Pod Insights Murder With My Husband 255. The Murder of Mengqi Ji About this episode In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the chilling case of Mengqi Ji, a talented engineer and devoted mother whose life was tragically cut short in 2019. What began as a missing person’s case soon unraveled into a disturbing tale of deception, abuse, and betrayal.
Links:
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Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes
Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband
Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327
Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7
Case Sources:
A&E TV - https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/mengqi-ji
ColumbiaTribune.com - https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/2021/11/12/what-to-know-about-mengqi-ji-who-was-murdered-in-columbia-by-husband-joseph-elledge-boone-county/8585262002/
South China Morning Post - https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3168018/us-man-who-killed-chinese-wife-mengqi-ji-admits
CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/mengqi-ji-disappearance-timeline/
Columbia Family Law Group -
https://www.columbiafamilylawgroup.com/missing-persons-case-spirals-into-custody-battle/
APNews.com - https://apnews.com/article/university-of-missouri-missouri-columbia-216284c1ec05a2c6f2f9df771075c428
ColumbiaMissourian.com - https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/elledge/day-3-audio-recordings-between-elledge-and-his-wife-point-to-a-toxic-marriage/article_62868abc-3ccd-11ec-8bb7-6b3fe59b4e82.html
KRCGTV.com -
https://krcgtv.com/news/local/jury-deliberates-joseph-elledge-murder-case
Komu.com - https://www.komu.com/news/midmissourinews/joseph-elledge-denied-appeal-of-his-murder-conviction/article_117ec1a5-ff5e-5199-88bd-c250e6a2c064.html
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:42 Payton Moreland? You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with my Husband. I'm Peyton Morland.
0:49 Garrett Moreland? And I'm Garrett Moreland.
0:50 Payton Moreland? And he's the husband.
0:51 Garrett Moreland? I'm the husband.
0:52 Payton Moreland? Okay, quick, quick, before we jump into things, if you are listening on audio and can give us a five star review, nothing less, that would be greatly appreciated. And if you are watching on YouTube, you have a couple more steps. You need to subscribe to the show, you need to turn on notifications, and you have to leave a comment. I don't make the rules here, you guys. I am just the message deliverer, so don't blame me.
1:16 Garrett Moreland? I support this. Hundred percent. Well, January is over. We're already in February and next thing you know, it's going to be 2026.
1:28 Payton Moreland? The month of love.
1:31 Garrett Moreland? It is. It's true. Valentine's Day is coming up. I used to always call it Valentine's Day coming up.
1:36 Payton Moreland? You still do sometimes.
1:38 Garrett Moreland? Debatable. Very debatable.
1:41 Payton Moreland? I will win the debate.
1:43 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, we hope everyone's having a good week. We've kind of just been hanging out, nothing too crazy. I've just been relaxing. I can finally start exercising and going to the gym and.
1:56 Garrett Moreland? Playing sports again. So I'm excited for that.
1:59 Payton Moreland? Oh, I will say I we got a couple of comments. I think just to like clarify. So the way a hair transplant works is they took the back of Garrett's hair and implanted it into the front. So the what you're seeing now is not the hair transplant. That won't be around for like at least another.
2:19 Garrett Moreland? I mean, you're seeing the hair transplant, but yeah, what Penny trying to say is it's going to take like six months for those new hairs to then become good hairs.
2:29 Payton Moreland? Yeah. And so a couple of people were like, I liked your old hair. I'm like, oh, it's not. Well, actually, it's supposed to just look like his old hair, but a little better, too.
2:38 Garrett Moreland? Yeah. Super Bowl this weekend.
2:40 Payton Moreland? Oh.
2:41 Garrett Moreland? We got that coming up and I'm torn. I don't like the Chiefs.
2:48 Payton Moreland? This is so weird. I can remember old episodes talking about old Super Bowls.
2:51 Garrett Moreland? I know. I feel like we talk about it every year. Kinda.
2:55 Payton Moreland? Yeah. Who's playing?
2:56 Garrett Moreland? The Chiefs versus the Eagles. I don't like the Chiefs, but can't deny the fact that if they did win three in a row.
