a quarter of a tank of gas, probably, or way under that.

Dan: Yeah.

Dave: Not great planning there.

Dan: Yeah. So, Jeremy’s still looking for gas. I think he wants to drive further into the national forest that borders our town to the east and to the south and get rid of Kate. I think that’s what he was planning on doing. But he needs gas. So, Jeremy goes to another rural gas station on this highway that heads south of our town up into really dense forest, where if she gets killed and disposed of out there, it’s going to probably be hunters that come across her remains. So, Jeremy’s looking for gas. He finds this gas station. It’s still a rural gas station, but it’s open. And he pulls into the gas station. This is all caught on video at this gas station. The attendant walks up. Jeremy lowers the window about 2 inches and presents some cash.

Kate, who’s in the passenger seat, makes eye contact with the attendant and mouths the words, “Help me.” And the attendant looks at her like, “What am I looking at?” And then she just starts screaming.

Yeardley: Go, Kate.

Dan: Yeah, and Jeremy looks over at her, looks at the attendant like, “Hey, man, she’s crazy. I don’t know what she’s all upset about.” Mind you. Kate is bound and she’s nude from the waist up.

Yeardley: Oh my God.

Dan: Her feet are bound and taped. Her hands are behind her back. And what Kate is able to do is she’s able to unbuckle her seatbelt and reach for the door and spill her body out the door. And she just takes off running toward the store, that could be near the store [unintelligible ] that is at the gas station.

Dave: Like shuffling.

Dan: Yeah, she’s hobbled and she is trying to make her way to the store as fast as she can. Leaves the passenger door open, and Jeremy just takes off. Drives away with the door open, like swung open, and just takes off and gets out on the highway and he’s gone. And the gas station people call the police right away. And it’s a volunteer fire department that first responds and then our county sheriff responds out there and now people start learning about what happened over the last five, six hours.

Paul: And Kate just saved her life.

Dab: Yeah. So, it’s 6:30 in the morning now. So, we’re about seven hours from the initial assault, and Kate has now saved her own life.

[Break 1]

Dan: So, this particular night I was working. I was working graveyard with my canine. I didn’t hear anything about this. So, at 6:30 in the morning is when Kate escapes. I didn’t hear anything over the scanner or anything about this.

Yeardley: Why do you think that is?

Dan: I don’t know. I don’t think it was anybody withholding.

Dave: Trying to put the story together and figure out what happened.

Dan: Yeah, because this isn’t something that we come across every day. So, you know, you’ve got all these people responding out there and information just didn’t get passed down. And I don’t blame anybody. That’s just the way it happened. So, Kate is taken to the hospital and she’s examined by a SANE nurse, a sexual assault nurse. Officers arrive. Once they figure out where this initial kidnapping and assault occurred, the appropriate police department, our neighboring town, they respond. So, we’ve got officers going to Kate’s house to secure that scene. And then we’ve got officers and a detective being sent out to the hospital to contact Kate. And so, this detective, Detective Ted, he’s at the hospital. He has the same nurse basically interview Kate, and he just observes and takes notes of the interview.

And basically everything that I talked about. I’m not going to get into the details of what happened to Kate, but it’s terrible. And a few quotes that Kate says during her interview is Jeremy tells her right when he tackled her, he said, “Now you understand, bitch.” He also says, “Don’t scream or I’m going to be very mean.” And she believes him. She actually cooperates with him, even though she’s trying to escape and everything but the calculus going on in her brain. She’s just trying to stay alive at this point.

Yeardley: Do you ever find out what Jeremy means by “Now you understand, bitch?” What’s he referring to?

Dan: I’m not sure, and it wasn’t in the report. I think what Jeremy was saying is, there’s nothing you can do about this because I’m doing it to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Yeardley: I see.

Paul: Jeremy, obviously I would need to know more about the actual different types of sexual assault acts that Jeremy did to truly evaluate. But based off of his demeanor, the binding, the physical overpowering of Kate he comes off as what we call a power assertive rapist. He’s not like the NorCal Rapist that I previously have talked about. Who’s the guy that likes to cuddle? This is the guy that wants to dominate his victim. And so, he uses that physical power, but also the words, he’s intimidating through those words. Often these types of offenders, the phrases that they use to the victims are very denigrating, demeaning to the victim, but also very vulgar in terms of, what they’re demanding from the sexual aspect.

Dave: And I just get the feeling Jeremy’s been thinking about this for a very long time. And that’s part of that– now you understand is that there’s a different side of Jeremy she hasn’t seen before.

Paul: Yeah.

Dan: And so another thing, Kate relays to the nurse and the detective that when they pull into the gas station, Jeremy puts his hand on her in the passenger seat and says, “Stay down, don’t say anything or we’re going to end up in a high speed chase and we’re both going to die.”

Yeardley: Wow.

