Human Resources (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00One morning in March of 1999, a detective in Norcross, Georgia leaned in close to his computer monitor. He was reviewing video footage that his team had recorded at a murder scene, and finally, he had arrived at the exact frame that he wanted to analyze. And so he looked at it, he zoomed in, and as he did, he smiled. Because he saw that the exact thing he was looking for in this frame was not there. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please hack the follow button social media accounts and remove their date of birth so that nobody wishes them a happy birthday.

0:39Okay, let's get into today's story.

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2:17She was nervous because in just a few minutes, she had a meeting to discuss a sexual harassment complaint that she had recently filed against one of her coworkers, a guy named Jeff Copeland. Now, Danielle had hoped that her human resources department would handle this complaint quietly, discreetly. But instead, HR had asked Danielle, her boss, and Jeff to sit down together. Ultimately, they wanted them all to sit down face to face to talk this problem through. Now, for Danielle, I mean, this was horrifying. However, even though this was like the last way Danielle wanted to handle this, she had ultimately agreed to do this meeting because really she needed this job and she was worried if she didn't take this meeting, it could jeopardize her role here.

3:04And so just then she looked over and she saw the head of HR walk into her boss's office, followed closely by Jeff. So at this point, Danielle, she took a deep breath, stood up from her desk, she straightened her clothes and then headed into the meeting. An hour later, Danielle walked back out of her boss's office, and her hands were shaking because the HR meeting had basically gone exactly how she'd been afraid it would go. Jeff had completely downplayed the whole thing as like this big misunderstanding. And even though her boss had talked a lot about, you know, repercussions for Jeff, Danielle had gotten the feeling that nothing was actually going to be done here.

3:44And so this whole experience had been really embarrassing and also just overwhelming, and now Danielle really just wanted some distance, not just from Jeff and her boss in HR, but from everyone. She just wanted to go be alone. So she decided she would use her lunch break to just go home for a bit and try to recover. So she grabbed her purse and her jacket and then she also told a coworker that she was stepping out for a bit and then she made her way to the exit. A half an hour later, around noon, Danielle pulled into the parking lot of the Ashley Lake Apartments in Norcross, Georgia. She parked her car, she got out, and then she started walking through the sprawling complex toward where she actually lived.

4:24As she neared her building, Danielle noticed that a light fixture under the awning that led into her building was flickering again. This complex, admittedly, was sort of a dump. Things were always breaking, and it always seemed to take the management company months to send someone around to repair anything, if they even sent anybody at all. And also, beyond just being sort of a run-down place, the apartment complex objectively was just not safe. Domestic violence disputes were very common, and lately there had been a rash of break-ins that had Danielle and a lot of people who lived here on edge.

4:58And so Danielle, she really wished she could be raising her three-year-old son, Tristan, somewhere nicer, somewhere safer. But for now, this really was like the best she and her fiancé, Luis, could afford. Now, Danielle walked under the awning, and she unlocked the door, and she went inside. And it was quiet, because Luis was at work, and her son Tristan was at daycare. So she had the place to herself, which was ideal, because again, she just wanted her space. She headed into the kitchen, and she put her purse on the table, and as she did, she just looked at the engagement ring on her finger. So Luis, her fiancé, had proposed to her three months ago, at Christmas.

5:37And Danielle was still getting used to how good it felt to be with someone as reliable and grounded as he was. Now, she dated some downright dangerous guys before, including Tristan's biological father. And next to them, Luis was like a saint. Also, Luis just had this ability to know exactly what to say, to calm Danielle down, like whenever she was stressed. But obviously, he was not here now. And so Danielle was still just, you know, wound up from that awful meeting she had had with no clear way to sort of get rid of the anxiety. So she decided that for now, she would just go lay down in the bedroom and hope that she could relax that way.

6:16So she left the kitchen. She made her way towards the bedroom. And as she stepped through the doorway, she stopped because she noticed something in the bedroom that was off. The top drawer of her dresser in the bedroom was wide open. But Danielle was sure it had been closed when she had left for work that morning, so like, what's going on here? Then she heard movement coming from behind her, and then before she even had a chance to turn around, Danielle felt something pressed tightly around her neck. About five hours later, at 4.45 p.m., Danielle's fiancé, Luis Payano, hurried up to the apartment that he shared with Danielle.