3:04 Payton Moreland? Is the Eagles?
3:05 Garrett Moreland? That's amazing.
3:06 Payton Moreland? The Kelsey old Kelsey brother used to be on there?
3:08 Garrett Moreland? Correct.
3:08 Payton Moreland? What?
3:09 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, they're good. They're a great team. I mean.
3:13 Payton Moreland? Oh, wow.
3:15 Garrett Moreland? So I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know how many people even care, but that's what we'll be doing this weekend. We're just gonna kind of chill. Actually, I just realized this episode comes out after the Super Bowl.
3:26 Payton Moreland? Oh, yeah. Who won?
3:28 Garrett Moreland? So it depends who won. I mean, my take stands. I don't know who. Honestly, I'm pretty indifferent this year. I don't know if I really care. I think that's all I got for you guys. I'm sorry. Honestly, sitting inside, it's driving me insane. I can't do it. I can't sit inside anymore. Can't not move my body anymore. But I can finally start doing that here. So I'm excited to get back in action. I'm going a little stir crazy in my house. Maybe some people like doing that, but I just can't.
3:58 Garrett Moreland? Been almost three weeks of me just sitting inside, twiddling my thumbs and hanging out with my wife.
4:03 Payton Moreland? Hanging out. All right. Our sources for this episode are A and E TV, Columbia Tribune.com, South China Morning Post, CBS News.com, Columbia Family Law Group, AP News.com, Columbia Missourian.com, krcgtv.com, and Comu.com. Okay, Garrett, give the listeners the quickest version of our proposal day that you can. Go.
4:28 Garrett Moreland? What?
4:29 Payton Moreland? Tell them what, how you proposed to me.
4:31 Garrett Moreland? Part of the story?
4:32 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
4:33 Garrett Moreland? I, let me think, there's a cabin up in the mountains. Uh, they set up like that has a fire pit and I put a bunch of roses and flowers around it. And then we went up, um, in the middle of the day around two and Peyton and I were both already dressed up. I brought her over. I led her by the roses and one of our friends was in the bushes with the camera taking pictures. And I proposed to you. That quick enough?
5:04 Payton Moreland? That was great. You, I mean, you could have taken as long as you want. I just know you don't love telling a long story.
5:08 Garrett Moreland? Oh, you said quick. I could have done more detail, but you said quick. So I thought the point of it was like, give me a count ASAP. Let's go.
5:15 Payton Moreland? Oh, no. I was just wanting you to tell them because I think getting proposed to is a very like surreal day for me. Was it surreal for you to propose?
5:24 Garrett Moreland? Oh, for sure.
5:25 Payton Moreland? Like, it's definitely one of those days that like, doesn't feel real while you're living.
5:28 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, well, it's pretty, even though I knew Peyton was gonna say yes, I guess still, I was still really nervous.
5:34 Payton Moreland? Right. Even though we had been.
5:35 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
5:35 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
5:36 Garrett Moreland? Talking about it.
5:37 Payton Moreland? So, um, I think it is safe to say that it can be one of the best days of your life, whether the spot is in your parents backyard or some scenic hike or.
5:46 Garrett Moreland? Which that's where it was. It was in my parents backyard.
5:48 Payton Moreland? Or below the Eiffel Tower. It can be one of the most special, maybe important places in your life story, where you get proposed to, because it's the starting point for the rest of your life. What no one ever imagines though, in that glowing, happy moment where they say yes, is that this will also be the place where they end up buried after being viciously murdered.
6:14 Payton Moreland? And that is what happens in the case today. So our story today actually begins overseas in a city in central China known as Xi'an. And that's where Mengqi Ji is born in 1991. Now, at the time, the nation was still enforcing their one child policy. And so Mengqi's parents poured everything into their little girl because it was the only child they were allowed to have. And within the first few years of Mengqi's life, it was clear she stood out. She was someone special.
