Transcript of True Crime Vault: Murderer in the Minivan

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Step into the 20/20 True Crime Vault, where each story is unforgettable. 3 young women, one missing, one murdered, one kidnapped.

Now the hidden secrets that cracked this case in all-new 20/20 starts right now.

I get a call from our sergeant. Something suspicious happened at Exxon gas station.

We're gonna get right to that Michigan mom who vanished.

A massive hunt for her right now.

Everybody was asking, where is Jessica? What happened to Jessica? Have you seen Jessica? Can you find Jessica?

And she's just a hardworking girl.

She just needs to come home. You start to piece together that something violent happened in this location.

She saw this silver minivan. She thought it was kind of weird.

What these 2 individuals were witnessing in that parking lot was the abduction of Jessica Herringer.

But that wasn't their only mystery to solve when a different crime comes into play.

Oh my gosh, who could do this? Who could hit a woman and just leave her?

To this young mother on a run being shot and killed.

This was at close range. This was certainly execution style.

Here we have 2 females. One's missing, one's deceased.

And one other who lived to tell.

And he's just staring at me the entire time. And I'm like, let me out, let me out, let me out.

At what point do you realize you're in real trouble and that you could die? This is Muskegon in West Michigan. Just south is the small community of Norton Shores, beach towns on the Sunset Coast of Lake Michigan.

I describe Muskegon as sort of a microcosm of the state of Michigan. We have our urban areas, our suburban areas, and then the eastern part and northern part of our county is more rural.

Norton Shores is a nice community on the southern edge of our county.

It's one of the most beautiful areas of West Michigan because it's right near Lake Michigan. So that's the big draw, is our lakeshore, just absolutely gorgeous.

I have a lot of pride of coming from Muskegon County. I think it's just a really great place to live in and grow up in.

But a series of apparently unconnected crimes began to sow fear into this quiet community. It all begins in the final hour of an April night when a young woman named Jessica Heeringa simply vanished, swallowed up, or so it seemed, in a mystery as vast and deep as the big lake itself. It's April 26th, 2013, in Norton Shores, Michigan, at the Exxon station. Station on East Sternberg Road. 25-year-old Jessica Heeringa is supposed to be inside closing up.

That night I needed gas, so I stopped right here. It's the closest place from my employment.

He pulled up to the gas station, noticed the door was open, and looked inside, and there was no Jessica Heeringa.

It's very strange that there's no one here.

That's what alerted the police, is a customer came in and realized that there was nobody in the store.

Muskegon 911, where's your emergency? Um, I don't know if it's an emergency. I just got off work. I'm at the Exxon gas station on Sternberg Road, and there's nobody here. It just is very suspicious why there's nobody here.

There was nobody that would answer, so I looked around the store.

And what did you see when you looked around the store?

I went into the bathroom. I looked around. There was really no disturbance, just nobody there.

Okay, so did you yell or anything, or— Yeah, I hollered, hey, you know, walked around the building, but I don't see anybody, hon.

I walked inside and, hey, hey, is anybody here? Um, I even went inside the cooler. And looked inside there and seen nothing abnormal, but in my gut said something's not right.

You know, I'm just concerned that nobody's heard her. Why?

She has a young son that she's raising, and she was working hard trying to get extra hours at the gas station because of financial problems, and So she was covering anybody who needed time off. She covered their shifts, and that was her only job. And she was there by herself.

The ironic thing is that she really wasn't scheduled to work the day that she disappeared. She actually had taken over a shift from somebody. Did Jessica ever express concerns about feeling unsafe at work? Never, never, not once. She likes working there.

So Norton Shores Police Department responded.

At the time, the head of detectives was a gentleman by the name of Mike Casher.

I get a call from our sergeant. Something suspicious happened at the Exxon gas station. It was about a mile, mile and a half away from my house.

From the crime scene photographs, when you take a first glance, the inside of the store didn't look as though it had been disturbed. Uh, there didn't look like there had been a big struggle.

There was no real crime scene.

They find nothing. In fact, that's what's so weird. It's so undisturbed.

All the cleaning supplies, And things were out, so it appeared that she had been cleaning and finishing up for the night.

And they go back into the storeroom, and they find a cash register drawer with all the money, all the cash, all the change still intact.

It didn't appear that she had just grabbed her stuff and left.

Her purse was still there with her jacket. Cigarettes, lighter still there.

Inside that purse was a wallet. Uh, and it contained the identifying information for Jessica Heeringa. Within that wallet, there was about $400 in cash, seemingly undisturbed.

Her car was still parked out front.

Whatever happened in this store, robbery was not the intent.

There was really no explanation as to what happened to her. It was almost like she just disappeared. Left, disappeared.

And now is beginning the investigation into Jessica's disappearance.

Police tonight say they have evidence that backs up their theory that a Norton Shores woman was abducted from the gas station where she worked. I'm Juliet Dragas. The news starts in 1 minute. It sounded very odd, you know, that she just disappeared. So we all wondered, what is going on here?

At the time, that location did not have a camera system or anything.

No security cameras, and I don't think she should have been working by herself. And I used to talk to her about it and, you know, and ask her about it. And of course, you know, 25 years old, you think you're invincible.

My goal was right at the beginning is to establish a timeline because I figured it would help us at some point.

So about 10:52, we had a woman who had went in and purchased purchased a cigarette lighter. And that was the last person to see Jessica alive.

The last sale that was recorded here was at 10:52. You were here at the gas station like 11:07, 11—

11:07, 11:08.

11:07, he pulls up. He doesn't see anybody. So sometime between 10:52 and 11:07, we have her missing.

And that was the start, if you will, of What turned into be a very public and national cold case. Police continue to search for a missing woman from Norton Shores.

The biggest story in all of West Michigan for months and months and months.

The first big break is a page out of Agatha Christie.

As they look and they keep looking, they see a drop of blood.

Then a woman who worked another shift at the gas station approaches detectives.

She and her husband saw this silver minivan back behind the Exxon gas station. She thought that was strange.

Played an extremely important role helping to move the initial investigation forward.

A drop of blood, a silver minivan, and one more small-caliber clue. The search for Jessica Herringer ricochets in a totally different and dire direction.

We are now prepared to reclassify this case as an abduction.

We're gonna get right to that Michigan mom who vanished.

Search for a young mom who vanished. While working the late shift. Vanished without a trace.

Jessica Heeringa disappeared. It was a very big deal in our area.

Everybody was asking, where is Jessica? What happened to Jessica? Have you seen Jessica? Can you find Jessica? How can we help?

The media was very involved.

And in this case, this expands beyond the borders of Muskegon County and becomes national news. The nation is looking for Jessica Herringer.

A massive hunt for her right now. ABC's Alex Perez is in Norton Shores, Michigan, with the latest.

Good morning, Alex.

Good morning, Robin. Overnight, Jessica's family desperately waited for any word from police, but no luck.