Dan: So, Jeremy’s not going to give up is basically what that means.

Dave: Yeah.

Yeardley: And Jeremy is high on meth at this point. When Jeremy and Kate pull into the gas station, he’s been smoking meth the whole night.

Dan: Yep.

Dave: Bad combo.

Dan: Yeah. So, I’ll go back to the gas station. So, the rural fire department and the deputy that showed up, obviously they want to free up Kate’s legs. So, they cut her bindings to some degree, but they leave them intact, which is important for evidence. You want to preserve those things. And they do a good job. They actually take photos before they cut these things off, and then they cut them off and they photograph them afterward. So, now we got the officers over at Kate’s house and the two patrol guys that actually show up at the house, they walk up and they notice a key. And it’s got a red cap, like a red plastic cap over the top of the key. And it’s sitting on the walkway up to the front door. That’s Renee’s key. So, Renee and Tina actually show up at the house because they were at the hospital with Kate when they found out.

And then they go over to the house and they’re going to sign a consent form to search. And the patrol officers look at Renee and they’re like, “Hey, does this look familiar?” And she looks at her keychain and she’s like, “That’s my key. That’s my house key to Kate’s house.” And so, they go up to the door and they actually unlock the door with the key. And it’s the key that Jeremy had taken off Renee’s key ring the night before. And so, they go in. What I read in the reports is the house was very well maintained and it was clean everywhere. And then you get to Kate’s bedroom and it’s just a disaster. There’s stuff strewn all about. Like, basically, Jeremy had kind of ransacked this room trying to find stuff to steal.

The bed is in disarray because of what Jeremy was doing to Kate all night. They find two condoms on the floor that are used. They find meth pipes on the floor that Jeremy had left at the house. They find a bong that Jeremy had smoked weed and tried to get Kate to smoke weed, but she didn’t. Basically, everything corroborating what Kate had told the nurse and Detective Ted. And so, they seize all those items of evidence. They end up sending those things off to the lab to get everything tested. And now the hunt for Jeremy begins. We’re probably at 10:00 in the morning now.

Dave: So, this is how this case came to you?

[laughter]

Dan: Yeah. So, when you have a case like this, there’s usually a press release that is sent out and the news got a hold of this. I still don’t remember ever hearing about this case until the following morning. But the newspaper picks it up. And so, running in the next day’s paper will be an article on this incident and that they’re looking for Kate’s car and Jeremy.

Yeardley: Can I ask you a question?

Dan: Yeah.

Yeardley: So, Kate and Jeremy pull into the gas station. Kate escapes from the car and Jeremy takes off. Does he actually get any gas before he takes off?

Dan: Nope.

Yeardley: So, he’s still running on empty literally.

Dan: Yes. In the case files, I end up finding he did get a little bit of gas eventually, but it was after he left this gas station. Now, he’s just on his own. And this car really hasn’t been like reported stolen yet. It’s an unreported stolen at this point.

Dave: And Jeremy knows everybody is going to be looking for him.

Dan: Yeah. And so, Jeremy refers to himself in his criminal world with all of his criminal buddies. He calls himself “Long Hair,” like that’s his name because Jeremy’s got long hair.

Yeardley: What kind of criminal record does Jeremy have?

Dan: Jeremy’s a registered sex offender.

Yeardley: Oh.

Dan: And he offended on a member of his family.

Yeardley: Oh.

Dan: So, Jeremy texts one of his buddies who goes by OG and Jeremy says, “911-Long Hair.” This is like 07:00 in the morning. And OG says, “Why are you waking me up?”

Yeardley: I can’t believe OG is awake at all if he runs with Jeremy.

Dan: Yeah. Jeremy says, “Help, Long Hair.” OG says, “Help with what?” And Jeremy then says, “I’m on the run, Long Hair.” So, Jeremy knows. Jeremy then drives to another friend, basically an acquaintance, somebody that he’s met through Ashley.

Yeardley: And who’s Ashley again?

Dan: Ashley is Jeremy’s stepbrother’s girlfriend.

Yeardley: Okay.

Dan: Jeremy shows up at that guy’s house. This guy also lives in a trailer on a property of a business that he works at. So, he’s kind of like, keeps an eye on the business, but he lives in a trailer over in the corner of the parking lot, and it’s a steel fabrication business. And so, Jeremy goes over to that guy’s house and asks that guy, “Hey, I know you broke up with this girl. Would you mind if I date her?”

Yeardley: I’m sorry, what?

Dave: So, he’s asking permission to date.

Dan: This other guy’s ex-girlfriend, recently ex-girlfriend.

Yeardley: I just– What happened to the urgency of Jeremy being chased by the cops?

Dan: Well, Jeremy’s not actively being chased by the cops, not currently. The cops sure are looking for him, and Jeremy knows that.

Yeardley: Oh, I see. We’re not in a high-speed chase right now.