6:53 Payton Moreland? Not only was Mengqi proving to be exceptionally smart, she was a great artist, a painter and a calligrapher, to be exact. Skills she started perfecting at the age of five. So in elementary school, Mengqi even began learning English. And by the time she was a teenager, she was also taking on photography. She had started singing and was playing a traditional Chinese instrument called the arhu. So needless to say, Mengqi proved she could do it all before she had even graduated high school. And when the time came for her to choose her next steps, she actually decided to fly the nest to get her bachelor's degree in engineering
7:35 Payton Moreland? at the East China University of Science and Technology. But that meant a 14 hour drive whenever she wanted to go back and see her parents. So leaving college, she ends up being quite a ways away from home. So despite this, Mengqi's parents embraced all of her dreams, no matter where in the world they were going to take her. So when Mengqi was accepted to a student exchange program at the University of Missouri, she took the bull by the horns with her parents' full love and support behind her. By December of 2014, the now 23 year old Mengqi had earned her master's degree in mechanical aerospace engineering.
8:20 Payton Moreland? The following year, fresh out of college, Mengqi landed a job working as a supervisor at a company called Nanova, which makes high tech biomaterials mainly for dental products.
8:34 Payton Moreland? It was there that Mengqi was told she would be managing an all-American boy from Kansas City, Missouri, and his name was Joseph Elitch. Like Mengqi, the 20-year-old Joseph also attended the University of Missouri for engineering, but it seems the two didn't officially meet until that job at Nanova in September of 2015. And even then, it took a little while for a work relationship to turn into a friendship, and then to turn into a full-on romantic relationship. But in January of 2016, these coworkers, Joe and Mengqi, went on their first date.
9:17 Garrett Moreland? In China?
9:19 Payton Moreland? In Missouri.
9:20 Garrett Moreland? Oh, sorry.
9:20 Payton Moreland? She's already come over and she's in Missouri. So, things seemed to go well for the couple over the next year because in the summer of 2017, Mengqi asked Joe if he would come with her to visit her parents back in China. And Joe says yes, but he also has his own motivations for coming along. He wanted to ask Mengqi's parents for her hand in marriage. And apparently, Joe really won them over on that trip because they gave him their blessing. So, when they returned back to Missouri, Joe and Mengqi went for a hike in Rockbridge Memorial State Park in Missouri on September 8th of 2017.
10:04 Payton Moreland? And that day, on this hike in this park, Joe got down on one knee and asked Mengqi to marry him. And Mengqi said yes. They wasted no time. 14 days later.
10:17 Garrett Moreland? Whoa, did they get hitched or what happened?
10:20 Payton Moreland? The two were married.
10:21 Garrett Moreland? Like in Vegas or something?
10:23 Payton Moreland? Some people who knew the couple believed that this 14-day engagement...
10:28 Payton Moreland? Was because Mengqi's visa was about to expire.
10:31 Garrett Moreland? Oh, so 90 Day Fiance.
10:34 Payton Moreland? And that the marriage would help her secure a green card easier. So if they're gonna get married and they can make this process easier.
10:41 Garrett Moreland? Got it.
10:41 Payton Moreland? Why not just get married in 14 days?
10:43 Garrett Moreland? Okay.
10:44 Payton Moreland? This is important to Mengqi because about five months after tying the knot, she was offered a fancy new job opportunity. And while I don't know the details, I know it was something Mengqi was really excited about. And Joe apparently was too, because he had since quit his job at Nanova where they met to go back to school. So because Joe is going back to school, Mengqi ends up being the sole breadwinner of this newly wedded couple. But life had other plans for Mengqi and Joe. Just as she was about to accept the new position, Mengqi learned she was pregnant. So now the tables would have to turn. Mengqi wanted to
11:25 Payton Moreland? stay home and be a full-time mom, which meant Joe would have to find a way to juggle school and work to support his growing family. This is something that definitely put pressure on their marriage, especially when their daughter Anna arrived in October 2018. So the issues in their marriage actually started with small cultural differences. And it was actually mainly due to communication. Joe often tried to describe his feelings and frustrations with metaphors that Mengqi had a hard time understanding. The way the two expressed themselves was entirely different due to their radically
12:08 Payton Moreland? opposite upbringings. And when Mengqi's parents came to stay and help out with their new baby, Joe began to feel outnumbered. In fact, he also claimed he felt blindsided. It is actually traditional in Chinese cultures for the grandparents to come stay and help out the parents for 100 days after a new baby arrives. But Joe said he had no idea Mengqi's parents would be living with the couple until the day that they arrived at their doorstep to come help. And Mengqi and Joe disagreed on a lot of different things when it came to how to raise their daughter. Plus, Joe would often get frustrated when Mengqi talked to her parents in Mandarin because he hardly spoke any of the language.
