Knock Knock

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1:50This is Knock Knock. The unsolved murders of Betty Jones and Catherine Krigler. My name is Jason B. Jones.

2:01I was 10 years old. The phone rang. Something was wrong. Very wrong. That call was about my grandmother. She was dead. And not just dead, but murdered. I will never forget that night. Because it was September 3rd, 1990, was the night that I was introduced to evil. It was a very unusual crime for our community and of course a very brutal crime. It would take me 27 years to finally get up the courage to ask all the questions about that night. I'm kind of freaking out a little bit, not gonna lie. It was important for me to see where it happened as I was documenting this and trying to understand it.

2:49It was two girls hanging out, watching TV, getting ready to sleep. Being here, I feel like I understand how scary that would have been. With the knock on a door. Betty goes and answers the door. And the guy comes in. And immediately Catherine starts hearing screaming and knows something's wrong with Betty. And then he attacks Betty. and then he kills her. He immediately went toward Catherine, raped her, strangled her, thought he killed her. I could hardly wrap my head around it. The fact that there was somebody that had actually committed a murder and then to just rape my grandmother so nonchalantly, you know, and just leave her to die.

3:43I miss her.

3:51What was done in that house was as bad as anything Jack the Ripper ever did. Standing in front of this house today, 28 years later, what's it like for you knowing that you still don't have your man? It's frustrating. There's no doubt about it. I always assumed that Betty and Catherine's case was cold and dormant. What I learned is that Sergeant Lott is no ordinary police officer. Even though I'm a dinosaur, I'm constantly getting on the Internet and looking at science. Parabon, what they do is they take the DNA and they developed a DNA facial recognition of the killer. We're able to give them a prediction of what that person looked like.

4:33So it's essentially a genetic witness. Do you remember the moment when the picture revealed itself on your computer screen? It's like, now I know what you look like. I'm going to get you. Even as a child, I learned what the monsters fear. Whether imaginary or real, monsters today still fear the light. When we started this podcast, I thought that real answers would be years or decades off. Never in a million years did I think that we would get answers so quickly.

5:23Jason Jones has a job he loves. He designs album covers and produces music videos in Nashville. But for more than a year, he had a second passion. He had a podcast, a dark podcast. I will never forget that night. And it was personal. I remember waking up in the middle of the night sweating. Jason launched his podcast in September 2017. It had an odd title, Knock Knock. It is about a particularly vicious crime that had been unsolved for nearly 30 years. I can't imagine the terror that Betty and Catherine felt. When they realized behind that knock-knock stood a monster. For Jason, this was more than just a murder tale.

6:20It's the story of his family. Betty Jones was his step-grandmother. I think that there was this hum of fear throughout our family after Betty died. It was Labor Day, 1990. Jason was 10 years old and living outside of Houston. That's when his family got that phone call telling them Betty had been murdered in Starkville, Mississippi. Were you scared? Oh, yeah. I knew enough to know that there was someone out there that killed my grandmother, and they may want to kill me too. Jason's parents, Bill and Colleen Jones, struggled to explain it all to him and his younger brother, Simon. Do you remember the words you used?

7:13We don't know why, but God called Betty home, and we'll see her again someday. Betty came into their family late in life. She was a widow when she married Jason's grandfather. he already had two grown children, including Bill, Jason's father. He was wonderful. She took us in as her own children, you know, and was just warm and loving and just an angel to me. Sadly, Betty's marriage to Jason's grandfather did not last long. My grandfather passed away from a heart attack just a few years into their marriage. Although Jason only knew his step-grandmother for a few years when he was young, she left her mark.

8:08She was the lady that came over and took us to nice restaurants and smelled really good. That's how I remembered her as a 10-year-old. She was the grandmother that was really into baseball, which, I don't know, for a little boy, having a grandmother that's into baseball is pretty cool. It is gone! Betty Jones was more than just a baseball fan. She was a team mom for the Mississippi State University Bulldogs in Starkville. Her job was to keep the players from getting homesick and wanting to leave. Betty's sister, Ann McWhorter, says Betty often brought the players chewing gum to keep them from other vices.

8:53Now, honey, I want you to be sure and chew that gum. Now, don't you get into that tobacco. She had a real connection with this baseball team. She did, but she had a connection with any age person. Catherine Krigler was one of the people to whom Betty felt connected. Betty was 65. Catherine was 81, a retired school teacher. She was taking some new medication, and Betty volunteered to keep her company in case she fell ill. What was the basis of their friendship? Church. Julia Krigler-Holt, known as Juki, says her grandmother and Betty were active members of the First Presbyterian Church, which was right next door.

9:44Betty was a church elder, Catherine sang in the choir, and she played the piano at home. I think that was her dream for me, to be a pianist. That didn't happen, but I took lessons for her. To this day, Juki has warm memories of her grandmother's house. Catherine raised two children there, and it was a gathering spot for extended family. This is me, and there's my granny. Her house was a quaint little house. I never in a million years would ever feel scared in that location. That night in 1990 started out peacefully enough. The two friends were just settling in after suppertime. But that changed around 9 p.m.