Dan: Correct. But any person that’s worked in law enforcement, anybody who’s been around meth users, this behavior is not surprising at all. Their minds are all over the place and sometimes they’re paranoid. Sometimes, the stuff that they do just defies logic.

Yeardley: It’s insane. Where are your priorities, Jeremy? What the– what?

Dan: Yeah.

Yeardley: Okay.

Dan: I mean, he’s going to ask, like, “Does she like flowers? What’s her favorite restaurant?”

Yeardley: Right. And yet I don’t think Jeremy’s that kind of Romeo.

Dan: Obviously not, because Jeremy’s in this predicament.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dan: Jeremy’s a bad dude.

Yeardley: He’s a piece of shit. Okay.

Dan: So, Detective Ted ended up talking to this guy, and the guy’s like, “Yeah. What was really odd was that Jeremy showed up here unannounced and not with Ashley. Because I’m friends with Ashley, I’m not friends with him.” So, Jeremy takes off throughout the day. Jeremy returns to this guy a few times, just coming back, and this guy says, “I saw him pull into the lot, but I was working, so I wasn’t really paying attention to him. It was just kind of like he was hanging around. But I didn’t have really any contact. I just saw him a couple times throughout the day.” And he confirms Jeremy’s driving this black little sedan.

Dave: Kate’s car.

Dan: Yeah.

Dave: So, nothing really of note for the rest of the day. I mean, obviously Kate’s going through a bunch of stuff at the hospital and being interviewed and I can’t imagine what she’s going through, her and her family and Renee, knowing that, the wolf is somebody she brought into Kate’s life.

[Break 2]

So, it’s the next night.

Yeardley: You mean the night after Kate was assaulted and escaped?

Dan: Yeah, it’s that night. I’m working 10:30 to 7:30 in the morning. There have been some news reports. I don’t hear anything in briefing. Typically, we will go over like somebody sends out a BOLO for like a stolen car. I don’t remember hearing any of that. We didn’t have any of that information yet. Probably about 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock in the morning, my sergeant says, “Hey, can we meet?” So, yeah, sure. So, I go car to car meet with my sergeant and he says, “Look, this happened over in the neighboring town yesterday. Here’s the car, here’s the suspect. I’m going to tell dispatch that you are not to be sent to anything unless it’s directly K9 related, that we need you for something like a burglary or whatever, but go find this guy.” And that meant a lot to me.

Dave: He gave you a project?

Dan: He did. What it meant to me was that my sergeant thought I could actually find this guy. And like, “Hey, I’m just going to act like you’re not working for us tonight,” like, just go find this asshole. So, he gives me a brief description of what happened and where this guy hangs around and where he had taken the victim.

Yeardley: You’re talking about where Jeremy hangs around?

Dan: Yeah. And he says, “Yeah, like you have free reign. Go fill up your car with gas and go search.” And so that’s what I do for like the last three, four hours of my shift is I’m just driving around this area that Jeremy had taken Kate up into the woods. Dave and I are very familiar with all those roads because we’re up there all the time in the summer with our boat. So, I was driving all those roads. I’m sure people, if they saw me, they’re like, “What is that town police car doing up here?” And so, I search and I search and I’m checking campgrounds, I’m checking boat landings. I’m going to all these places that typically we come across people who are hiding, trying to lay low, and I can’t find Jeremy. I can’t find the stolen car. So, while I’m looking for Jeremy, Jeremy is around. Jeremy goes to a gas station really near our town that’s like in a little pocket that we actually patrol.

And Jeremy goes to this gas station and Jeremy apparently has some meth. But Jeremy needs some money and Jeremy tries to sell meth to the gas station attendants. And they’re like, “Yeah, we’re going to decline on that. We don’t need your meth.” And they go about their business. It’s like 04:00 in the morning when this happens. And then at about 6:30, 7 o’clock Jeremy comes back

Yeardley: To the gas station?

Dan: Same gas station and the same attendants. And one of them is like, “What’s this guy doing? Like, this guy’s weird. And he writes down the license plate.” And then Jeremy leaves. He walks in, the morning paper’s sitting there. He sees this article on Jeremy and what he did to Kate. And he looks and he’s like, “Holy shit, that’s the guy.” That guy was just here. He gets on the phone. He calls the police. And now everybody is like, “Oh, we’re going to find this guy.” So, our whole county is basically activated.

Dave: So, you’re scanning.

Dan: I’m scanning and I hear this and I’m like, “Oh, he’s got to be close.” And I wasn’t that far away. And they give a direction of travel. The bad thing from where Jeremy left, he can get on the freeway. He can go north or south, or he can go into our town or he can go into the neighboring town. He’s got basically four directions of travel that he can kind of go. And I’m just banking on the fact that he’s going to end up passing me, that I’m going to find him. Like, the adrenaline’s going now, right? And there’s a little bit of a delay. And I’m like, “Okay, if I were him and I was trying to lay low, this is where I would go.” And we have a mountain that a lot of people hike in the morning, that there are a couple different places you can park. And so, I bombed down to those parking lots hoping that I would come across Jeremy in the car and wasn’t there.