12:54 Payton Moreland? Joe soon found himself fighting with Mungshi and her parents over what he said was their imposing nature and inevitably both of Mungshi's parents actually left early over the tensions that had escalated in the home. That, along with their dwindling finances, it's safe to say definitely drove a wedge between the young couple. And come the summer of 2019, they were spending more time apart. Joe had gotten an internship at a furniture manufacturing company in the city of Carthage, about a four hours drive from Columbia, Missouri, where Mungshi and Anna were living,
13:39 Payton Moreland? which meant he would be in Carthage during the week. And that also meant Joe had to get a second place to stay. Now, the family wasn't just struggling to maintain one household, they were paying for two. And when Joe was back home with Anna and Mungshi in Columbia, let's just say the space they were taking didn't seem to help much. Mungshi was often on her phone or worrying about Anna, giving less and less of her attention to Joe. So it was clear the two had just kind of grown apart at this point. But the 23-year-old Joe said he still tried to maintain the intimacy with 28-year-old
14:18 Payton Moreland? Mungshi, particularly on the night of October 8th, 2019. So that evening, Joe is home, and he claimed that after they put Anna to bed, he tried to give Mungshi a massage, hoping it would lead to some intimacy between the two of them. But Mungshi rejected him. She told him she had plans early the next morning. She didn't want to miss out on sleep. It was already almost 11:00 PM.
14:46 Garrett Moreland? Yo, I need to tell you something. Never mind.
14:48 Payton Moreland? Go ahead.
14:50 Garrett Moreland? You know, can't just fork yourself in there, man. You gotta be nice throughout the week. You gotta be nice throughout the day. There's other shiz involved. You know what I'm saying?
15:00 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
15:00 Garrett Moreland? It ain't just like, hey, I'm gonna give you a massage and we're gonna... We're gonna do the deed.
15:06 Payton Moreland? Yep.
15:07 Garrett Moreland? A little bit more than that.
15:09 Payton Moreland? Good advice, Gary.
15:10 Garrett Moreland? Thanks, everyone. Just in case anyone was curious and needed some advice on how to get the bedroom going on.
15:16 Payton Moreland? As we like to say, four plays starts at the beginning of the day.
15:20 Garrett Moreland? Very true.
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15:47 Payton Moreland? You know what, guys? We're going there. We are talking about Lola blankets, the softest blankets to ever exist. The blanket that my baby is currently wrapped in. If you haven't heard about Lola blankets, you're hearing about it now. Lola is the world's number one blanket crafted with ultra-soft luxury faux fur and a signature four-way stretch that sets it apart. It's machine washable, double hemmed for durability, and stays flawless. That means no pilling, no shedding, even after repeated washes. I have a Lola blanket in almost every single room in our house because once you get a Lola, you're not going back. You need it anytime you sit down.
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17:02 Payton Moreland? So, it's almost 11:00 PM. Joe said he went to sleep that night with Mongshi by his side. But when he woke up the next morning, according to him, Mongshi was already gone. Now, even though Joe still hasn't heard from Mongshi by the afternoon, he doesn't sound the alarm bells, but Mongshi's parents do. They speak to their daughter every single day. And the fact that they haven't heard from her by the evening of October 9th is worrisome.