She was going to get out in 15 minutes. In 15 minutes, that store would have been closed and she would have been on her way home.

Flyers were presented to the community. They were everywhere.

Somebody's seen something and doesn't even know how important it is yet. Is there any more flyers that I can get?

I—

because I will put them up.

for you.

Like, I'll stick a couple around for you.

Let's join together in prayer to call upon you for Jessica's safe return.

There were vigils. They passed out flyers. They were on our air very regularly, you know, saying, please, Jessica, come home. If you have her, bring her home. You know, we want you back.

She just needs to come home.

The small Norton Shores police force gets reinforcements— Michigan State Police, Muskegon County Sheriff, the FBI, and even the Secret Service.

Helicopter searches, police K-9s were involved in ground searches.

A lot of people in our newsroom thought, did she just leave? Is she having personal problems? Could she have just done this because she just had to get away?

It doesn't make any sense. She wouldn't take her purse. She wouldn't take her car. She loved her son. Her son, Xevin, meant everything to her.

Jessica may have vanished, but not without a trace.

And one of the officers said, I think we need to look at something back here. It's kind of weird.

And lo and behold, you know, they discover, I think, some very important pieces of evidence.

Probably about 3 feet About 3 or 4 feet from the back door, we saw probably about half-dollar size of a blood spot.

Jessica Heringa. It was Jessica Heringa's blood.

And then next to that was these 2 little round batteries that appeared like watch batteries.

There was a small black piece of plastic that had the words Carl Walther written on it.

It was later determined to be a cover for a laser sight from a handgun.

Detectives determined that battery-powered Walther laser sight is commonly attached to a specific gun, the Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol.

But it also could fit a couple other guns. It could have fit a BB gun, I was told, too, at the same time. So it wasn't like, OK, it's only for this specific gun.

Then a woman named Susan Follett, who worked a different shift at the gas station, approaches detectives.

She came up to me and she goes, I think I— I think I saw something. Which I'm like, OK, what'd you see?

She and her husband were out riding motorcycles, and she saw this silver minivan. She thought it was kind of weird.

This happens right around 11:00 PM, right in that 15-minute window When Jessica disappeared.

The van ducks behind the gas station. Doesn't go out in front where the pumps are. Goes behind the gas station, which at that time of the night, it's kind of weird. It turned off its lights and then parked behind the store.

There's no reason for a customer to go back and park their car.

Suspecting someone may be stealing, the worker and her husband stopped nearby, just watching. They say they only see the driver. He gets out of the minivan. He's doing something. They're not sure what.

They see the tailgate of the van go up because they recall seeing the dome light.

Pushes the tailgate down, doesn't go, pops it up and adjusts something, shuts the tailgate, gets in the van, and drives away. Drives right by them.

When the van was leaving, Susan gets a look at the van driver, you know, as good as you can in the dark.

And it was a male, somewhat heavyset, brownish hair, beard, mustache. And they described the van as being silver in color.

I wish they would have at least gone and seen if Jess was okay.

I'm sorry.

They didn't see Jessica. They didn't think anything. Well, maybe there's nothing to report.

But for the police, what the witnesses say they saw, along with the blood and pieces of a gun, are powerful evidence.

When you couple how the witnesses described what was going on behind the gas station with laser sight cover and a spot of blood, you start to piece together that something violent happened in this location.

I felt that the van was crucial because it was parked right where those— those parts were found.

What these 2 individuals were witnessing in that parking lot was the abduction of Jessica Herringer.

Police pull surveillance video from several businesses, shadowy images of that mysterious silver minivan driving by within minutes of Jessica Herringer's disappearance.

We're able to determine that this van is now going northbound on Grand Haven Road.

But that's where the trail of the silver minivan fades to black.

Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Shaw. I'm the chief of police for the Norton Shores Police Department.

2 days later, police hold a news conference.

We are now prepared to reclassify this case as an abduction or a kidnapping under Michigan law.

But police don't reveal everything they found to the public.

And we have parts of a gun that we didn't disclose to the public.

So at this point, our only clue is the white male that I described to you and the silver minivan.

Anybody knows anything, call the hotline. That's all I can say. I think I'm done now, man.

Who would have a motive to take Jessica Herringer? The investigation now turns to secrets of her love life, including a married man.

He asked her to move away, and she said no. She was going to stay put. An hour later, she's missing.

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Jessica is described as a white female, 25 years of age, 5 foot 1 inches tall, approximately £110, blonde shoulder-length hair, and blue eyes.

We love her very much.

We miss her.

It is the most difficult part. It's just not knowing and not having the answers and not being able to Be there for her, you know. She's— I'm sure she's scared and doesn't know what to do, or— I just hope she knows that we're all looking for her and we're gonna find her.

The police did— I mean, they really did rely on the media for help as everyone held out hope that she could be found. So they was— they released a sketch of a gentleman. This is a man that they're looking for, a man of interest. If you've seen him or if you recognize— or the silver minivan. That was always the prevalent thing, looking for that silver minivan.

Due to the fact that there's no signs of a disturbance within the store, we tend to believe it is someone either that she knows, like an acquaintance, or someone that she knows through the store, maybe a customer or someone that she has met before.

She was always trying to make people smile. be happy, love life. Sad to think that that great quality was probably a downfall in this situation, you know.

We're here because we have not given up hope for Jessica's safe return.

We're receiving numerous tips from the public, which we truly appreciate, but we need more.

And boy, did we get a lot of calls and a lot of sightings to our newsroom, probably hundreds. And people thought they saw her at a campground up They thought that they had seen her at a store.

Officer Leach, Northern Shores Police Department, to the Jessica Herringer case.

People were saying they saw her in Arizona, and then they saw her in New Jersey, and I got somebody in Chicago that acts suspicious.

Every tip that was brought in was, was taken seriously and investigated.

Yeah, there was, there was quite a long list of potential suspects. She was abducted.

Someone took her.

One of the first people they did talk to was her boyfriend. And, you know, because he admitted to them that they did have a rocky relationship.

I saw her right before she went to work. And I talked to her an hour before this happened. Said she was going to be out early and home quick, so—

I mean, we were just friends.

Obviously, we always think right off the bat, maybe there is a problem with the relationship.

Anybody knows anything, call the hotline. That's all I can say.

He's the one who called me to tell me that she was missing. He's devastated about the whole thing. This is the mother of his child. They were in love. He had asked her to marry him. And we think Dakota— Dakota's part of the family.

Dakota is quickly excluded as a suspect, detectives turning their attention to other men in Jessica's life.

Jessica Herringo was pretty. She was a pretty blonde. People even would say, there's a good-looking lady who works at that gas station.

There were other people of interest in her life that would frequent the gas station.

What we had heard is that she may have had a boyfriend or 2 in addition to the father of her baby.

Police say Jessica was having a relationship with a regular at the gas station, a married man.