10:40They had taken pass, they had their gowns on, they were getting ready to watch a ballgame when somebody knocked on the door. The monster came to the door. David Lindley is now retired, but he was the lead investigator at the time. He says when Betty opened the back door, an intruder forced his way in. As best we can tell, entered into a physical confrontation with her, and she tried to defend herself.

11:12Catherine Crigler was all but helpless. She was an amputee and was in her wheelchair in the bathroom when she heard Betty calling for help. She tried to see what was going on and the attacker appeared. He ended up making her go into her bedroom and told her that he did not want to hurt her like he had hurt her friend. He, in fact, did rape Ms. Crickler. And he left the residence sometime shortly thereafter, we surmised. Catherine was left bleeding. She had fractured ribs and a broken hip. But she somehow managed not only to survive, but to call for help. Ms. Crickler was able to rally her strength.

12:02She couldn't get to her wheelchair, so she took a pillow, used it to kind of glide or slide into the kitchen area where there was another phone, and she was able to reach up. Your name's Miss Crigler? Yes. The driver was one single boy, young man. And he went in the front room where my friend was, and he came back in the right with his hands all good. And then he raped me. I know what I do. It's just terrible. Catherine was rescued by EMS, but in the living room, with the baseball game still playing on the TV, Betty was dead on the floor. Her throat was slashed. She died trying to save Catherine.

12:51She was a fighter, and I know that when this guy started attacking her, Betty fought back like a wild cat. Betty's death left a hole in her family's life, and everyone in the small university town was on edge. As it turns out, the police wouldn't have to look far for a good suspect. there was one right next door to Catherine's house.

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14:58To look at these pictures, it makes me sad. Even now, it is hard for Juki Kriegler-Holt to think about the details of what happened to her grandmother, Catherine. How horrible it is to know that at the very last part of her life, something so horrible would happen. But Juki is still amazed by the courage and the strength her grandmother summoned after she was attacked to get help for herself and her friend Betty. Makes me proud of her. Because she could have totally just given up right then. Most people would. You know, that's pretty amazing. Sadly, Catherine was unaware at first that Betty was killed.

15:47Clearly what I can remember her saying all the time was, you know, if anything ever happened to Betty, I don't want to live. Betty's stepson, Bill Jones, visited Catherine in the hospital after she learned her friend was dead. It was an emotional visit. She was upset that she survived and Betty had gone. Do you remember what she said? She said, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, please forgive me. And I said, I forgive you.

16:21Did you feel that she was responsible? You know, it tore me up. But that's all I could say or do. And that's what she wanted, so that seemed to help.

16:38In November 1990, two months after the attack, Catherine Krigler died of complications from her injuries. There's no doubt that whoever killed Betty that night killed your grandmother just took longer. Yeah, absolutely. But Catherine had lived long enough to give the Starkville police a description of the assailant. She said he was a young man, short hair that was almost cut like a crew cut, spiked, I guess you would say these days. He had blue eyes and light blonde hair or brown hair. Police released this rudimentary sketch. She described his complexion as swarthy. and we imagine that to be something either as a skin tone or a suntan.

17:29Investigator David Lindley says the killer left a few clues behind. We collected fingerprint evidence. We collected hair evidence, blood. You found some cigarettes there. We did, and neither of the women smoked. So we, of course, assumed that the perpetrator left the cigarettes at the scene. But police could not figure out a motive. The killer took$28 from Catherine, but nothing else. And Lindley didn't think a petty thief would commit a crime this violent. But in this particular case, there was just no rhyme or reason for it. This is a crime of violence, purely for the sake of violence. The hunt for a suspect was intense, and police had a lot to work with.

18:18Lindley provided an update soon after the killing back in 1990. Residents of Starkville are extremely helpful in providing leads. And right now we have several leads that we are pursuing. Many of those leads, like a report of a drifter spotted in the area, went nowhere. But a good suspect soon emerged. A young neighbor of Catherine Krigler's was having a party at his house the night of the attack. And he had blonde hair and blue eyes, just like the killer Catherine described. Where was the house? The house is just over in this area here. Right over there? It's not there anymore. It's not there anymore, but it was about 150 feet away.

19:02The more police investigated, the more their suspicion grew. He did leave the party for a period of time, but nobody at the party could recall for exactly how long he was gone from the party. What's more, the young man was known to carry a knife, and he smoked the brand of cigarettes found at the scene. Well, that must have caught your attention. Certainly. The suspect also reportedly made a cryptic and possibly incriminating statement to a witness when asked about the crime. He stated that he did not do it, but his other self may have done it. Police had a lot of suspicion, but did not think they had hard evidence to arrest him.

19:49There was never enough probable cause to make an arrest. I think a lot of people in the community naturally believe that this individual committed this crime. They wanted it resolved quickly. But unfortunately, it didn't occur that way. Police were back at square one. And after three years of dead ends, investigators turned to America's Most Wanted, which agreed to feature the case. This is America's Most Wanted. And everyone had high hopes. Well, I was hoping that somewhere up in Chicago or California, someone would brag in a bar. You know, I was in Mississippi at that time. And, hey, I did it.

