The Footprint Evidence

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1:25On the 13th of June, 1993, I was on call as a team leader for our crime scene team. We had pagers then, no cell phones. and I got a page who was a sergeant requesting our assistance on the 21st floor of this high-rise apartment building.

1:52When you entered into the apartment, you didn't really see anything. You wouldn't have known that a crime had occurred. When you went a little further and you ended up going into the bedroom, it was catastrophic. When I proceeded to where the body was on the side of the bed, I looked down and I could see the imprint in blood that looked like a left foot and a right foot. It's an actual bare foot. I mean, wow. I turned the TV on. I saw the apartment. They said they just found a young woman in her early 30s. Oh my, I just got chills all over.

2:41Don't tell me that was Jean. I called the coroner's place and he said, are you all alone? You better get somebody over there with you because it was your daughter. I couldn't believe it.

3:01Jeannie Childs had defensive wounds on her hands. when they found her. She had been stabbed at least 65 times, including after she had died. Investigators took DNA evidence at the time. They could not find who it belonged to, and they hit a dead end at some point and moved on. And it wasn't until 2015 that a cold case unit reopened the case. A DNA profile was uploaded into myheritage.com, and they found what could be a match. Jerry Westrom is a husband, a father of three, a businessman. He attended church. He was a hockey dad. Police expect Westrom to be charged with murder by noon tomorrow. Jerry doesn't have a demeanor of being a violent person.

3:53Have you ever seen him lose his temper? No. I believe that at my toes he's not capable. Okay. He didn't do it. There was DNA from other individuals that did not belong to Jerry Westrom, but clearly belonged to a male source. We know that there were experts that viewed multiple footprints, and they're in her blood. The person who put the footprint down had to step in wet blood, and it had to be after she was stabbed or bleeding. How important did those footprints in blood become in this case? Without the footprints, we would not be sitting here. I think that the footprints defined the path of this case.

4:49Erin Moriarty reports The Footprint.

5:00Minnesota crime scene investigators captured this footage when they got their first look inside a high-rise apartment in Minneapolis. The camera's pointing west at this time. According to police reports, at around 5.30 p.m. June 13, 1993, a tenant reported water seeping into their apartment. A building caretaker and a security guard were called to check it out and discovered the water was coming from apartment 2104. They went into the apartment and they found that the shower was still running and causing all this flooding next door. After the shower was turned off, they came upon a gruesome scene in the bedroom.

5:4835-year-old Jeannie Child's body was partially under the bed. That's when police were called to investigate. This was a violent, bloody crime scene. This is one of the bloodiest that I'd been to. Retired forensic scientist Bart Epstein says carefully documenting that scene was crucial. Bloodstains and blood spatter tell a story. Yes, they sure can. In this case, we could establish that Jeannie Childs was hit in front of the bathroom door. Epstein says Jeannie then moved into the bathroom. She was stabbed and slashed dozens of times. She was down on the floor smearing blood along that area. While the shower had been turned off earlier, investigators noticed water was still running from the sink faucet.

6:44There was a lot of activity going on there. Why was the sink faucet still dripping? Was he trying to clean up? Jeannie apparently made it back to her bedroom, where her body was found. The blood wasn't confined to just the area where she was. The blood was on the walls. The blood was on the comforter. The blood was on the floor. Julie Rendelman is a defense attorney and legal consultant for 48 hours. It leads one to believe that a struggle happened, that she was fighting to save her own life. The living room appeared untouched. A sitcom was still playing on the TV. There was no evidence of forced entry.

7:26If Jeannie knew her killer, what could have prompted so much violence? This, to me, seems like more rage. Someone who got upset at the time that the crime was committed. Jeannie's mother, Betty Ackman, was watching television news when she saw a report about a woman who had been murdered. I called my husband at work. I said, I just seen them on the news taking a stretcher out of that building that she lives in. Betty soon got the news no mother wants to hear. The victim was her eldest child. I just wanted to hold her. I couldn't believe it. Betty says she spoke with her daughter the day before her murder.