His name came up multiple times. He was always in the gas station, always around. And he said that, you know, they had some type of an intimate type of relationship going.

The week before Jessica's disappearance, The night of Jessica's disappearance, police say the man's wife had come into the gas station to confront Jessica.

She found out about the relationship, entered in, and tried to make contact with Jessica, kind of talk with her about it. And Jessica got upset and told her to get out of the store, which she did.

Police say Jessica had A tearful talk, maybe a breakup with the married man just hours before she vanished.

An hour before she went missing, just an hour beforehand, they had an emotional— his quote is, we had an emotional discussion. He asked her to go away with him, to move away, and she said no, she was going to stay put. An hour later, she's missing.

Is there jealous lovers out there that, you know, got so enraged with jealousy that they went to the extreme to solve that issue?

I called him a suspect for a good, probably, year. We checked phone records. We got search warrants. We brought in polygraph twice for him and his wife. But ultimately, he's innocent. And he had no involvement.

Detectives crossed the married man and his wife off their list. Another dead end.

Started out as a— it looks really, really good, and it ends up melting right in your hand, right down to it.

All those suspects, all those tips to police The search effort continues here, but still no Jessica. Weeks, months, a full year goes by with no word about the missing woman.

The tips start dwindling, so they're not getting as many tips, not hearing anything more about a silver minivan. There was nothing more investigators could do, so we also stopped covering it.

Becomes 2014, her case colder than a West Michigan winter. And then, some miles away, in another part of Muskegon County, another young mother— not lost, found dead.

911, where is your emergency? We come up to this lady, she's laying in the road. Oh my gosh, who could do this? Who could hit a woman and just leave her?

Could there be a connection?

We're going to turn on the road that Becky used to jog or walk on. This is Automobile Road.

It was a Sunday evening, late June 2014, when a couple was driving here along Automobile Road in Muskegon County.

In the middle of the summer, 6 o'clock in the evening.

Suddenly they saw something in the road, maybe a deer, but soon discovered it was worse, much worse.

We come up to this lady, she's laying in the road. I think she was hit by a car. She's got a head injury. Okay, we gotta start CPR if she's not— if she's not breathing normally. I want you to go ahead and start.

This is dashcam video from the first Muskegon County Sheriff's deputy arriving on the scene. You can see an EMS worker rushing in to help the 911 callers.

She was a nurse, and she was trying to see what she could do.

It started out initially a hit and run. She was found on the side of the road. She was in running gear, so she'd been out for a run.

Oh my gosh, who could do this? Who could hit a woman and just leave her?

And unfortunately, shortly after she was discovered, she succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The woman is Rebecca Blett. She lives just down the road. And as they place her in the ambulance, police are stunned to find her death was no accident.

In the back of her head, she's got 3 bullet wounds.

Rebecca Bletsch's case went from a hit-and-run to a homicide.

So it was a shooting, murder.

People were crying. People were upset. People were scared. People were—

I was scared.

I was scared. I was scared to be in my own yard.

Rebecca's sister Jessica sees a report of a woman killed on Facebook.

And then I called her and she didn't answer. So then I called her again, no answers. So then I called her daughter. She called me and asked if my mom was home. I said, no, I don't know where she's at. I said, where's your dad? She said, he's outside talking to the police. And I knew it was her.

Rebecca's daughter Ellie says her grandmother told her what happened.

My dad was outside and my grandma was inside. Told me.

She used to jog by here all the time. Very nice, friendly girl. Always would say, hi, how you doing, whatnot, when she went through.

From all accounts, she was just a nice person.

Everyone just loved Rebecca Bletsch.

Tell me about your sister.

Becky was the oldest of the 3 of us sisters. Kind of more of a Mother to us in times of need. Absolutely great spirit, big laugh, great smile. Always the life of the party. You couldn't help but know that she was there. She walked in a room, you knew.

Yeah.

What was she like as a mom?

Very involved. It was very active with, with Allie. She loved to go on runs, bike rides.

At the crime scene, police find Rebecca's belongings— cell phone, sunglasses, earbuds— all in a neat pile across the road from her body.

Why was her body on one side of the road and these items in a nice little pile on the opposite side of the road?

I mean, it only seems that someone would have ordered her to leave her belongings behind. Take off, you know, everything that she had had and set it down.

Investigators speculate that after the killer forced Rebecca to put her things down, she tried to get away.

I think when she realized what was happening, I think she tried to run.

There was a trail of casings that went from the middle of the road and then toward her body, 3 different casings.

I think he, he hit her with the first shot, And it knocked her down. And she tried to crawl away. And this is where she made it until he walked over to her.

And the killer shoots Rebecca 3 times with a .22 caliber gun. Investigators recover CCI brand shell casings.

This was at close range. This was certainly execution style. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why on a Sunday afternoon that she would be targeted and killed in such a, in such a fashion.

And the only witnesses are my horses. They absolutely stood at that fence and watched it. I can guarantee you, if they could only talk, they would have got this solved a lot quicker. Jessica Heeringa's disappearance and Rebecca Bletsch's murder were never really tied together. I mean, people speculated and wondered.

Here we have 2 females that are— one's missing, one's deceased, but there were no real strong ties.

I made a call. I always do.

He—

what kind of description do you have?

He just couldn't see how these 2 were related.

There was no mention of a silver minivan or any any van of that nature being anywhere in that area at the time that she was shot and killed.

There is one possible connection. Firearms experts say that the .22 caliber shell casings found near Rebecca's body may have been fired by a Walther .22 pistol, and that's the same kind of gun possibly involved in Jessica's case.

It was explained to us that the characteristics left by the firing pin of the gun that was used to kill Rebecca Bletsch was very similar to what they've seen a Walther P22 would have left.

Unconvinced their cases are related, investigators turn their attention to the person closest to Rebecca.

They were focused on her husband. They really decided that he must have done it.

At any point, Did you guys think maybe he did it?

It never crossed my mind.

You guys never thought it was her husband?

No, because he would never do anything like that. He's not like that.

It was determined that he didn't have anything to do with this crime.

With Kevin Bletsch cleared of any involvement in his wife's death, her murder is unsolved.

I hate to call it a cold case because we were still, we were still actively working on it and we didn't stop, but we had no solid leads. We had nothing.

Well, what happened was an incident that blew the case open, that changed everything.

This you-pick-em blueberry farm seems an unlikely place to solve cold cases. The Jessica Heeringa disappearance The .22 caliber killing of Rebecca Bletsch. But police say an incident that happened just down the road from here and what these security cameras see puts it all into focus.

I jumped out of the car. What kind of car was it?

A van.

What color was the van? Silver.

That was the turning point.

911, where's your emergency? Please come immediately. We have a man that has picked up a girl and he has a gun and he's outside the house. Stay on the line with me. Who has a gun?