17:32 Payton Moreland? But they don't seem to call Joe. I mean, why would they? They don't have the best relationship with this guy. They're not even sure if he's at the house. So instead, they call one of Monshi's friends who lives nearby, and they ask them to go over to the house and check on her. And apparently, when the friend gets there, Joe is like, "Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. She's not here." So again, he does not seem too worried that his wife just up and left days after his daughter's one-year birthday, that she's been missing all day and no one's heard from her.
18:03 Garrett Moreland? So crazy to me that there's, there's literally just people out there like this.
18:08 Payton Moreland? So by the following day, October 10th, an entire, he hasn't seen her since the morning before. He lets the entire night go by. Joe finally does something about it. He doesn't call the police, though. He doesn't call 911. He calls 311. This is the non-emergency line where he files a missing persons report.
18:29 Speaker 05 Uh, I need you, um, follow a missing person, uh, report?
18:33 Payton Moreland? But it doesn't take long for police to show up at their house anyways, because if someone is missing, that actually is an emergency. And here's what Joe tells them. On the morning of the 9th, he woke up to find Monshi no longer in bed next to him. She was gone. But when he got up, he noticed that she had left behind her car keys, her cellphone, and her wallet. And perhaps the most alarming, she had left her one-year-old daughter, Anna, also at the house. Now, right then and there,
19:01 Garrett Moreland? Oh.
19:02 Payton Moreland? that's raising red flags with police because why wouldn't you have called in her disappearance right away?
19:08 Garrett Moreland? Also,
19:10 Payton Moreland? she's not in her car.
19:11 Garrett Moreland? Majority of moms who are gonna have a small child like that and are obviously already attached to that child, they're just not gonna leave. They're not gonna leave the kid.
19:20 Payton Moreland? They're also just not gonna leave
19:22 Garrett Moreland? Not gonna happen.
19:22 Payton Moreland? their wallet and everything at home.
19:24 Garrett Moreland? Yeah, this is stupid.
19:26 Payton Moreland? So they're like, okay, why didn't you call us right then and there when you woke up and she was gone, but everything was still home. They're like, was there some kind of fight? Is that why you weren't alarmed? And he's like, no, the last fight they had had was a week ago, and it really wasn't even a big deal. But Joe says, I didn't call because there's one thing I'm suspicious of, and that's that he thinks there is another man in Monchi's life. He shows the police Monchi's phone and her computer along with texts she had sent to someone using a Chinese-based messaging app, most of which were sexually explicit and inferred some sort of emotional relationship.
20:07 Garrett Moreland? Now we have motive.
20:08 Payton Moreland? Might have been going on between the two of them. So he's like, this is why I'm not that worried, because she's probably just with him. Joe then shares with police that he and Monchi have separate bank accounts. So it would be kind of easy for her to take off, start a new life with someone else without him really being aware of it. So Joe is then brought down to the police station to put his statement on record. He shows up without a lawyer and offers up pretty much the same details that he did back at the house. But he does add in a few new details, details that definitely raised some eyebrows around the station, like the situation that's a little weird, but maybe there's motive, just starts to get a little weirder. For example, Joe says in the
20:51 Payton Moreland? hours after his wife went missing, he wakes up, he notices his wife is missing. He takes his one year old daughter, Anna, and he puts her in the car and he goes for a long drive through remote parts of mid Missouri, looking for new hiking trails.
21:09 Garrett Moreland? Okay.
21:10 Payton Moreland? So when police ask him, okay, did you lock your doors to your house when you left? He says, yes. Well, that tells them, okay, he obviously wasn't expecting his wife to come back home because she doesn't have her keys. So how would she have gotten in the house?
21:24 Garrett Moreland? It's so crazy, the little things that can trip you up.
21:27 Payton Moreland? Right? And I think that this is a major, a major red flag when a wife goes missing and a husband is.
21:35 Garrett Moreland? Nonchalant.
21:36 Payton Moreland? Well, home and also saying, I mean, okay, Josh Powell did the same exact thing, right? His wife goes missing and in the middle of the night, he puts his kids in the car and goes for a camping trip where there's no service in the middle of nowhere all day long and then comes home and goes, oh yeah, I guess my wife is missing, but I was camping.