6:55Danielle had not been returning his calls all afternoon, so he had ultimately left work early to come home and make sure she was okay. As he reached the door, Luis pulled the keys from his pocket, and he slipped them into the lock, only to discover that the door was already unlocked. And so with some trepidation, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. As Luis passed by the kitchen, he looked in and he saw Danielle's purse was lying on the floor, with its contents scattered everywhere. And so instinctively, it's like Luis knows something's off here. His pulse picked up. He began calling out Danielle's name.

7:32And when she didn't respond, he left the kitchen and made his way over to the bedroom. And as Luis stepped through the bedroom door, he saw Danielle. She was lying on the bed. But again, something just seemed wrong. She was lying fully dressed on the bed, like her jacket, jeans, shoes, everything is on. and she was lying face down in such a way that it almost seemed like it would be hard to breathe. And so his heart is racing now and he rushes over and nudges her to see if she's okay. But she didn't move and so he had to forcibly push her and roll her over. And as soon as he did and he saw what she looked like, he jumped back because Danielle's face was dark blue.

8:1645 minutes later, Detective Bob King of the Gwinnett County Police Department was standing in the bedroom of the Ashley Lake apartment. Around him, members of the forensics team bustled around, dusting for prints and recording the crime scene with a video camera. King leaned down to examine the nylon stocking that was cinched tightly around the throat of the young woman's body on the bed. By this point, he knew her name was Danielle Jennings and that she had lived in this apartment because when he'd arrived, he'd spoken briefly outside to her hysterical fiancé who had made the 911 call. However, at this point, this was about all King had to go on.

8:53He'd done a sort of cursory sweep of the apartment on his way to the bedroom where he knew the body would be, and there was little in the way of obvious evidence. The front door showed no signs of forced entry, and nothing appeared to have been stolen in the apartment. Danielle's purse was overturned on the kitchen floor, but there was literally a wad of cash just sitting right there on the floor. So you would have seen that if that's what you were looking for, and you would have taken it. if robbery was your angle. And then also the TV and the computer were still in the apartment. Those are two very valuable things.

9:27And also Danielle's jewelry box looked like it had not been touched. So again, this just didn't feel like a robbery. The nylon stocking though was telling King something. The stocking that had been cinched around Danielle's neck and tied off in the back suggested that Danielle had been attacked from behind. Someone had wrapped it around her neck and tied it off, you know, behind her. And since Danielle was found still wearing her jacket and shoes, it seemed like she hadn't been home for very long before she was attacked. King stood back up and looked around the bedroom, and he noticed there was a dresser nearby with the top drawer hanging open.

10:04He walked over to it, and he looked inside, and he saw that this drawer was full of women's underwear. So he guessed the stocking, the murder weapon, had come from here. And to King, if that was true, this seemed like a pretty important detail because it suggested that the killer had not planned on killing Danielle, or they likely would have brought their own weapon. It's like they're here, Danielle appears or something, and it's like target of opportunity, they're grabbing what they can to take her out. Also, King was thinking, like, strangling was such an intimate way to kill someone, like way more than shooting someone or even stabbing someone.

10:41I mean, this forces the killer to get up close and personal with their victim. And in King's experience, that pointed to a personal motive. Even if this had been sort of a crime of opportunity, this felt like someone who knew Danielle. An hour and a half later, Detective King walked into the main office of the Ashley Lakes apartment complex to speak with the leasing manager. By this point, King had been all over the complex, questioning a maintenance employee and dozens of other tenants. but no one had seen anyone coming or going from Danielle's apartment. And now, when King explained the entire situation to the leasing manager, she told him, unfortunately, there weren't any security cameras near Danielle's unit.

11:25So King just sighed and pulled out a business card and handed it over and told her to please call him if anything came up, and she said she would. Then King headed back out to the parking lot, trying his best not to get discouraged. However, that was proving pretty difficult to do. Because so far, the case was off to a pretty rough start. Really, he had no witnesses, he had no security cameras, and so far, the team hadn't found any fingerprints, blood, hair, or anything else that might help them ID the killer. All King knew for sure at this point was that, at least based on what he saw at the scene, the victim had been strangled to death, and that the killer had gotten into the apartment without having to force open a door or window, and statistically, that pointed to the victim's romantic partner.