8:14Jeannie, she says, wasn't expecting visitors because she was nursing a toothache. What were her plans that weekend? She went to the emergency room. She was in so much pain. Jeannie always had problems with her teeth, and I don't know why. So I said, let me come and get you. No, Mom, stop worrying about me. Jeannie was dead by Sunday afternoon. As the crime investigation continued, authorities focused on gathering evidence. A blue washcloth, a red t-shirt, a bath towel, blood scrapings from the sink, along with a comforter, were collected and taken for DNA testing. Investigators observed dishes in the kitchen sink and a knife in the drying rack.

9:07Did you take that knife in? Did not take that knife in. I looked at it and there was no apparent blood on there. We never found any actual weapon there that was a murder weapon. Investigators were able to identify some bloodstains found in the stairwell near Jeannie's 21st floor apartment. Did any of the blood belong to the victim? Yes. Jeannie Childs? Do you think it's possible that the person who stabbed her was also cut? Well, it could be. That's why we took the samples. Eppsine says whoever murdered Jeannie Childs unknowingly left behind something investigators rarely encounter. Bloody bare footprints under the bedroom window.

9:53That drew my attention right away. And right next to it, I see the socked foot of Jeannie Childs. The footprints were dusted with black powder at the crime scene. When you first saw these, you said, because she's wearing socks, these belong to the killer. That would be my feeling. That's most likely the perpetrator's footprint. If there's the friction ridge on the feet, like the friction ridge on your fingers, there's potential to identify the person's foot that made that. That was very, very significant. I knew that God was going to make sure that I was going to know what happened.

10:48Everyone said she looked like me These are pretty precious

10:57Very few pictures I have of us together Cindy Blummer remembers the deep loss she felt after the murder of her big sister, Jeannie. A lot of sadness when you wanted to pick up the phone and call your sister. I needed my sister. I wanted to talk to her. Wondering what actually took place. Who did this? Although her sister was 12 years older, Jeannie's playful spirit made an impression on Cindy growing up. And Lionel Richie was one of her favorite. And as soon as she would hear him play, I mean, her fingers would start snapping and she would dance around. But those good times were few and far between.

11:41Betty Ekman says she first noticed a change in her eldest daughter when she was a preteen. She kind of lost her way when she was probably around 12, 13. Betty says it wasn't until decades later that Jeannie claimed she had been abused by a male relative. Jeannie started running away from home. I took my life in my own hands many a times to track her down. I could have been killed, but I had my great Dane and a gun. Would you sometimes find her? Oh, yeah. When she would come home, she was like a cat on a hot tin roof. She was so antsy, she couldn't stay very long.

12:30As the time passed, she feared her daughter was using drugs and soon learned how Jeannie was making ends meet. And what did your daughter do? Prostitution. I just hoped and prayed that she would stop. At one point, it seems she settled down long enough to get married. But her family says it didn't last long. Soon after, she married again to a man with children. And Jeannie became a stepmom. And they depended on her. She was the only mother they really knew. Even when Jeannie split with their father, she remained in the children's lives. They needed anything. They knew how to get a hold of her.

13:17She was really good that way. At the time of her murder, she was living with a man named Arthur Gray at that apartment complex. After Jeannie's murder, he became a person of interest. Investigators immediately looked at whether Arthur Gray was involved in the murder. Retired FBI agent Chris Bogers would later join the investigation. According to police reports, Jeannie, who was a sex worker, claimed she worked for Gray, and there was a history of violence between them. At the crime scene, authorities found hairs stuck to Jeannie's left hand, and one of those hairs matched Gray. But Boker says the case against Gray started to fall apart pretty quickly.

14:11Arthur Gray, as a resident of that apartment, it makes sense that his hairs would be throughout the bedroom. And Arthur Gray said he wasn't even in town, but on a motorcycle trip in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the weekend Jeannie was murdered. He had a really solid alibi that he was out of town that weekend that was corroborated by others. Authorities compared the unknown bloody footprints in the apartment to Gray's footprints and determined they weren't his. Do you know how many other possible suspects, persons of interest, whose footprints were compared to those left in Jeannie's apartment? There were multiple people whose footprints were compared to the footprints that were left in Jeannie's apartment.