20:36I did it. David Lindley helped man the phones at the show's headquarters in Washington, D.C. We received many, many tips from all over the United States. It looked promising, but only for a while. Anything pan out? They did not. It was unsuccessful. A good attempt, but again, unsuccessful. The level of hope that you must have felt. This case has been a heartbreaker over the years, so disappointing is a good word. In 2004, Lindley, who by then had been promoted to chief of police, handed the case over to an enthusiastic detective named Bill Lott. And Lott was intrigued by this case. When I first got assigned this case, I didn't do anything for the first year but read it six times.

21:27I bet Chief Lindley thought, when is this kid going to start working this case? But as Lott dug in, he became confident that this case could be solved. And I knew at that point I had a critical piece of evidence.

21:58Sergeant Bill Lott's roots run deep in Starkville, Mississippi. And he has struggled for years to solve the mystery that has hung over his town since Labor Day of 1990. To think that somebody would do something as heinous as this to elderly people just made me angry. Lott feels a personal connection to Betty Jones and Catherine Krigler. Because my parents had divorced at an early age and aunts and uncles, it helped raise me. And they were older and had an older aunt that, you know, played a role in my life. It just didn't sit well with me. When Lott took over the investigation in 2004, he inherited boxes of evidence, hundreds of pages of police reports, and a decade and a half of frustration.

22:57But let me tell you something. There was a lot of great, great detective work done. The only advantage I had over those guys was DNA. That's because when the crime was committed in 1990, not much was known about forensic DNA. But with new knowledge and new technology, Lott knew he had potentially critical evidence because doctors had extracted DNA from Katherine Kriegler using a sexual assault kit. They may not have known it at the time, but that was a key moment in this case. There's no question about it. That is the key to the gate. Police kept the evidence, and in 2005, Lott sent it to a lab.

23:45What did that lab do for you with this evidence? They got a semen-based DNA profile. With the DNA profile of the killer in hand, Lott's first order of business involved an old suspect. that blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who was partying next door to Catherine's house. What is this? This contains the original kit of the number one suspect that supposedly did this crime. Lott had the killer's DNA profile compared to the DNA of the young man, who many in Starkville still believed had been responsible. What did it show? Not a match. Not a match? Right. The one-time prime suspect was almost certainly not the man who killed Betty Jones and Catherine Krigler.

24:42But in 1990, there was a lot of pressure to arrest that man. And Lott believes if he had been arrested, he would have been convicted and executed. it. Has this case changed the way you feel about the death penalty? I'll say it this way. I used to be 100 % pro-death penalty. Now? Now, I think it would have to be on a case-by-case basis. Sounds like a shift to me. Yes, because he could have been put to death for a crime he didn't commit. Lott went on to test the DNA of 60 other potential suspects. None was a match. There was also no match in CODIS, the National DNA Database of Violent Criminals.

25:30I had resolved that it would probably never be solved. Betty Jones's sister, Ann McWhorter. That I would go to my grave without not knowing who did this. Hours away in Tennessee, Jason Jones and his family, who had grown distant from Betty's over time, knew little about the investigation. Because no one was calling us. We were the extended family. And Jason says over the years, his family hardly ever spoke about Betty's death. It becomes this taboo subject where people don't really disclose information because it's hard to talk about. But now, as an adult, Jason was more curious than ever. I wanted to know what had happened.

26:21And so I Googled it and nothing came up. It was shocking to me that I couldn't find information about this case or my grandmother's murder or her life or anything. He had questions about Betty, but he had even more about Catherine Krigler. I don't think I knew the name Krigler, to be honest. You didn't know the name of the other person? Yeah, I don't think so. But in August 2005, when Jason was getting married, there was a huge, almost unbelievable development. His fiancée's mother held a bridal shower and invited some of her friends. Stories frequently come out of bridal showers, but not like this story.

27:02I was busy playing mother of the groom, and so I was introduced to a lot of people that day. Jason's mother, Colleen, was chatting with a young art teacher when they discovered that even though they were both in Nashville, they had a Mississippi connection. I told her that I had married a guy that had gone to high school and college in Starkville. And she said, Starkville? My grandparents lived there. What's your husband's last name? What were your in-laws' last name? And as soon as I said Betty Jones, it was just like she had seen a ghost. and I was it. Standing before Colleen Jones was Catherine Krigler's granddaughter, Juki.

27:45Well, how did you feel? Just a wow. You know, like, what are the chances? You tell me, what are the chances? Yeah, one in a billion, you know? It's amazing. Both women were quick to see a larger meaning to the chance meeting. This cannot be coincidental, happenstance. It's like the angels went, oh. But it wasn't until 2017 that Jason, who was inspired by true crime podcasts, decided that he should spotlight this cold case. Monsters today still fear the light. The podcast was not only a way for me to learn more about the life of a grandmother that was taken from me too early, but also a way to try to seek justice or to make sense of what happened.