12:11So, King was going to head back to the station right now where Danielle's fiancé, Luis Payano, was waiting to be interviewed.

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13:57At around 8 p.m. on March 15, 1999, Detective Bob King sat down inside of an interview room at the Gwinnett County Police Station across from Luis Payano, the fiancé of Danielle Jennings, who had been found strangled to death in their apartment earlier that same day. Now, Luis was very clearly distraught, but King needed answers now, and he didn't have any other suspects. So he asked Luis, who again is sort of borderline hysterical, to please walk him through his day. Be as detailed as you can be. Luis took a few breaths and wiped his eyes and even though he was still pretty emotional, he began to speak.

14:34And he said that he and Danielle had both left the apartment that morning around 6.45 a.m. He said she had gone to drop her son Tristan off at daycare on the way to her work and that he had gone straight to his own office. And then later Later that same morning, around 11 a.m., Luis said Danielle had called him back, asking if he would meet her for lunch, but he had said that he was too busy. He said later on that afternoon, he had called Danielle again just to check in with her, but she wasn't answering, and so he had left messages on her work and the home answering machines, expecting her to call back eventually, but she never did.

15:12And so Luis said eventually he had actually left work early and gone to their apartment to check on Danielle because he hadn't heard from her. And when he walked into their apartment, obviously he found what he found and called 911. As Luis told his story, King was listening to the details, but he was also just sort of studying Luis. If Luis really had been at work all day, like he had said, it would be pretty easy to verify. There was other co-workers who could say he was there or he wasn't. But King would not be able to verify the alibi at least until the next morning. And so for now, King was just trying to pick up on any sort of cue that maybe Luis was being deceitful or something.

15:52But so far, he couldn't quite tell. And so for now, King decided he would just try to get as much information as he could from Luis. And so after getting, you know, the detailed chronology of what happened from Luis's point of view, King began asking him if Luis knew of anybody who might have had a problem with Danielle. And when he asked that question, it did change Luis's entire demeanor. He got quiet, he got sort of reserved, and then he nodded and said actually, yeah, there were two people in particular. He said the first was a man named Carl Buford, who was actually the father of Danielle's son Tristan.

16:29According to Luis, Carl was this aspiring rapper with a criminal record, And apparently, at least again, according to Luis, he had really never been involved in Tristan's life. But lately, he'd been pushing for more visitation time. And Luis suspected this was because he had recently proposed to Danielle. She said, yes, they're going to get married. Carl was aware of that. And Luis suspected that Carl didn't like the idea of being replaced. And so he was kind of inserting himself pretty aggressively back into Tristan's life to sort of stay relevant. At least that was Luis's theory. And so King, he's listening to this and he jotted down everything he said.

17:06And then he asked Luis about the other name, the second person that he had mentioned had a problem with Danielle. And Luis, he began telling another story about how Danielle had recently filed a sexual harassment complaint against one of her co-workers, this guy Jeff Copeland. Luis said Danielle had been really stressed about it when she had left for work that morning because she'd had this meeting scheduled with HR, her boss, and Jeff that day that she had to go do. And when King heard this, he stopped Luis right there because he actually thought he'd misheard. It's like, wait a minute, so this sexual harassment meeting, this really personal, like intense meeting, had taken place that morning, just before Danielle was killed?

17:48And Luis confirmed and said, yep, that happened today. Around noon the next day, Detective King was back inside of the interrogation room, But this time, he was sitting across from Jeff Copeland, the co-worker Danielle had filed that sexual harassment complaint against. Jeff was 40 years old, so literally twice Danielle's age. And if he was uncomfortable about having been dragged down here to the station to be interviewed here, he was not showing it. Jeff just kept saying how devastated he'd been to hear about Danielle's death and how he'd always been fond of her. And when King asked him about the sexual harassment complaint, Jeff just brushed it off, saying Danielle just hadn't understood his sense of humor.