And so now we’re getting 7:30, 7:45, almost 8 o’clock in the morning. And now I’m working over time, which my sergeant didn’t have a problem with. But at some point, he’s like, “Hey, go ahead and secure. But like, stay awake.” Like, just be ready.

Yeardley: What’s secure?

Dan: Go home and put your dog up and act like your shift is over, but be prepared. Don’t go to bed right away.

Dave: He’s telling you, take your portable inside your house with you, your portable radio and scan. I want you to be aware of this as it comes out.

Dan: Yeah. And so, I go home, I get Fido out of the car, I take him out back. Our routine was right when Fido got home, he got to eat. And Fido is like a Hoover when it comes to food. [Yeardley laughs] I gave him a 16-ounce steak for his birthday around that time, and he ate it in less than a minute. It was crazy.

Yeardley: [laughs] Go Fido.

Dan: Yeah, but so I fed Fido. And I’m just sitting in my house and it’s like getting closer to 8 o’clock and I’m like, “All right, well.” And my phone rings. It’s like right as I had turned off my radio, my phone rings and they’re like, “Hey, are you scanning?” And I was like, “No, what’s going on?” They’re like, “We’re in pursuit with that vehicle.” I’m like, “Oh, okay, “Where?” We’re northbound on the interstate. And I said, “Okay, let me get going.” Now the consideration here is I just fed Fido. And these dogs are really sensitive to torsion. So, what torsion is, is a dog’s belly, you think about a pipe coming in one side and a pipe coming in the other and like a bag hanging below it, the bag is the stomach. And when there’s food in there, it’s heavy and it swings when the dog is really active. And what that bag can do is it can totally rotate around. Like if you were on a swing and you went around the world on a swing. And that can actually kill a canine because it shuts off the gastric system of the dog and dogs can die from it.

We are very careful with our dogs right after we feed them, we don’t exercise our dogs. We let them digest. But I’m very mindful and I’m like, “Shit, I just fed Fido. And here we go.” So, I get in my car and I get to drive like a bat out of hell.

Dave: Can you talk about how Jeremy is picked up in this pursuit?

Dan: Yeah. So, one of our officers was patrolling right near where I was. Like, we had driven the same roads. It just happened that I just wasn’t in the right place at the right time. But this day watch officer, he’s a great guy. His name’s Dave. Another Dave, not my sergeant Dave, not my brother Dave, [Yeardley laughs] but he and another guy, Scott are patrolling this area. And Jeremy drives past him and they look at him and they’re like, “Yep, that’s our guy.” [Dave laughs] And so they’re right next to a freeway on ramp. And Jeremy hops on the freeway and the chase is on. And Jeremy reaches speeds of 120 miles an hour trying to get away.

They set up spike strips. He avoids the spike strips. He drives north of our town and our neighboring town on the freeway and goes up a few exits, and then he takes an exit and then drives eastbound. Now, if you go east on this road, you are driving into these hills that we have that are the border of the northern part of our town. A lot of [unintelligible ] wells go up there, but a lot of like weekend recreation. People will go up there and shoot or they’ll ride motorbikes up there.

Dave: We get a lot of stolen cars dumped up there. We’ve had bodies dumped up there.

Dan: Yeah. So, Jeremy heads eastbound on this road. And at the end of this road is a gated community where there are some upper end homes there, some really nice properties. Jeremy blows through the gate.

Dave: Like wrought iron fence gate.

Dan: Yeah. Just blows through this thing.

Dave: [laughs] Like a Hollywood chase.

Dan: Like 70 miles an hour. Just boom.

Yeardley: Can that little car take that kind of impact?

Dan: It did. And so, he blows through the gate. He goes to the end of this road, eventually just dead ends. And if you keep going, you’re in the forest. And Jeremy takes his seatbelt off. And Jeremy [unintelligible ] it into the forest.

Yeardley: [laughs] Wait, what? He, he jumps the car. Like the car gets airborne. But aren’t there trees? He’s in a forest. Doesn’t he just run right into a tree?

Dan: Well, there are trees around, but right there it’s just foliage. It’s pretty dense foliage.

Yeardley: Like bushes and brush and things.

Dan: Yeah, blackberries. In our part of the country, we have blackberries. They’re very heavy, especially during the summer. These vines are like an inch thick.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dan: Big, rip you apart. And so, Jeremy drives to the end of this road and there’s a bit of a berm there and goes airborne. Doesn’t hit any trees, but lands and then hops out of the car and takes off on foot.

Yeardley: Wow.