14:58You could see that in the case file that a lot of effort was put in attempting to solve Jeannie's case. According to the case file on the day of the murder, a witness in the apartment building told police she saw Jeannie with a tall blonde man wearing a trench coat. We had no way to track down who that may or may not have been. Investigators never found the man. Despite efforts to find Jeannie's killer, the case slowed to a crawl. Months turned into years, and then decades. How often would you call the police trying to get an update to find out if they had anything new on this case? Many times as I could, but I never let a year go by without reminding them.

15:52In 2015, the Minneapolis Police Department began digging deeper into unsolved cases, and Jeannie Child's murder was one of them. Jeannie's family had no idea, but investigators were hoping science would help them solve the case. Technology is so much more refined and rigorous than it was in 1993. Agent Boker says they discovered that a blood sample found near Jeannie's blood in the stairwell of her apartment building had matched to a man named John Eswine. In 2015, investigators interviewed Eswine, who was in prison for violating probation on a drunk driving offense. Do you have any idea why your DNA would be in that building, your blood would be in that building?

16:46No. Okay. My blood was in that building? Yeah. If you found my blood somewhere, all I can think of is that I must have fallen down somewhere. Eswine told investigators he was in the building once in 1991, two years before Jeannie's murder. He easily volunteered his DNA. He also allowed himself his footprints to be taken. Then his footprints were compared to the bloody footprints in Jeannie's bedroom. According to a lab report, the footprints were inconclusive, and Eswine's DNA was not found inside Jeanne's apartment. The mystery only deepened. Investigators knew from the case file that there were DNA profiles discovered at the crime scene that had never matched to anyone.

17:40Andrea Fea, a forensic scientist with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, performed additional testing on the evidence that was collected back in 1993. And she noticed something unusual about one of the unknown DNA profiles. That DNA profile repeated itself throughout the crime scene. It was on the comforter. It was on the blue towel. It was found on the blue washcloth and the red T-shirt. Correct. And on the sink. Yes. Those were the only areas that we tested that ended up matching each other, essentially. Investigators then turned to Investigative Genetic Genealogy for answers. The unknown DNA profile was submitted to genealogy websites, including myheritage.com.

18:33The forensic genealogist indicated that she had a match, potentially two brothers here in Minnesota. And one of the brothers was a man named Jerry Westrom. He was a well-respected member of the community. People were surprised.

19:09More than 25 years after Jeannie Childs was murdered, unknown DNA of the crime scene was matched to 52-year-old Jerry Westrom. What did you know about him? He was living north of Minneapolis-St. Paul. He was working for a company up in St. Cloud, Minnesota area. He'd been a businessman. Retired FBI agent Chris Boker says the married father of three wasn't hard to find. Had a Facebook account that we could follow. He was leading a seemingly normal family life. Westrom had grown up in rural Minnesota. He and I were on a 4-H trip when we were 14 to Washington, D.C. Wayne Triplett and Jerry Westrom were farm kids.

19:55They later became college buddies. And when Wayne got married... He was one of the groomsmen in our wedding. That means he was a good friend of yours. Yes, that's true. He got along well with a lot of people, very low-key gentlemen, easily can make friends with people. Westrom and his family were well-respected in Isanti, Minnesota, about 40 miles away from Minneapolis. They owned a Sears store, and in the year 2000, Westrom built his own field of dreams, a convenience store and gas station known as Westrom's Corner. but in 2008, the turbulent economy took it all away. Was that tough on him to lose, Westrom's corner?

20:43I think it was tough on him. I'd be tough on anybody. Westrom returned to his roots. He began raising organic corn and soybeans and cultivating a business selling crop insurance. He's a very good salesperson. He understands the need to fill the need. He understands how to communicate, and people have to be comfortable with you to close on business. Wayne never imagined that the even-tempered friend he's known since their teenage years would become the prime suspect in a violent murder case. Did he have any history of violent crimes? No apparent criminal history involving violent crime. Jeannie was stabbed over 60 times, and here's this man, no history of violence, and this is the guy who might have killed her?

21:37Well, it gave some pause that that level of violence and that type of crime, we kind of expected it would be somebody that maybe had been arrested multiple times. So, yes, that does give a little pause. Investigators were anxious to confirm that the unknown crime scene DNA was indeed Jerry Westrom's. But to do that, they needed to track him down. We needed to obtain DNA from Jerry in order to compare it to the unknown DNA from the scene. Forensic scientist, Andrea Fea. And what did you tell them would be the best DNA if they could get it? Best DNA is something that has been in a person's mouth.