18:31But by now, Detective King had actually read the HR complaint himself, and he knew that this likely had been more than a few off-color jokes. According to what Danielle had reported, Jeff had made these creepy comments about how he and Danielle would make a really good couple. And he repeatedly pressured Danielle to go out with him, even though she kept saying no. And then when she kept saying no, he'd eventually left this dirty movie on her desk, like a pornographic movie. And he'd left a note comparing her to one of the main women in this pornographic film. And to King, if this behavior was true, if this was an actual narrative of what he did, it wasn't just obnoxious or, you know, sort of in bad taste.

19:16It showed what looked like a pretty clear pattern of escalation by Jeff, like he was being rejected, not accepting the answer, and sort of ramping up his approach. However, King let Jeff tell his version of the story without interrupting him. And then when Jeff was done, King asked him, what did you do immediately after the HR meeting? And Jeff replied that he had spent the afternoon doing some off-site visits. And when King heard that answer, he perked up. because if Jeff had left the office, maybe he would have had the opportunity to follow Danielle back to her apartment and kill her. But Jeff seemed to know what King was thinking and Jeff immediately clarified that he had not been alone during these offsite visits.

20:01He'd done them with another coworker who could definitely back up his story. And so King told Jeff that he was definitely going to need contact info for that colleague. Later that same day, Detective King walked back into his office at the police station, and he found Danielle's autopsy report waiting for him on his desk. And he was desperate to get into this thing and see if there was any new lead to follow. Because by this point, his team had checked the alibis of all three of his suspects to that point, and they all held up. Jeff Copeland, the man who had the sexual harassment complaint filed against him, well, the colleague who had done the off-site visits with him, had vouched for him and said that Exactly what Jeff said is what happened.

20:42Coworkers of Danielle's fiancé, Luis Piano, also confirmed that he had been at his desk all day long, just like he had said. And then Carl Buford, the biological father of Danielle's son, Tristan, he had arguably the most bulletproof alibi because he'd literally been in jail on the day Danielle was killed. So it seemed that none of King's suspects so far could possibly be the killer. And now, as he was reading through this autopsy report, It really wasn't giving him much of anything either. It just confirmed everything King already knew. Danielle died of asphyxiation and that no prints or useful forensic evidence had been recovered at the crime scene.

21:21But just then, King heard a knock on his door. He looked up and he saw the other detective who was working the case standing in the doorway. This detective explained that he'd just finished running a background check on Danielle Jennings and the search had turned up a restraining order that Danielle had filed years earlier, not against Jeff Copeland or Luis Paiano or Carl Buford, but instead, somebody new. And judging by the details of this restraining order, it seemed like Danielle had had a stalker.

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22:42Around 10 a.m. on the morning of March 17, 1999, so now two days after the murder of Danielle Jennings, Detective Bob King stared down a man named Eddie McElwaney in an interview room at the Gwinnett County Police Station. Eddie was Danielle's ex-boyfriend, and apparently he was her stalker as well. He was this big, intimidating guy who worked as a tow truck driver, and he seemed pretty irritated about being brought down here for an interview in the first place. Right now, he was explaining to Detective King that he didn't know anything about Danielle's murder and that he hadn't talked to her in well over a year.

23:18But as he was saying this, King knew that was a lie, because King had spent yesterday afternoon calling up Danielle's friends and family members, and they'd told him the whole story. Danielle and Eddie had dated in high school. And after they had broken up, Eddie's behavior had become so aggressive that Danielle had filed that restraining order to stop him from interfering with her life. And that restraining order had worked for a while until just a few months ago when Eddie had begun calling her again. So this clearly contradicts his, I haven't talked to her in a year. He had tried calling her just a few months ago.

23:55But beyond the fact that he was clearly lying, I mean, to King, just the fact that Eddie had reached out to her again right before basically she was murdered, that was very suspicious. And he told Eddie so. And then he waited to see how Eddie would respond. And at first, Eddie, you know, after basically being told, you're lying and we think you might have killed her, at first, he didn't say anything. But as King watched him, Eddie's expression tightened, and then his face turned beet red like he was about to explode. And then suddenly King was very aware of just how enormous Eddie was, and that it was just the two of them in here, and he was not handcuffed.