Dave: Looking back, do you think that’s a suicide attempt?

Dan: I think it was. He later says that he took his seatbelt off so it would be quicker to get out and run. What he didn’t understand was he got injured from the impact.

Dave: Because he’s bouncing all over the cab of the–

Dan: Yeah, like the steering wheel hit his chest pretty hard. The driver airbag didn’t go off, but the passenger one did.

Dave: There’s something to be said for that.

Dan: Yeah.

Paul: [laughs] Whoops.

Dan: Yeah. So, Jeremy, when his car comes to rest, like, he’s a good 80ft into this forest. Like, he really hammered the gas. He estimates that he’s going 60 miles an hour when he enters the forest and eventually hits a tree, and that’s where the car stops. Our officers get out and give chase to Jeremy, who’s now on foot, and he’s running eastbound through really dense brush. And then eventually, it’s a very steep hill through very dense brush.

Dave: And there’s two police officers at the scene at the end of this pursuit and they’ve got acres to cover.

Dan: Yeah, it’s a big wilderness, very vast, treacherous, steep terrain. We got rattlesnakes out there, bears and mountain lions, and there’s all kinds of stuff out there. So, our officers aren’t able to catch Jeremy, And Jeremy quickly disappears into the brush, and they lose sight of him. And they know I’m coming, so they just hang out and they wait because they don’t want to contaminate the track. And so, when I arrive, I’m about 10 minutes behind everything, and I arrive and they say, “This is where we last saw him.” So, I take Fido to that spot, and we start tracking. And I remember talking to my sergeant, the same sergeant that had told me to go find Jeremy. He’s like, “Hey, neighboring town has K9s coming too, that they already called in. Let’s try to get up the hill as fast as we can and set a perimeter on the eastern side of this. And I’m like, “Okay, that seems like a good idea.” [crosstalk]

Dave: To block him.

Dan: Yeah. Basically, I’m going to block this guy from continuing, and we’re going to let these other K9s come in, and we’re going to squeeze him.

Yeardley: And, Dan, how long does Fido need to digest before you could put him to work again? Ideally.

Dan: At least an hour. I would feel comfortable an hour, hour and a half. And we’re at about 15 minutes right now.

Yeardley: Okay.

Dan: And so earlier, I had mentioned that it was very hot during this stretch. I checked the weather for that day yesterday. I was like, “I wonder how hot it was.” It was 81 degrees at 08:00 in the morning. That is not normal for us. That is very hot. It got up in the upper 90s that day. That is another consideration that we have with our dogs. Our dogs don’t sweat. They regulate their temperature by panting. And so, I am running Fido up this hill. Very strenuous exercise for this dog who is on a full belly. This is the thickest forest that I’ve ever gone through. Like, there were no hiking paths or trails or anything. Like, we’re going over stumps, we’re going over logs that are like 4ft in diameter, like huge old growth Doug fir, and it’s just nasty. And we’re trying to get up this hill and we end up making it to the top of the hill.

I was in better shape than I was now, but I was toast. I was like, man, I need a little break. And I want to give Fido a little break too. And so, I feel comfortable that we outpace this guy, because typically people who use meth aren’t in great shape.

[laughter]

Now everybody’s arrived at this location. We’ve got dogs that are working. We’ve each taken a sector and we’re working our dogs. And this forest is so dense that if something was 100ft in front of you in this forest, you probably wouldn’t see it. Like, it’s just thick, really thick. And there were some spots where if something was 20ft in front of you, you wouldn’t know it was there.

Dave: I’m picturing, like, Rambo, that forest that he runs into.

Dan: Yeah.

Dave: Like, that’s what it looks like.

Paul: I was picturing the same thing, Dave.

[laughter]

Dave: It’s like– you’re like, oh, that’s what it is.

Paul: Yeah. And Dan, I’m assuming you’re in full uniform.

Dan: Yeah. Black, too. I wear black.

Paul: Oh, okay. Yeah. That’s tough.

Dan: Yeah. So, everybody’s arrived. At some point, we set up a command post down where all the police cars are. It just happened to be right next to our current DA’s house.

Dave: Current at the time.

Dan: Current at the time, yeah. So, he’s like, “What the fuck is going on?” What are you guys doing?

Dave: What happened to our gate?

[laughter]

Dan: Yeah. So, at some point, somebody in the command post says, “Hey, we need to get Air1 up, and that’s our chopper. I’ve only been on three cases in my life where air support was called in. That’s how rare it is for us. So, it takes like an hour to get the chopper. What was frustrating for me is the chopper arrives and lands and wants a brief. And I’m like, “What? No, you don’t need a brief. Like, get in the air and whatever’s running around in the forest, tell us where he is.”

[laughter]

And we’ll go get him.

Paul: And Dan, would this have FLIR, the forward looking infrared to be able to see through that thick forest?

