Hi, I'm Holly. Hi, Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Hi, welcome back everybody.
Today's episode we're going to get into in just a second, but Haley, what's been going on in Hunter-Weepin? Oh gosh, my week has been good. I recently started taking my dog to doggy daycare, some one of those people now. I heard about this.
But she loves it. And I don't have their dogs, so I felt like I was being an electrical and not letting her play with their dogs. So I took her out there and she absolutely loves it. That's awesome.
Yeah, and she's exhausted. So when I pick her up, she just sleeps, which is great for me. Well, that'll be great when we do our podcast next time. Yeah, we'll have to do it on a Friday, so I can take care of her.
Sounds great. So she'll be passed out. Well, I'm just sitting here, you know, munching on this breadstick from the Olive Garden. By the way, this is not a sponsorship.
But eventually, you know, when we get bigger, Olive Garden, if you want to sponsor us. Hit us up. I love some pasta. Oh my gosh, you don't even know.
Like an e-poss all the time. Now, it did take about an hour and a half from the time that we put in our order, but they were so busy. You know, why? It's delicious.
It's delicious. Well, the Olive Garden. I say, say. So let me put down my breadstick.
Okay. Has there anything crazy in your week? Nothing too crazy or too extreme, you know, just enjoying that, you know, Italian feast from the Olive Garden. Always a good time.
Hit us up, Olive Garden, just saying. Just saying. All right, Haley, would you like to hear a little story? Yeah.
Yeah, I guess. Okay. So this story takes us to April 1990. Let's talk about what was going on in the world in 1990 or at least in the US.
Let me know. Well, at least in the world, let's talk about that. So the number one song at this time was Love'll Lead You Back by Taylor Day. Do you know that one?
Not a freaking clue. You know, every time I say the popular song, I'm like, Hey, do you know that one? No. There's got to be a week where you know it.
There will be eventually. I at least knew the artist of the last one you did. Okay. You don't know Taylor Day?
No, really? No. Love will lead you back. No.
No, okay. Not at all. So, you know, we'll get there. All right, one day, one day.
All right, you guys. So there was a prison riot in Manchester, UK at a place called Strange Ways Prison. Very interesting. Love that.
So this riot ended up lasting three weeks and three days, which was the longest prison riot in British history. Yeah, that's a long time. It's a long time. And back in the US, the 1990 census had begun.
And at this point, there were 248,709, 873 residents in the United States. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of commas.
Yeah. I'm impressed that you got all that out. Good job. Oh, thank you.
I messed up a lot. Oh, no, I'm a pro here. I'm a pro with the numbers. So do you want to know what was going on in South Carolina?
I don't know if I do, but I bet you're going to tell me. Pretty much. Yeah, that's why we're here. Yeah, let me know.
Okay. So because you're curious, I will tell you. Okay. So April 4, 1990 in Greenville, South Carolina, a 28-year-old by the name of Genevieve, she went by Jenny, is a tricky, was on the phone with one of her girlfriends.
This is about 8 PM at night, 8 9 PM. Her girlfriend is saying, you know, hey, I was thinking about maybe 10 o'clock coming over, hanging out. So they're talking. And then her girlfriend says, you know what, I'm just kind of tired.
Would you be okay if I just didn't come over? So Jenny says, now, it's totally cool. Listen, I'm going to go to bed. No worries.
We'll talk later. So she hangs up with her friend and she goes to bed. So that's the last time anybody sees Jenny. Oh, wow.
So fast forward to the next day, she doesn't show up for work. Okay. So a little history on Jenny. Jenny was from the Midwest.
She had a degree in computer science, very smart girl. She was married. She and her husband actually moved down to Greenville together. They were married for about seven years, but after their move, they just kind of had those irreconcilable differences and they decided to divorce.
Okay. So Jenny, being recently divorced, was sort of enjoying her new found freedom. Yeah. Making lots of friends.