April of 2016, we received a 911 call from a homeowner who just had a young lady come running up to her house screaming, saying that somebody was trying to kidnap her.

And the female, the girl saw that? I'm with Erica right now, and I'm shaking, so— Okay, can I talk to her?

Yeah, here she is.

Hello? Hello? Hi, this is 911, okay? Are you guys coming? Are you coming? Yep, we're gonna get some help there.

That phone call, that was the turning point.

Jessica Heeringa vanished in April 2013. Rebecca Bletsch shot and killed in June 2014. Try as they might, frustrated detectives in Norton Shores and Muskegon County cannot solve either crime. 2 cold cases unsolved for years. No arrests until a scary 911 call after a teenage girl runs for her life on this very road.

I had to jump out of a car. I had to run through the house. Who was it? I don't even know him. I was like, please let me out right now. Please let me out.

A young teenager by the name of Madison Nygaard finds herself walking home in a rural part of Muskegon County after attending an all-night party.

Walk us through what that night was like. What was this party?

They had a big old bonfire, and then everyone left and went to a different party. So then I started walking home.

Oh, so you were out all night?

All night long.

All night.

It's early in the morning. She's walking along the road.

Did you know where you were?

No, but I figured, like, I'll be able to figure it out.

Did you have a cell phone?

I did have a phone, but it was dead.

By now, Madison is lost and in tears.

Instead of taking the left and going towards town, I took a right and went towards the lake. I'm crying at this point.

A silver minivan pulls up. Hey, do you need a ride? The man in the minivan said to her.

I was like, no, absolutely not. Can I please just use your phone? And he was like, yeah, just come on, get in. And I was like, okay. So I got in.

She got in the car and he took off.

I don't know why she decided to hop in that car, but I think she was just really desperate at that point.

So you get in the car.

I get in the car. He rolls up the window and locks the doors. I'm still crying, and I feel bad because I think he's a nice guy. So I'm like, I am sorry, like, I'm not trying to be mean, but please roll my window back down.

The man in the minivan turns off the main road onto more isolated North Green Creek Road, not where Madison wants to go.

She didn't know where she was, but she knew enough to where that was definitely not where she wanted to be.

I asked to use his cell phone, and he was like, it's dead. And he's just staring at me the entire time. And I'm like, let me out, let me out, let me out. And he's just staring at me. And then that's when he reached under and grabbed his gun.

He's now pointing a gun at her. She has 2 choices, really. One, just submit and let him do what he wants to do. and hope for the best, or 2, run.

As soon as I saw the gun, I was out. I unlocked the door and jumped.

So you were in the vehicle and jumped out?

Yes.

Okay.

Please, please, yes.

When she jumped, she jumped right out of her shoes, rolled, got road rash. They found broken fingernails. She was gonna get away from this man.

You haven't been back over here?

No.

Madison has moved on, so she has not been back to the scene of her death-defying leap until this moment when she agreed to go back to show us what happened.

And I remember running completely down this road.

Did you look back?

I did look back, and that's when he was like standing there with his gun aimed at me. And I'm just like, don't kill me. Please don't kill me.

Did you say that to him?

Yeah.

I was like, please do not. Like, I have family. And he was like, it's just a joke. Come back. Come back.

It's a joke?

Yeah.

I was like, absolutely not.

And I just kept running.

There were 2 unspent .22 cartridges lying in the road.

I think those 2 live rounds were because the gun itself jammed. We believe he pulled the trigger, it jammed up, and so you rack it, get that round out so you get the next round. Somehow it jammed up again.

Were you assaulted at all? No. Okay. But I need to go to the hospital. I jumped out of his car while he was moving. Okay. Do you want an ambulance? She was very lucky.

She was very bold to be able to jump out of a vehicle. I don't know how many people would have done that.

Takes a lot of fortitude, and she had what it took to save herself.

He chased me. He was chasing me. Where was he? Where was he chasing you? To his house. And you don't know where he went? No.

Now deputies are on a van hunt, driving up and down country roads looking for telltale surveillance cameras.

When they said they were looking for anyone with video, I thought, they're not going to find anyone with video, especially in that stretch where she was.

Police figure find the silver minivan, solve the Madison Nygaard case.

But what detectives never figured on, finding that The detective asked if he could see the video. I was sure he wasn't up there 4 or 5 minutes.

And he says, I see it. He just pulled through the lot.

When Madison got away and they were able to connect the dots, were you surprised?

I was very shocked that one individual could have been responsible for 3 women. He really is a monster. Who lives with secrets that dark?

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Jessica Herringer's disappearance and Rebecca Bletsch's Here we have 2 females that are— one's missing, one's deceased.

But how do they connect? And how do they connect to a new victim?

They showed the 16-year-old girl and she said, that's the man who pointed a gun at me, who tried to kill me.

I'm trying to tell you, all right, I'm gonna go. We're not here to have a pissing match with you. I got a couple more things to say.

Bells and whistles started going off of, holy cats, what have we stumbled upon here?

That's a medical diagram on where to inject someone.

They discovered a file folder labeled VICS, V-I-C-S.

Inside the house, we found some recording equipment, almost like a covert hidden type camera, a significant amount of bleach bottles in the basement of this house.

They found evidence after evidence after evidence. I mean, it did blow the case wide open.

He's saying he didn't kill her, but he was there.

Can you tell me anything?

They questioned me so hard.

He just kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

It makes me shudder. I get goosebumps to think what they found.

The first questions are easy. What's your name?

Madison.

And spell that for me.

M-A-D-I-S-O-N.

We have the 911 call. I want to play it for you.

Okay.

It is very clear, based on the evidence that we collected at this particular crime scene, that Madison, through divine intervention, is alive. We discover that there were 2 unspent .22 cartridges lying in the road. It's only that the gun jammed, and not once but twice, that she's able to make it to this house alive.

Nobody knew I left the party that I was at. So if his gun didn't jam up, he would have just left me. No one would have known anything.

Investigators are able to determine that it's a .22 cartridge manufactured by the CCI company.

Those bullet casings and Madison's details about the van will become more important than police in this area realize.

What kind of car was it?

A van.

What color was the van?

Silver.

Police are searching the area for cameras that may have caught something that could be useful to this investigation.

When they said they were looking for anyone with video, I thought they're not going to find anyone with video, especially in that stretch where she was.

It's Madison's description of her would-be captor and his silver van that brings detectives here to the Saldini Blueberry Farms. Locals and visitors come here to pick blueberries, but detectives are picking through surveillance Police asked to see surveillance video, hoping security cameras captured that mysterious man and his silver van.

He asked if the cameras were real and if he could see them, so I said, sure, anything you want.

It had 2 security cameras, one that kind of pointed to the, the semicircle drive they had and the other that kind of pointed out to the roadway. And he wasn't up there 4 or 5 minutes and he says, I see it.

Right there on that surveillance footage A silver minivan.