Dave: It would. I remember hearing over the radio that they couldn’t use FLIR because it was too hot.

Paul: Oh, okay. That’s interesting.

Dan: I appreciate that guy coming out. It really didn’t help us at all.

Dave: Not great terrain for him to be searching.

Dan: Yeah, at night it would have been probably way better for him. Not on this hot day. So, I’m up there searching with Fido for probably a couple hours, and at some point, I come across– I’m not at the top of this hill, but I’m quite a ways up on this hill. And there’s a little clearing. And in this clearing, if you go to the western edge of this clearing, it’s pretty steep, drop off. And right down there is a bunch of blackberries. And so, I go over to this western edge where this drop off is, and Fido is really interested. Fido wants to go down, down the hill. Part of the reason why I wanted to get up the hill is because the way scent works on hot days is actually travels uphill.

So, human scent will actually move uphill on hot days because the air currents are rising, the ground is warming up, and it pushes that scent up the hill. And Fido wants to go down the hill now. And I’m like, “Dude, that guy’s down there,” and I can’t get there. Like, we’re going to die if we go over this edge. Like, we’re going to slide 80ft down this thing right into blackberries. Some of these vines, especially if they’re really mature and they’ve been there for a long time and they’re established, they’re like over an inch thick, these vines, and they have very sharp thorns on them, and it’s just thick. If you took razor wire and barbed wire and just balled it up and threw it on the ground, that’s what you would be falling into. It’s just nasty stuff. It’ll cut you up. It’s just terrible stuff. And so, I’m trying to make my way back down to these blackberries because I really want to check this area out. I’m not able to get there. I get down to the command post. Our DA has bought like 30 pizzas for us, and I was starving. And so, I’m just hanging out, and these other dogs go in there. And probably within 30 minutes, I hear screaming. And one of the county dogs, it was deputy Ryan, his dog. I don’t remember his dog’s name, but his dog went into those blackberry bushes and found Jeremy and pulled him out by his butt cheeks.

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

Dave: It’s a beautiful thing.

Dan: Jeremy was asleep when he got bit.

Yeardley: Seriously?

Dan: Yes.

Dave: The meth crash.

Dan: Yeah.

Yeardley: Oh.

Dan: And so Long Hair gets dragged out of the blackberry bushes by this Malinois. And Jeremy’s in custody, so everybody’s happy. I remember when they pulled him out, he looked like a bag of hammered shit. That’s what he looked like.

[laughter]

[Break 3]

So, Jeremy’s in custody now. And now Detective Ted and the neighboring agency, they’re going to have to do a lot of follow up work. One of those things is Detective Ted is going to talk to Jeremy. And so, Jeremy’s got to go to the hospital. I remember we gave him water at the scene. They had medics check him out, and then they took him to the hospital to make sure, because Jeremy said that he got injured when he hit the steering wheel.

Yeardley: When the car crashed.

Dan: Yeah. And he also told Detective Ted, if I wouldn’t have fell asleep, you guys never would have caught me. But you did fall asleep, Jeremy.

Yeardley: But you see, you did.

Dan: [laughs] That’s like saying, if I would have got away, you guys never would have caught me. Like, okay. [Yeardley laughs]

Dave: That dog and those pesky kids.

Dan: Yeah, but here you are in the silver bracelets.

Dave: But Jeremy is brought down to the command post, and he has to know that every available police officer is in the same area. Like, it’s Jeremy not appreciating the gravity of what he’s done.

Dan: Yeah, there were police cars everywhere, and we had that whole mountain covered. There were probably 40 or 50 cops up there walking through the forest. So, Jeremy ends up going back to the police station. Detective Ted interviews Jeremy, and Jeremy confirms that he used to date Renee and that they have a daughter in common and that he used to live with Kate and Brian and Renee with their daughter. They live together. And he says that over the past few years, he’s been having an affair with Kate and that he frequents Kate’s house about six times a month. And he always gets dropped off a few blocks away and walks in because he doesn’t want anybody to find out that Kate and Jeremy are having an affair.

Dave: Victim blaming.

Dan: Yeah. He also says that Kate frequently buys him drugs and that they smoke meth together. He’s explaining all these things, that he did to her. He also tells Detective Ted, “Oh, yeah, Kate doesn’t like being tied up. She does it because she knows it turns me on so much.”

Dave: So, the play is. This is all consensual and a big misunderstanding.

Dan: Mm-hmm.

Dave:

Dan: That’s what he’s trying to do. And Detective Ted lets Jeremy just go down that road, lock him in. Later in the interview, I read Detective Ted’s report just on the interview. It was 15 pages long, really thorough. And for probably the first 10 pages, it’s detective Ted letting Jeremy spin whatever lies he wants to spin. Then Detective Ted starts poking holes in Jeremy’s story. And he brings up, everybody I’ve talked to said that nobody likes you, Jeremy.