She loved to go to the pool and hang out. She also was over the softball team, like a woman's softball team. And she was just really engaged in different social events. People kind of expressed that she was a social butterfly.
They love being around her. She's very joyful, very kind person. Jenny was average height, beautiful girl, dark hair, dark curly hair. She had a perm, very common at the time.
Nice. Love a good perm. Absolutely. So she doesn't show up to work on April 5th.
Her coworkers think it's a little odd, but they thought, oh, well, maybe she's sick. Okay. So she's a little late today, April 6th, which is a Friday. She still doesn't show up for work.
By this point, you know, her coworkers, they know her to be very dependable. Right. So Jenny worked as a computer programmer in the payroll department at the Michelin, North America headquarters. Oh, wow.
She actually, she and her husband can move down to South Carolina so she can take this role. Oh, good for her. So exactly. And she was living in an apartment complex where other professionals around her age were living.
So a very, very nice apartment complex called the Hen Lakes Apartments. Okay. So anyway, coworkers in here from her thought it was very strange. So one of her colleagues called the manager at the apartment complex and she said, you know, hey, we haven't seen Jenny in today.
She hasn't showed up for work. We haven't heard from her. We've tried to call her. Would she mind just like going check in?
Yeah. So manager Knox doesn't hear anything. So he opens the apartment door. He goes into find the apartment and ransacked.
Oh. And he sees blood. Oh. And before going any further, he decides I got to call the cops.
Good. Good on him. Absolutely. Good move.
Absolutely. So they see the lights. They find clothes everywhere, drawers had opened. It looked like someone had just completely gone through and torn the whole place up.
And then they see drag marks, blood, drag marks on the carpet going from the bedroom through the hallway into the bathroom. Oh, I don't like those. This is going. Yeah.
So they enter the bathroom and in a bathtub full of water, they see Jenny. She has leotards and panty hoes wrapped around her neck. She's been posed where her arms are behind her back and her legs are kind of spread up on the tub. Hey, that?
Yes. She looks like she's been beaten. So cause of death isn't quickly determined just based on the state of the body. They also find that her wallet is floating in a pool of water in the kitchen sink.
And when they start to look around, there's nothing really, things have been disturbed, but nothing's been stolen. So it looks like somebody just came through and threw all her stuff around, but didn't actually take anything? Right. That's weird.
And it would appear that the perpetrator was trying to get rid of any physical evidence. And that's why they were thinking he threw her body into water. Okay, that makes sense. Exactly.
So, hey, this crime, the investigators who were looking into this crime were horrified. This is one of the worst they stated that they had seen. Oh, wow. So when they contacted Jenny's family, Jenny's father was actually receiving cancer treatment at the time when he got the news.
And Jenny was born in his 30th birthday. Oh. And they shared a really special connection and they were always very close. So the news was devastating to him.
And he actually passed away a month after she did. So this was very, very hard on the family and they wanted so much for this case to be solved in the perpetrator as did the officers who were investigating this crime. So looking at all the possibilities, they first wanted to look at her ex-husband. He seems like the most likely, obviously, because...
That's always the ex-husband. Well, right. So they were recently divorced. He lived in the same apartment complex because current girlfriend.
So, you know, from what friends said, they would see each other, they were amicable, but it wasn't like they hung out with each other. Right. They weren't like besties. Right.
They weren't actively seeking out. Right. But it's kind of like not across the parking lot. Like, see each other passing.
Good morning. How are you? Exactly. Exactly.
So things I do want to state that when the autopsy happened, they determined that the cause of she was about the cause of death. They determined that the cause of death was actually strangulation. However, there was black force trauma to the back of her head, which actually crapped open her skull, and they also found that she had been raped. So it is believed that an intruder came in the back door of her apartment while she was sleeping, probably not long after she hung up with her friend.
He hit her over the head with some object, raped her, and then strangled her with her panty-hose and leotard and then dragged her body into the bathtub in hopes of getting rid of some of the biological edits. What if her friend had come over? Exactly. I thought they were right.