22:25Like, if they drink out of a drinking container, a straw, if they spit out chewing gum, anything that could have saliva on it. Why is saliva the ideal? Why did you say, get something that had touched his mouth? There's a lot of DNA in saliva. Westrom, a devoted hockey dad, frequently attended his daughter's college games. In January 2019, Westrom traveled to a game in Wisconsin. Agent Bokers, along with his partner, surreptitiously followed him there. Westrom went out to the lobby concession stand and made a food order. We watched him sit at the table and eat his order, and when he finished, he took a napkin and he wiped his mouth.

23:15Westrom tossed that napkin and food container in the garbage can. And when he returned to the ring, Agent Bokers made his move. I was gloved. I just reached down and got the container and we bagged it up for evidence. I tested and got a DNA profile from that napkin and compared it to the unidentified profile on the comforter and the blue towel. And what was the result? They were consistent with each other. A month later, in February 2019, Jerry Westrom was arrested and charged with the murder of Jeannie Childs. As you sit here right now, Wayne, do you believe that Jerry Westrom is the one who killed Jeannie Childs?

24:02Definite no. Not a chance. Definite no. Definite no. Not a chance. In a videotaped interview at the jail, Agent Bogers and his partner questioned Westrom.

24:37No, no. WCCO-TV senior investigative reporter Jennifer Mayerly. He doesn't give much in the interview, but what he doesn't say almost says more. What do you mean? He doesn't ask any questions about what happened, about why he's there, about why they're looking at him. Jerry Westrom had no history of violent crime, but it seems he had been keeping a few secrets from his friends. Westrom had told Wayne about two DWI arrests, but never shared he had been arrested twice for soliciting sex workers. You didn't know anything? No. What was your reaction? It was hard to understand. That's the hard pill to swallow, meaning, how does a person with a good family and loving wife have the need for solicitation?

25:30What's going on there? Investigators questioned Westrom for 11 years until he asked for a lawyer. He was then handcuffed and spent the night in jail. And the following morning, we went to the jail with Minneapolis Crime Lab personnel, and they obtained his footprints. 48 Hours legal consultant Julie Rendelman says the footprints were important because Westrom's DNA was not the only DNA recovered there. DNA that was recovered was from multiple individuals. If you don't have anything else, that in and of itself does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Jerry Westrom is the person that committed this crime.

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27:31For more than 25 years, Betty Ekman had prayed for a break in her daughter's unsolved murder case. In February 2019, her prayers were answered. I got a phone call and he said, I'm the detective that worked on your daughter's case. And I said, okay, what's going on? We found him. And I got goosebumps all over me, and I said, Are you sure? He said, Yes, we got him. But when Cindy Blummer learned the name of the suspect in her sister's murder, she had trouble believing it. I said, No way. No way. Jerry Westrom was a familiar face who lived in their town of Isanti, Minnesota. I'd seen Jerry because our boys played hockey.

28:30He's tall. He kind of stands out. He also owned the business, the gas station. The hockey dad and local businessman was now charged with murder. Westrom was later indicted by a grand jury and pleaded not guilty. Westrom's DNA, according to forensic scientist Andrea Fea, found on the comforter and towel in the bathroom, was identified as semen. But she says her team couldn't determine the type of DNA that she says Westrom left on the red T-shirt, the bathroom sink, and the washcloth. You can't say definitively that his blood or any other kind of DNA was found at the scene. You know it's his DNA, but you don't know what kind.

29:19Is that correct? Correct. I don't know how it was deposited, essentially. You say DNA to general Joe Q. Public. Well, that's a slam dunk. Wayne Triplett, however, has questions about how and when the DNA was left there. There's no timestamp on DNA. Despite advances in DNA technology, there's no way to know how long Westrom's DNA had been there. And Wayne says the evidence only suggests one thing. That just doesn't mysteriously show up. He had to be there. So you think he probably was in that apartment at some point. You know, you can't run from that evidence. He had to have been there. Don't get there by accident.