[laughter]

Everybody that I talked to says that Kate, in particular, couldn’t stand you, Jeremy. Then he talks about the gas station, and he says, “If Kate was with you voluntarily, why did she have a dog collar on? Why was she reclined in the seat? Why was she bound while she was in the car?”

Yeardley: And half naked.

Dan: And half naked. And he’s like, that’s a good question, Detective. I don’t really have an answer for that. Jeremy’s initial account of the gas station is, “Yeah, I pulled into the gas station, and I rolled my window all the way down, had no problem with it. Kate was just sitting over in the passenger seat, and I was just going to get some gas. And all of a sudden, she just freaked out. And I don’t know why she freaked out. And she got out of the car on her own power.” And the detective’s like, “How long did you sit there?” And he’s like, “I don’t know. A couple minutes, probably. She made it into the store, and I was still there waiting for her to come back out. Cause I didn’t understand why she was so upset.” And then Detective Ted’s like, “Well, I watched the video, and that’s not at all what happened, Jeremy.” And Jeremy’s like, “Okay, you’re right.” So, Detective Ted does a really good job in the interview and basically gets Jeremy to admit that everything he told Detective Ted earlier in the interview is bullshit. So, Jeremy also says, “Yeah, Kate, she doesn’t like to smoke meth. She likes to shotgun it.” Detective says, “What’s shotgun? I don’t understand what that is.” And he says, “That’s where I smoke meth. And I blow it in her mouth.” Another thing that he tried with Kate, right?

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dave: The corroboration here is fantastic.

Dan: Jeremy says that the $300 fraudulent deposit was Kate’s idea, even though she’s never done anything like that ever in her life. But that’s tweaker behavior that is right in Jeremy’s wheelhouse. So, Detective Ted does a great job with Jeremy and basically gets Jeremy to agree that all those lies are bullshit. So, Detective Ted, I really sing his praise. He did a really good job. Their whole department did a really good job on this case, very thorough. Jeremy goes to jail on a lot of charges. Driving related charges, kidnapping, the sexual assault charges, robbery, burglary. He gets everything. He gets the full meal deal, every, mandatory sentence crime in our state. He’s like, “Check the box for like all of these.”

Dave: It’s an expensive 36 hours for him.

Dan: Yeah. So, Detective Ted starts doing a lot of follow up. And so, he goes out to Jeremy’s trailer and they end up searching the trailer. They find evidence, packaging of items that Jeremy used during the assault. I’m not going to go into any more detail, but they find packaging for sex toys that he used during the assault. Of course, they’re compiling all the video stuff. They go out and they talk to Kyle, Tom and Ashley, Jeremy’s family. And so, I’ll talk about the interview with Tom. That’s Jeremy’s stepdad. He basically says like, “Yeah, Jeremy never manages to hold onto a job for more than like a month or two.” And Tom claims that he doesn’t know about Jeremy’s drug use.

Then he talked to Kyle and Detective Ted asks him, “Hey, are you surprised that your brother got arrested?” And Kyle says, “No, I’m not surprised at all. I think we all seen this coming.” And they go into a little history about Jeremy. Kyle says, “Yeah, Jeremy’s always got girls out here. And he just says he uses them for sex. He doesn’t want to be in a relationship.” He says that Jeremy has told him that his favorite part of role play is choking a girl out. He likes to tie women up prior to intercourse. These are bells going off in your head, I’m sure, Paul.

Paul: I am not surprised at all. As I mentioned, Jeremy’s been fantasizing about Kate. Well, it’s like now does Detective Ted go and track down some of these other women? I think Jeremy has some other victims. I’m just not sure if these women would have come forward.

Dan: Right. So, back to Kyle. Kyle then goes on to describe they were watching TV together. So, it was Kyle, Jeremy and Ashley watching TV. And they’re watching a true crime program. And the true crime program is this father-son duo, the father tells the son, “Hey, you’re not a man until you can prove yourself. And the way you can prove yourself is if you go into town, kidnap a girl, bring her out to the house and we rape her together. Then you’ll be a man.” And Jeremy says, “I’d love to do something like that” to Kyle. And Kyle believes him. Kyle’s like, “Oh, yeah, I’m sure this is in your wheelhouse.”

Dave: When they tell you who they are, right? Believe them.

Dan: Yeah. And so, typically, when we do press releases, we’ll say, “Hey, if you have any information, please call this line and ask for this detective.” And every now and then, you get really good information. And at some point, Detective Ted, he receives a phone call from one of Jeremy’s old employers probably a year prior, calls in. This guy owns a construction company, and Jeremy was working for him. And he says, “About a year ago, it was like last winter, I took some of my employees up to this lake, and we rode snowmobiles.” And on the way up there, Jeremy tells his boss that he’s been thinking about raping and murdering the girl he’s dating. And the boss says, “Don’t ever talk about anything like that again around me, or I’m going to snap your neck.”