Oh my gosh. Right? Crazy. So even though the perpetrator thought, okay, I am going to be really clever about this, try and destroy evidence.
There was still DNA that was left in the body. Okay. So they were able to, even though DNA wasn't a big thing at that point, they were able to salvage a small amount, which they just kept in the evidence. Okay.
Shortage. Good on them. Exactly. Very, very smart.
Yeah. They also were starting to think, okay, so we've got the husband who's a potential suspect or the ex-husband in this case. But it also seemed like someone who was this premeditated in cagey about it, someone who was thinking about being cautious, destroying evidence, trying to get rid of fingerprints, maybe it's someone who worked in law enforcement or the military. Good thought.
Exactly. So they kind of pursued all those possibilities. Well, when they brought in the ex-husband, he was devastated by this crime and said, you know, no, I have an alibi. I was here.
And there were many other people that said, no, he was here. I saw him. And I mean, it's married to her for seven years. Right.
And it sounds like the divorce was amicable. Right? So I mean, you're not married to somebody for seven years and then just stop caring about them. Exactly.
So he was ruled out as a suspect. And they kept this going for a while in hopes of trying to figure out who this could be. And of course, the apartment complex is terrified, you know, who wouldn't be. So what's interesting is as the story goes along, the case goes cold.
Yeah. I hate it when it happens. I do too. And unfortunately, other cases happen and this kind of gets pushed to the bathroom.
Yeah. Well, luckily in 2006, a cold case unit is opened up. Okay. And they decide that they are going to reopen this case.
Wow. Yeah. Good. So that's why we wasn't a place for this DNA to be put to try and figure out who it belongs to you, necessarily.
We didn't have the science behind it, but in 2006, they did. So they uploaded the DNA that they had, which was a very small amount, into the system known as codus. And this is the database where offenders who go into prison, their DNA is actually extracted and put into the system so that anybody who has, you know, been convicted of a crime, their DNA is in the system. Okay.
So they had the hopes of, oh my gosh, we could get hit because chances are this person is pretty methodical. Right. He may have done this before. Yeah.
They didn't match anybody. It got so frustrating. It didn't match anybody, but it didn't match other crimes. Oh.
So a hit was made on a crime that happened in Missouri in 1998. I have chills. Absolutely. Oh.
So are you all right? No, I'm not sure I'm invested now. So there was a mother daughter who lived in Porja spill, Missouri. And I hope I say that right.
I'm so sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry. Sorry, Missouri. Um, Sherry and her daughter, Megan.
Sherry, Sherry and her daughter, Megan. Megan was 11 years old at the time. They were home alone cooking dinner. The husband and son actually had gone out to work together that day.
Okay. And so they were cooking dinner. Actually, the husband and son on their way home, there was a wreck and so traffic was way back down. And so they called and said, listen, it's going to take us a while to get around late.
So in the time that it took them to make that call and then get home, the son came in, his name was Steve at the time he was 15 and came in and he found his mother and sister in a living room. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yes.
So it was discovered that an intruder had come in shot mom three times ahead that point like range. The daughter, Megan had been raped. She had been found in a being back chair sitting near the fireplace without any bottoms, any underwear on just a top on. She had been posed and she had been shot in the temple and she had been shot in another place in the body.
Oh, no. So how devastating for the family and the son to find this? Yeah. Right.
So again, they didn't know who the killer was. They did some ballistics testing. So they had that at least about two and a half hours later in Tennessee. So about 45 minutes down the road in Tennessee, a call is made 911 call from a woman saying a man just shot me.
What? Yeah. So here's where the story takes another twist. So in Tennessee, a lady at night is coming home and a man stops her.
She's got groceries. Man stops her. Excuse me, ma'am. Can you give me directions to such and such road?
Never give anyone directions. Right. And he gets out of the car and she says, I'm sorry. I don't even know what road you're talking about.
He said, well, let me get my map out of the car. Maybe you can help me. Show me where I am. I'm just lost.