What are the chances the blueberry farm has surveillance video that shows a silver minivan? The cameras only have a 30-day loop. If a week would have gone by, I think it would have been too late.

It gave really good close-up images of this particular silver minivan.

He turned in on the south drive and went out the north drive.

He turned around in the blueberry farm to go back and watch me.

What did he look like, the man that pulled up?

He was heavier set, and he had dark facial hair and dark hair.

Kind of normal?

Yeah, it just looked normal to me.

You didn't think anything of him when you saw him pull up?

He didn't look creepy.

Madison is also able to remember some specific details from inside the van.

In the middle, there was like this little netted thing so you could see through it. bit of stuff in there. I remember seeing his phone in the net thing, and it was a flip phone, which I thought was really weird because who has flip phones nowadays?

While the video is pretty clear, authorities can't make out the license plate, so they're now searching for a proverbial needle in a haystack. The first step is to identify the van's make and model, and for that, they turn to a local car dealer.

My name is Mike Kring, and I was the owner of Rich's Auto Mart. Which was a minivan car lot. I was able to establish that it was a 2004 to 2007 Dodge Caravan. They call it a soccer mom vehicle for a reason. It just was a grocery getter, and they went to soccer games, football games, and families would buy them.

Kring notices the van has some unique features similar to the ones he demonstrates on this Dodge Caravan.

The door handles were not painted.

painted.

So these, these door handles are not painted as well, so that's very similar. So I knew it was an SE package, but I knew it had Stow 'n Go seatings. Then they would have a compartment in the floor that you could flip these down and then turn them into the floor. When they're up in this position, the compartment's completely empty to stow whatever you'd like to stow.

More importantly, the moldings on the side of The van, and a black antenna caught the minivan expert's eye.

I saw that little antenna that was on the roof, and that told me that that van was more than likely made in Canada. Because of that, the detectives were able to involve the Secret Service and find some database that told them how many minivans were in the county that were made in Canada.

And they were able to take the VIN numbers from those vehicles and compare them to registered vans here in Michigan. And then from that, narrow the list down by geographic area.

We were able to establish that there are roughly 33,000 vehicles in the state of Michigan that match those attributes. That's a number now that investigators can take, and they can start ticking off vehicles in Muskegon County. And so that's exactly what they do.

And they go from 33,000 silver minivans All the way down to just one, and most importantly, to the man behind the wheel.

In all the different clips and pictures that we had seen, the silver minivan that was dark and shadowy, and they found it.

Now, authorities wanted to see if Madison could confirm this was the man who allegedly attempted to kidnap her, so they put together a photo lineup. When you saw the pictures that they showed you, the lineup?

I picked him out.

Like, right away?

Yep.

They showed the 16-year-old girl, and she said, that's the man who pointed a gun at me, who tried to kill me. And that man was Jeffrey Willis.

Jeff Willis happened to work at this manufacturing plant at the time. And a detective walked through the parking lot, discovered the vehicle, and noticed through the window that this vehicle had, uh, cargo netting in the center console area. This netting that had a bunch of stuff in it that seemed to be similar to what Madison had described.

And Jeffrey Willis is a name police have heard before.

3 years earlier, an Exxon gas station employee, Jessica Heeringa, vanished. At the time, detectives got a tip about a man named Jeffrey Willis. who owned a silver van, so they went to talk to him.

And we asked him how long he's owned his van, if he'd ever been to the Exxon gas station, if he knew Jessica Heringa.

And witnesses in that case described seeing a silver minivan, the same type of minivan detectives recognized on surveillance images from Sodini Blueberries.

It turns out Willis was a regular at the Exxon, and when police Police catch up to him again. This time, it's about the alleged kidnapping of 16-year-old Madison.

We've established that you drive a gray van. What's your side of what happened?

And Willis is about to offer up something jaw-dropping, something that takes the detectives by surprise.

So you're just saying that I took her? You think I took her?

The search for a silver minivan linked to an alleged attempted kidnapping leads police to 46-year-old Jeffrey Willis. After Madison picks him out of a photo lineup, police haul him in for questioning.

When Mr. Willis is getting off of work at 6:30 in the morning, He's being pulled over by a state trooper and then ultimately taken into custody. His van is then secured and taken to a location where it can be searched. He walks in very relaxed, sort of matter-of-fact.

Jeffrey Willis was a worker at a furniture manufacturer in nearby Spring Lake. He worked the overnight shift.

He was well under the radar. He had no criminal history. He was a middle-aged guy, married.

Kind of your normal, ordinary person in the community. Your regular guy next door.

Willis grew up in Michigan, attending high school in Muskegon County. He has a daughter from a previous relationship.

Turns out he's also a grandfather.

He has no criminal history, but a work history of being a janitor at 2 local elementary schools back in the '90s. According to school district records, Willis was eventually fired for allegedly using a school computer to look at adult websites.

He appears to want to cooperate. You know, it's like, oh, man, what's this all about? And yet he finds the opportunity to make small talk or even flirt a little bit with the female detective.

Familiar? I do. Yeah. Have we met? I'm trying to think. Uh, I think it's when I get a movie star.

While police are questioning him, Willis makes a surprising admission. He tells them he was questioned back in 2013 about the unsolved disappearance of Jessica Herringer at the Exxon gas station.

I got bugged about the other one too, so— Oh, really? Well, I mean, they're doing the routine thing. Yeah. As far as— so someone actually came to your house? Yeah. Oh, I just come to the house and ask me a couple questions.

Back in 2013, I told him that we are investigating silver vans and registered owners that are in the area due to the Jessica Heeringa investigation. He said he had heard about that.

Receipts show that Willis was actually a regular at the Exxon. And many of his visits happened during Jessica's shifts, including on the very night she disappeared.

He had actually stopped into the gas station that night. And Jessica was working. And he recalls seeing her there. He said that he didn't have a relationship with her, didn't talk to her a lot. just had seen her working in the gas station.

Remember, police were talking to many potential suspects, and when they searched it, Willis's van appeared clean.

We asked if we could see it. It was empty and it smelled of cleaning products.

They asked him about what he was doing that night.

He had an alibi. He was home with his wife. He was at the gas station earlier in the evening, but at that time he was home.

They did a really good job at that point in time of following up and helping establish his relationship or what he had done that night.

I was angry. I was emotional. I was upset about what we might have stopped had we brought him in, sat him down, polygraphed him, and went at him.

They had him right there.

He was right under of their noses.

But if you don't have evidence, how can you arrest him?

They're not to be blamed for not having arrested him initially because they didn't have probable cause initially. It happens often that police speak to suspects in these kinds of cases early in a spree like this and only come back to a suspect later.

But Madison Nygaard's alleged attempted kidnapping Puts Jeffrey Willis back on police's radar. And now they're grilling him about his whereabouts on that morning.