And so he calls in and tells Detective Ted that. I just thought when I was reading through the reports, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that’s about right.” So, in the end, Jeremy gets indicted on all these charges. And they’re big, they’re big charges. And I’m not going to list all the charges just because out of respect to the victim.

Dave: Sexual assaults.

Dan: Yeah, sexual assaults, kidnapping, Robbery, burglary, a bunch of driving charges, failure to register as a sex offender because he was out of registration. He got a bunch of stuff. Jeremy pleads guilty, he gets 35 years.

Yeardley: Wow.

Dan: So, Jeremy’s not going to get out for a while. I think he’s got another 20 years or so to go.

Dave: It’s a perfect place for him.

Yeardley: What about all the images that Jeremy had on his phone?

Dan: Right, so Detective Ted actually brings that up in the interview. And another detective had done the dump of the phone and got into those videos and also noticed– Jeremy said that he’d been having this affair with Kate. There were no records of any phone calls or texts between Kate and Jeremy ever.

Yeardley: Right. Because it never happened.

Dan: It never happened. On the phone are videos and photos from that night. And Jeremy is claiming that it was consensual. And on the videos, you can clearly see that it’s not. In one of the descriptions of the video, she has a blank stare on her face, like she’s just trying to survive, like she had checked out mentally. I can’t imagine being in that position. I can’t, It’s awful. So, all that evidence that they had acquired inside Kate’s bedroom, they found used condoms. Obviously, there was a lot of DNA and forensic evidence that was seized in this case. It all comes back to Jeremy. It’s ludicrous that he would even try to cage this as consensual.

Paul: Detective Ted had Kate’s statements, and so now the forensic evidence is absolutely corroborating Kate’s story of what happened to her that night. One of the things, Dan, that I think a lot of people out there get really confused about is the burglary charge, because people, I think, misconstrue what burglary actually is.

Dan: Yeah. So, burglary is unlawful entry, in this case, into a dwelling with the intent to commit a crime. So that’s what burglary is. A lot of people say, “My house got robbed.” Your house did not get robbed, your house got burglarized. So typically, in a burglary, you also have a theft. The theft is the taking of the property. The burglary is the entry into the house unlawfully to commit a crime.

Paul: And he had the key to get in.

Dan: Yeah. You don’t have to force entry to commit unlawful entry.

Paul: And also explain kidnap.

Dan: So, kidnap. A lot of states have different statutes, and I know there have been other iterations of kidnap. Basically, Kate’s liberty has been taken by Jeremy. Now we’re on the path of the kidnapping, and then when he moves her out of the house, into the car, takes her, there’s your kidnapping.

Yeardley: Dan, forgive me, did you say that Jeremy pled guilty or he took a deal? How does he end up with 35 years?

Dan: I think he pled guilty. He got a deal.

Dave: And I imagine if he would have taken it to trial, his exposure would have been two or three times that 35 Years. So, you’re like, “Well, I could do 120 or 90 or they’re giving me a deal for 35.” I mean, the facts and evidence did not bode well for Jeremy at trial.

Paul: I’m sure Jeremy’s attorney was like, “You are done.” If this gets in front of a jury with everything that they had against Jeremy.

Dave: They’d be glaring at him during voir dire and opening statements.

Yeardley: Yep, yep. As much as Kate went through, I hope there was a small bit of comfort in her knowing how many resources were activated in order to get Jeremy in custody. Like, in case she ever thought nobody gave a shit. Boy, you guys really gave a shit. And that’s just amazing. That’s when the system works at its best. And I’m grateful for it.

Dan: My FTO when I first started, he goes, “Hey, so, like, you play baseball and I’m going to give you some analogies here. Some of these calls are going to seem like practice. Some of these calls are going to seem like a practice game. Some of these calls are going to feel like a game against the last place team in the league. Some are going to be a big game, and then some are going to be the World Series. And this was one of those World Series types of cases. Like, we have to find this guy.”

Yeardley: Yeah.

Paul: The crimes Jeremy committed against Kate, that’s as serious as it gets, short of homicide, that stack of crimes, you don’t get any worse than that.

Dave: I don’t think any of us have any doubts that murder was on the menu for Jeremy that day. That Kate, being resourceful and seeing an opportunity, takes it and saves her life. That’s strength. I don’t know that I would have had that strength.

Dan: Yeah.

Dave: Kate’s the hero here.

Dan: Yep.

Yeardley: Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you for bringing that to us today. It’s funny, I’ve said that a lot on this podcast and now after 10 years, it feels strange to thank somebody for bringing one of the worst stories they’ve ever told to a very wide audience. But as you say, Kate is the hero and the work that was done is exceptional. And I do think that stuff is really important.

Dan: Yeah.

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]