Never help anyone. I mean, that's not to help anybody, but you know, if they're creepy and you know, if it is a dark road at night and some man asks you to help him with anything, say no. Just say no. No.
So he goes to his truck or actually, excuse me, it was a van. So he goes to his van and he's getting the map out. Even worse. And there is something in her that just gets this bad feeling.
And he comes back and he said, well, I didn't find the map, but I did find this gun. Hate that so much. Right. Right.
When you calliber, yeah, which was the same one that had been used in the crime. And she so instinctively and so quickly starts fighting with him. Good on her. She actually is able to physically push him backwards.
It gives her enough time to get in her house and lock the door. So he's still there though. Oh my God. So she happens to have a shotgun or rifle right right up on the wall.
So it gets it up off the wall and she points at him. So now it's a showdown. Dang. And she's ready.
He actually fires and shoots through the door and it actually gets her in the upper arm. Man. And I guess that sort of scared him off. So he drives off, runs away.
She and meanwhile calls 911. Yeah. She's able to give police a very good description of this individual. He's a man who's pretty short.
He's reported as being between five, five and five six, which were me and that's the short of me. That's around my height actually. So that's funny. He was a man probably been 40s and had grain hair.
He was also wearing glasses. Think about like the office, Dwight Schrute kind of glasses. Okay. So they're on the man.
They're trying to find this guy before he attacks again because they're like, this is, you know, my gosh. Now they're able to take the ballistics from the murder that happened in Missouri of Sherry and Megan and find out that that is the exact same gun. Yeah. Same bullets because they take out the bullet of the lady who shot the arm and they match the two and they say, oh my gosh, this is the same guy.
So he moved fast. He moved very fast. Absolutely. Now here's the thing about all three of these murders, or well, in that one attempted murder, is that there isn't a lot that's really in common about them.
They're all in different places. Yeah. You know, the only kind of commonality is that there was a rape that occurred in at least two of them. Yeah, and probably the third if he had got the chance.
Right. Exactly. Same kind of gun. But the first murder, there wasn't a gun.
There was a regulation and she was beaten. Although she was hit over the head with a blunt force, a head blunt force trauma with some kind of object. Yeah, it could have been done. Maybe.
So, but just that the whole thing was very different. They think that in the first crime, the officers feel like he was in the house a long time. He was probably at her house an hour or two. Oh, God.
Meanwhile, at the crime that happened in Missouri, they feel like he was in the house a very short time. Well, yeah, I mean, for them to, for the father and son to get home. From the time that they made the call? Yeah.
Very short. Yeah. So all these crimes were very different. So they thought, you know, they were puzzled.
Is this really the same guy? Yeah. I mean, the DNA doesn't lie, but is there something that we're missing here? This just doesn't make sense.
So finally, they decided after years by 2018, it was so cold they hadn't found anybody. Wow. Exactly. So they're like, okay, he must, he's a repeat offender, but he's obviously not been incarcerated.
Right. He's smart enough to stay out. Yeah. Which is terrifying.
Yeah. So they send his DNA to a place called Parabon. Have you heard of Parabon? Yes, because I am a huge true crime podcast fan and I've heard other podcasts where they talk about this place.
Yes. Parabon is an amazing place in Virginia. Wow. And they do a lot of forensic DNA testing.
So essentially they take the DNA and they upload it to something called Gen Match. So Gen Match is where people who do ancestry and 23andMe, they will upload it to Gen Match so that they can find relatives. Yeah. Yeah.
And so, and you know, people who are adopted, you know, that way they try to find loved ones. Anyway, so they take that DNA profile and they upload it to Gen Match in the hopes of, okay, if we can't find this man, maybe we can find who he's related to. Right. We're gonna turn it down.
So let anybody name a CC more. Have you heard of her? I haven't. So she's got the show and yeah, I'm gonna promote it because I love it.
Yeah. It's called the genetic detective. I haven't seen it. It's on Hulu.