Tell us why you were in the leather room. Going home? I don't know. We know that you were at Riverdale.

Okay.

That girl was taking you in that accident.

Okay.

So you're saying that I took her? You think I took her? We want to know what happened. I can't tell you. I don't know. I wasn't there. Listen, you know, I mean, I wasn't there with whatever happened to her. That's what I'm telling you. I might have been there.

I wasn't wherever Willis's comfortable demeanor changes when detectives tell him they have his minivan on surveillance video.

Everything is on tape at this point. So why were you up there? I don't know if I was up there for— I don't know why I would have been up there. Obviously something happened up there. All right, when you go from I was home, I You asked me where I went and I said I don't know. I, I honestly— I know I got my oil changed, you know, that week, you know. I might have been out the door. And I'm not trying to— no, if I get up and walk out, are you gonna slam me down?

Jeffrey Willis heads for the door.

Well, then I'm gonna walk. We did it. Just relax. We did it. Are you wrestling me? Just sit down, please. Will you please sit down? Okay, listen, on Friday I'm going to tell you, all right? I'm going to go. Listen, we're not here to have a pissing match with you. I got a couple more things to say, and I want you to hear me out, all right? OK? It's that simple.

Investigators tell Willis that he is not free to leave. And not only that, but they are searching his home and that silver minivan.

They got the 2 search warrants.

Oh, no.

Boy, Willis seems worried about what police will find.

May I ask what you're searching for?

And what they're about to uncover would shock even the most seasoned investigator— evidence of a dark double life.

It makes me shudder. I get goosebumps to think what they found.

Detectives have been talking to Jeffrey Willis for hours about the alleged kidnapping of Madison Nygaard. And now they tell him they're also searching his home and his van.

The search— what's the search for? Um, it wasn't— I'm just packing. I was just packing down and getting all the stuff in the back. So you're gonna— no, no, search at the house and the car. Evidence. Evidence. Always evidence.

It turns out that that model of minivan had hidden compartments.

And in that, they find this metal toolbox that is padlocked. It's locked.

And the things that were in the toolbox are disgusting.

We find, uh, things that you would use in a bondage situation, like chains and rope, what they call a J-hook, which is something that you hang from the rafters and you kind of You know, hook a rope or chain to, so you're kind of dangling with your arms spread. They also find some rubber gloves.

There were syringes. Along with the syringes were vials of insulin.

So on the inside cover of this toolbox is a laminated— small laminated diagram of a human body.

That's a medical diagram on where to inject someone with insulin. So it's a diagram of a human torso showing the injection points.

And so ultimately, he had this map, if you will, of where— if I wanted a low dose, where would I inject somebody? If I wanted a high dose or something to move rapidly, where would I inject somebody in order to make that happen? Insulin, for a non-insulin-taking person, can have some very detrimental effects. It can literally render you unconscious. It was at that point in time that light bulbs started and bells and whistles started going off of, holy cats, what have we Investigators also find a second box in the minivan hidden under the driver's seat.

And in this one, they find a gun, a Walther P22.

It's a different gun from the Bersa .380 Willis told police about during his interrogation.

I own a, um, .380, Bersa .380. Do you own any other guns? I do not.

Also found in the secret lockbox is a box of .22 caliber CCI brand ammunition.

We recovered the .22 casings from Rebecca Bletsch's scene.

The lab was able to conclusively show that the shell casings and bullet fragments collected at the Rebecca Bletsch scene were fired from the gun that was recovered from Jeff Willis's van.

So bingo. That's when they started to put everything together, when it all started to add up.

Now investigators have evidence connecting Jeffrey Willis to both Jessica Herringer's disappearance and Rebecca Bletsch's murder.

We get a search warrant. We go back to his house.

During the search of Willis's house, investigators speak to his wife.

She had no idea about anything nefarious that he was involved in. There was nothing that suggested to her that there was anything creepy, weird, or evil going on in Jeff's life.

In the second search warrant on his house, we found a kind of a hard drive that was hidden.

We checked the ductwork, and up inside the furnace cold air return, stuck to the wall, was a portable hard drive.

In his hard drive, they discovered a file folder Inside that folder, there were 2 subfolders, one containing the initials of Rebecca Blech, the other containing the initials of Jessica Herringer. Vics, we automatically assumed, stand for victims.

Jessica Lynn Herringer. And then in that folder was all these little, like, pictures of her, things from the internet, things from the news, anything that he could find on her. he found, he would put in that folder. The other one was RB, Rebecca Bletsch. And in there was all these pictures, different pictures and different articles of her.

While we were at his home doing the search warrant there and talking with his wife, we learned about the Bailey Street address, which was his grandfather's home that he had access to. And his grandfather was deceased, so he had pretty much sole access to that home. There was a significant amount of bleach bottles in the basement of this house, to the point where you would really question why somebody would have that many empty bleach bottles in a rundown abandoned house.

Jeffrey Willis is accused of the attempted abduction of a 16-year-old girl last month and is under investigation in the murder of Rebecca Bletsch. 2 years ago and the disappearance of Jessica Herringer.

Willis pleaded not guilty to the attempted abduction of Madison Nygaard.

As they continued to investigate and they arrested Jeffrey Willis and they found evidence after evidence after evidence, I mean, it did blow the case wide open.

While Willis sits in jail, the investigation continues. Detectives talk to family and friends trying to figure out You're asking, who's Jeffrey Willis?

Where'd this guy come from? And interviewing friends and relatives and all that kind of stuff. One of the names that came up was Bloom.

Well, Kevin Bloom is his cousin. They say they were like brothers. They were very close.

We then went to his house, talked to him about, you know, Jeffrey Willis and how do you know him.

And it was really, if anything, a fact— what we call a fact witness, somebody who's telling us the truth. that was really not of interest to us other than that.

Well, then the information came out, I believe in the news, that we were— we located the gun.

Shortly after that, one of the detectives gets a phone call from Mr. Bloom. Mr. Bloom tells this detective, hey, you know, I just wanted to tell you something. I had this really weird dream about handling the gun You probably touched it, or you had a dream that you thought you touched it.

You know exactly what happened.

So police are now wondering, is it possible their prime suspect, Jeffrey Willis, had a partner in crime?

In a sunny Californian suburb, one family's home is unusually quiet.

When detectives walk into this home, When they walked into that house, they said that it was like time just stood still.

It's 2010, and the McStay family is nowhere to be found. Inside the home, no clear answer where the family could have gone.

Husband, wife, and 2 children, all gone. Like, poof, disappeared.

The search for the McStays quickly captures the nation. But for years, the search for answers only brings more questions.

Who's ever heard of an entire family going missing?

A family of 4 doesn't just drop off the face of the earth.

Is this a family on the run, or is the truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio and 20/20, this is What Happened to the McStays? Follow What Happened to the McStays for weekly episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you can't wait, the entire series is streaming now ad-free for subscribers to 20/20 True Crime+. Find 20/20 True Crime+ on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today.