Got to watch it. Okay. Okay. Adding it to my list.
So good. Currently. So CC more actually takes the genetic profile and she builds the family tree. First she works backwards in time to see like what the links are.
So who are the great grandparents and then she works forward in time. She was able to isolate exactly who this person was. Whoa. And she came up the name of a man named Robert Brasshers.
Okay. So they're like, okay, this is him. We've got a look for Robert Brasshers. So they're looking for him and they can't find him.
He's not in prison. Turns out that in 1999 Robert had stolen a truck. He had his wife and two daughters with him and he was holed up at hotel or a motel and there's a standoff with the police. He won't come out.
He ends up killing himself. What? Yes. In the hotel room.
People think that maybe he was thinking, oh, they're on to me about some of these murders rather than just the stolen vehicle. Yeah. He decided to take his own life. Okay.
Well. So in order to ensure that it was him and maybe not possibly someone else, they actually exhumed his body. Whoa. Got permission, exhumed his body and took some of his DNA that was still usable.
They compared it to the DNA from the crimes and all three matched. That is wild. Robert was the killer. Crazy.
Yeah. And Robert had a long history. He had raped a girl who was 14 years old in 1998. He just sort of went from place to place.
He had actually done time in 1985 for a crime. He got out in 1990 right before he murdered Jenny and he was led out of prison right before they started taking DNA. Of course he was. Exactly.
And he hadn't been caught after that. So his DNA was not in the system. I tell you what, this story fascinated the fire out of me. That is crazy.
It is so interesting. That was a wild ride. Absolutely right. And so grateful that for these families, they have some, you know, a sense of peace.
And even though, you know, he never saw a prison sentence or, you know, any sort of punishment, you know? I mean, at least the families kind of have the closure of knowing who it was. I think it was worse never knowing. Yeah.
And also scary. And that's all I wanted to do this again. Absolutely. Oh my gosh.
Absolutely. So that is my really crazy story from Greenville, South Carolina in 1990. Greenville. Yeah, right.
So close. Yeah. It's like right over the, yeah. It's a hopscape and a jump right from here.
That's crazy. Exactly. Whoo. So, um, Haley, what are you going to tell us about next week?
Oh man, it's a doozy. So we are going to travel to West Virginia next week. And we are going to talk about a double homicide that is technically unsolved. So lots of twists and turns.
Was it? No one too. It's Gerald. You know what?
It definitely was not. Oh, okay. No, no, no. That was one of the theories.
No, it's not. No, there are some theories, but it's not the truth. You know that that's now going to be our thing. Right.
Everybody is going to, you know, yeah. People are going to see us and be like, is it Fitzgerald? Maybe. I mean, I would love to find some more crazy Fitzgerald stories.
That would be pretty cool. So I think we should definitely cover at least a story of his wife Zelda because, man, what a fascinating lady in story. Crazy, crazy times. Thanks for hanging out with us today.
Yeah. And I'm going to go to amountonestories.applelatchin.com, share your stories, give us some case suggestions, or just say hi, we're here. Let us know your own F. Scott Fitzgerald theories and maybe they'll make it into an episode.
Let us know that you're real. I mean, we see the downloads from different places and, you know, hey, we appreciate it. We do. Hey, just send us an email.
Let us know you're real. You know, that's not just like a box out there. Right. Right.
You know what is that thing that you have to like click the boxes, like, find all the roadside. Yeah, I'm a robot. Yeah. Please just send us an email.
Let us know you're not a robot, please. I mean, if you are a robot, you can send us an email. I'm not a post. No, we don't discriminate on this podcast.
No, exactly. I like your podcast. That'd be great. Oh, well, if you are feeling jazzy, you can also follow us on Facebook at mountain mysteries, tales from Appalachia and follow us on Instagram at mountain mysteries dot Appalachia.
And we will see you next week. Hit us up. We'd love to hear from you. Bye guys.
Bye.