Legendary director Ridley Scott returns in IMAX.

It's no surprise how fast civilization can disappear.

Go!

Out there, it's kill or be killed.

Jacob Elordi. There are people out there.

They need our help.

Josh Brolin.

Shoot first and inquire afterwards.

Margaret Qualley.

Okay, tough guy.

And Guy Pearce.

Arm up!

The Dog Stars, directed by Ridley Scott. Now playing in theaters. Rated R. Under 17, not admitted without parents.

While Willis sits in jail awaiting trial, investigators wanting to learn more about his past track down his cousin and close confidant, a man named Kevin Bloom.

Kevin Bloom, at the time that this was all happening, worked for the Department of Corrections. He was a corrections officer at one of our local prisons here in town. He was talked to just as a witness that might be familiar with Jeff Willis.

We then went to his house, talked to him about, you know, Jeffrey Willis and how do you know him? Well, I haven't seen him in a long time. And we didn't think much about it. It's like, okay.

What's really interesting about this is that shortly after that interview, one of the detectives gets a phone call from Mr. Bloom tells this detective, hey, you know, I just wanted to tell you something. I had this really weird dream about handling the— this particular weapon and Jeff being there.

I think I might have touched that gun. You think you might have touched the gun? Yeah, I'm not sure if I touched it or it was in a dream, but I think I touched it. So I'm not sure. And she just played it cool. She goes, oh, OK, well, we'll come over and talk to you about it.

This detective had been around for a while. And the red flags just went screaming off in her head.

Basically, the 2 detectives go, we're not buying this. Would you do a polygraph?

He was interviewed for a long period of time. He had taken a polygraph. He had failed.

But Kevin Blum continues to talk to police and eventually tells them that his cousin, Jeffrey Williams, has told him that he was the person who abducted and killed Jessica Herringer.

I get a call at about 2:00 in the morning at home from the detectives. And they said, you need to get here. He's starting to talk about Herringer and what they did with the body. I was like, this can't be happening. Do I finally have somebody talking?

Let's go back to that gun, OK, as far as— That was the only time I've ever seen him have a handgun.

He had told them that he was around Saturday night when he saw Jessica, or he saw a body at the grandpa's house. And he believes that he might have seen that she was dead and helped him move the body.

And he says, if you don't do this, I'm going to end up hurting your family. And then I come down and helped him wrap her up, and he carried her into his van.

He's crying. He's emotionally upset. He's saying he didn't kill her, but he was there.

And he states that he was with Jeffrey Willis when he buried her body and that he knew where that— where her body was buried.

I felt confident. I didn't think anybody would be lying about that.

So he talks about getting rid of the body and how they carried her out in a, in a gray sheet out to the van.

I opened the van and I followed them, and then we went here and we put her somewhere in there.

I felt like I finally have a witness to this. I said, well, can you bring me to the body? He said, absolutely. Absolutely, I can do that. I thought, OK, finally, we're going to have really good closure all the way around. So we go out there. We brought out cadaver dogs from the state police. And everybody's got a shovel and, you know, looking. And we're walking up and down and up and down. He goes, I just can't remember. So I went in there and I confronted him.

I thought you would have found her. No, I did not find her. Oh my God. No. If I was— if I found her, I'd be bringing you home right now. That's what I'd be doing.

And he stopped. He looks and he goes, I'm lying. I go, yeah, I know you're lying. I go, well, let's get to the truth.

So you weren't there at all? At all? Nothing? All this was a lie? Mm-hmm.

And he goes, no, I'm lying about everything. I wasn't at Jeff's house. forever. I didn't see the body. I didn't move the body. Everything he retracted.

He just said he made it up.

So that doesn't happen very much. It's not that common that somebody makes up a story where it puts themselves directly involved in it.

He was charged with lying and then accessory after the fact, and he was convicted of both.

In those interviews he did with police, he also mentioned Rebecca Bletsch. He didn't implicate himself in her murder, and he was never charged in relation to the case. But it did leave Rebecca's sister Jessica wondering if maybe he knew more about what happened to her than he'd said.

So I went to the jail to talk to him.

Who's this?

I'm Rebecca Fletch's sister.

Hi.

He just kept saying, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Can you tell me anything?

Um, all I'm going to say is— The police were wrong when they investigated me, and when they questioned me that day, they questioned me so hard.

I lied. I made it up. I'm not that kind of person. I didn't know anything about it.

All made up.

What were you hoping to get from him, talking to him in jail?

You, you know more than you're telling us. I don't know what I wanted. I just felt I needed to go see him and see what information he would give me.

It's time for Jeffrey Willis's day in court. And at the Rebecca Bletsch trial, he surprises everybody by taking the stand to testify.

We're never told whether a defendant's going to testify.

Mr. Willis, you're charged with, in this case, killing Ms. Bletsch. Did you, in fact, do that?

Nobody does that. That's not normal. What he thought was funny, nobody was buying that line.

Jeffrey Willis has now been charged with the murders of both Jessica Herringer and Rebecca Bletsch. He pleads not guilty to both, and his first trial up is the Bletsch case.

It's not just another murder, and it's not just another trial. It was a big stage. There were a lot of people paying attention.

The physical evidence was better in the Rebecca Bletsch case. Part of the forensic examination of the handgun and athletic-type gloves, we were able to find blood in various locations, and that blood matched the DNA profile of Rebecca Bletsch.

Prosecutors made a very smart strategic decision to try Rebecca Blech's murder case first. There they had a body, and they could prove up the facts very clearly for first-degree murder.

They called to the stand Kevin Blum. At the time, the defense was, I didn't do it, I being Jeff Willis, but my my cousin did. We knew going into this that because Kevin had his own case going at the time, that he was not going to testify in, in fear of incriminating himself. And so he took the Fifth.

Kevin Bloom had an alibi for the Bletsch murder and was never charged in connection with that crime in any way.

He was a non-player in this. He wasn't a person who was going to impact the outcome for my client one way or the other.

When Willis appears in court, he looks like a different man than the one who sat in the He looked different.

He'd lost a lot of weight, and now he was trimmed and fit.

You may call your next witness, Mr. Johnson.

Your Honor, we call Jeffrey Willis to the stand. In the Bletsch case, we put my client on the stand.

The defendant almost never takes the witness stand in a criminal case. To see Jeff Willis get up on the witness stand and try and talk his way out of a conviction is pretty astounding.

The penalty for first-degree murder in this state is you spend the rest of your life in prison with no possibility of getting out.

Please have a seat.

State your name for the record.

Jeffrey Thomas Willis.

When you have that much on the line, ultimately you leave that call to him. Mr. Willis, you're charged with, in this case, killing Ms. Bletsch. Did you in fact do that?

I did not.

I did not kill Ms. Bletsch. I wasn't even there.

I was home.

Do you have any other recollections about that day in general?

Uh, I cut the grass that day between 4 and I want to say 6:30. I was cutting the grass.

The problem with it is once you take the stand, you got to answer questions too. And if you have a highly skilled prosecutor, as they did, he's going to have some questions that you may not want to have asked.

And there's nobody else that can Who can verify that with you? Well, my wife.

She was home.

By this time, Willis and his wife had divorced.

Over 3 years have passed. His wife doesn't remember, and she doesn't remember whether he was home or not. She has no real independent memory about that particular evening. So what I'm saying is, if your wife has no recollection of that, the only one that can verify that is you.

Yeah, I guess.

I remember when he got on the stand. He said when they asked him about the toolbox in his van, He chuckles. Oh, it's kind of a funny story.

My grand— my grandson would come over on Wednesdays.

That toolbox is full of adult toys. And he laughs it off like, oh, my grandson got into there.

So I put it in the van.

That's how—

that's how it ended in the van.

Nobody does that. That's— that's not normal. To laugh it off like he's so innocent to that jury. Nobody was buying that line.

Do you think he was trying to be charming?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

A complete debacle on the witness stand. Not charming, not convincing, and not telling the truth.

Ultimately, the jury deliberates for about 90 minutes.

You have given the signal that you've arrived at a verdict.

And they find him guilty of first-degree murder. in the death of Rebecca Bletsch.

With one trial finished, Willis's defense now prepares for the next, the murder of Jessica Herringer.

If you read those 2 trials, the evidence coming in is almost identical in both cases. You try again and see if you can't figure out a different argument that might be more effective this time. I believe you will have information You may have information that paints him as an evil person, and then that may be your judgment, but you will not have evidence that he killed or kidnapped Ms. Harrington. The victim's body is never discovered, so under those circumstances, we're able to pursue the argument that the person is not deceased.

But prosecutors have some powerful evidence, and they tell jurors about those pieces of plastic and batteries from a laser sight found at the Exxon station where Jessica vanished. They explain that the gun recovered from Jeffrey Willis's van was originally sold with a laser sight on it. But when the gun was recovered, that laser sight was missing.

Usually, you can't talk about a defendant's prior alleged bad acts to prove that he did the bad act in this case. But there are exceptions.

In this case, the judge allows prosecutors to call Madison Nygaard, the 16-year-old police say Willis attempted to abduct. Not only does she help establish a pattern of behavior on Willis's part, but she is also able to link him to that silver minivan. Because she was a minor at the time, she was not shown on camera.

Jeffrey Willis pulled up.

Did you know Mr.

No.

The first time I had to testify, I sat outside and, like, cried and cried, and I was like, I do not want to do this. I don't want to. But I had to do it.

Were you scared?

I was still scared, yeah.

What did you do?

I unlocked the door and jumped out.

This child being traumatized, that was the bit of evidence, I think, which locked them into a course that we couldn't turn the ship around.

People versus Jeffrey Thomas Willis, count 1, open murder. Guilty of first-degree murder.

It almost seems unreal. We're looking at a guy that's a potential serial killer that, at a minimum, has killed 2 people, was probably in line to kill a third.

They never did a trial for your case.

Nope. The prosecutor said it's a waste of their time. He's already going away for life.

What would you have liked to have seen happen?

I think I would have just liked to have the option of things. Yeah, that was kind of like a huge slap in my face.

Madison had played a key role up to this point, but he had been convicted of 2 separate counts of first-degree murder, so he's essentially gonna die in prison. Ultimately made the decision that there wasn't a need to move forward with the criminal prosecution.

At the sentencing, the victim or her family is allowed to look the defendant in the eye and tell him, this is what you did to my loved one. This is what you did to me.

I was looking forward to him being there to hear what I had to say.

But Jeffrey Willis had one last sickening surprise in store. About 6 weeks after Willis is found guilty of murdering Rebecca Bletsch, he's sentenced, a standard part of any trial. But this time, it's different.

Usually, at the sentencing, the victim comes in, or her family is allowed to look the defendant in the eye. And you get to tell him, this is what you did to my loved one. This is what you've done to her children. This is what you did to me. Mr. Willis knew that was coming.

I get approached by his lawyer, who basically says, hey, my client doesn't want to be present.

Your Honor, may we approach?

Your Honor, it is, uh, the position of the defense that, uh, we were— we are hereby requesting that my client, uh, be allowed to leave these proceedings at this juncture.

In my, you know, 24 years of doing this, this was a first for me. I desire to be relieved.

You don't have to be here.

That was a moment I had waited 2 years for. You know, to have my chance to look him in the eyes and talk to him and say what I wanted to say. Not only is it my time, but I was looking forward to him being there to hear what I had to say.

The victim's family is sitting there, and he looks over at them. And he blows a kiss to them.

He blew a kiss! He blew a kiss! Hold it. Hold it.

We got to quiet it down.

When he blew the kiss in your direction—

Shock. I couldn't— I couldn't believe it. Again, he got his way and got to walk out and not listen to us.

It's one of the lowest points in my career. It was just a horrible thing to do. It was just a horrible thing to do.

Shortly after the sentence, the sheriff came to me and said, hey, look, um, do you think there would be an issue if when we transport, uh, Mr. Willis, that on that trip, if, uh, my guys just played the victim impact statement the entire trip? I said, I see no issue with that. Go for it.

And he claims that he's not a monster, but his actions speak louder than words.

They played it loud.

She was amazing inside and out. She was easy to love and people wanted to be around her.

And they played it for him over and over again. He didn't stand up there and take it, but he heard it.

Your 3 names are always connected. You are the reason that they figured all this out.

For a long time, I know everyone would be like, you're like a hero, you put the— solved it. And I was like, I didn't want to be the one to solve it. I didn't like want to go through that. I mean, it feels good that I'm the one that got away, but I wish it didn't happen.

For their part, Jessica Herringer's family didn't support Willis's prosecution and have never believed he's the person responsible for her abduction and murder.

The family still— they still have their Facebook page. They still, you know, help us find Jessica. They still have not acknowledged that Jeffrey Willis had anything to do with her disappearance or her death. They're still holding out hope that she might come home.

This is a memorial that was set up for Becky after she passed. A friend of the family made the cross. So the plaque says Becky Bletsch, 1977 to 2014, and then it says sister next to it with a heart and an infinity sign on it. When I'm in the area, I try to stop, share a little moment with her, and Let her know I'm thinking of her. We haven't forgotten her.

And we should point out tonight that she's now remembered in a new Michigan law, the Rebecca Bletsch Law, which ensures that a defendant is present in the courtroom.

And as for that silver minivan, which played such a big role in the case, a judge ruled that it could be sent to a scrapyard, where it's now been destroyed. And you can find all new broadcast episodes of 20/20 Friday nights at 9:00 on ABC.

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