21:57 Garrett Moreland? And who takes their one year old?
21:59 Payton Moreland? No one's gonna take their one year old for that. Well, I mean, Joe says he was going for a drive, but Josh had two little kids camping in a snowstorm. No, he was dumping the bodies.
22:11 Garrett Moreland? Insane dude.
22:12 Payton Moreland? And I just think
22:14 Garrett Moreland? Insane.
22:15 Payton Moreland? Why, I mean, Joe's like, admitting that he was in remote parts of Missouri where he could easily hide a body. It's just a very big red flag. And the whole thing just gets even weirder when later that day, Joe agrees to an interview with a local news channel. So again, another red flag that we see among fathers who kill their wives and the mother of their children. So he goes before cameras to say, he wants his wife returned home soon for the sake of their one year old daughter. He also implies on air that she very well may have run off with another man and that he quote,
22:57 Speaker 06 Yeah, I just hope that she's safe. I hope that she's at least with somebody who cares for her, you know, enough to keep her safe.
23:05 Payton Moreland? So it's just like, not the way you would expect a husband to talk about a missing wife. To like air the dirty laundry, to imply that maybe the person she ran off with might kill her.
23:20 Garrett Moreland? I feel like at this point, it's pretty obvious to cops or detectives what's going on, especially honestly, the fact that she was talking to another man just gives way more motive for him to
23:34 Payton Moreland? Right.
23:34 Garrett Moreland? Be like, hey, I'm gonna kill you.
23:36 Payton Moreland? Yeah. Like if he found the messages that night.
23:39 Garrett Moreland? He found the messages, like, yeah, a hundred percent.
23:42 Payton Moreland? So there's also more things that he said during this interview that detectives keyed in on. Most specifically, the fact that Joe
23:51 Payton Moreland? Refers to her in the past tense more than once during that press conference. Again, we know this is like an obvious sign when people are lying about someone being alive. They will refer to them as the last time they saw them, which was dead. So she was instead of she is that type of thing.
24:09 Speaker 06 But yeah, she's, I guess she was just always kind of a reserved person and um, sometimes she didn't talk to me a lot about what was going on in her life and.
24:18 Payton Moreland? So the police at this point do not have a good feeling about Joe, to say the least. But right now there's nothing really to indicate foul play. Sure, Mengqi has been missing for about 48 hours. There's no blood, no weapon, no witnesses, no body. We are back to Josh Powell, the case. So now they start looking for a trail. If Mengqi really did go back to China to be with this man, they are going to follow that lead. There would have to be some sign of that. So a plane ticket, an Uber, money deducted from her personal account. But when they look into it, there's none of it, which is why police have no choice but to drop that theory and zoom in further on Joe and Mengqi's past, their relationship.
25:01 Payton Moreland? So as we already know, things were not looking good for the couple's marriage. They were growing apart. Mengqi was possibly seeing someone else. But police found evidence that it wasn't just fights about money and parenting that drove a wedge between the couple. When Joe willingly handed over his phone as evidence, police found 10 hours worth of recorded conversations between Mengqi and Joe on Joe's phone. So he was secretly recording their conversations. And guess what? They found four more hours of recorded conversation on Mengqi's phone.
25:40 Garrett Moreland? Oh, so they're both recording.
25:42 Payton Moreland? This is just like a bad sign for a marriage. When Joe was asked why they kept these recordings of their conversations, he actually says it was a way to better help them communicate so they could listen back after they fought and cooled off to see how they spoke to each other, maybe improve on their relationship. Which like, I guess it's not that dumb if you want to record a fight and then give it to your therapist and be like, here's a look in. But if you are doing it in a marriage, it almost just feels like more.
26:12 Garrett Moreland? It just feels like it's out of spite.
26:13 Payton Moreland? Right, like, um, just.
26:17 Payton Moreland? Ammo.
26:17 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
26:18 Payton Moreland? Look how you said this while we were fighting type thing. So let me just preface this by saying the conversations that are recorded do not look good for Joe. So it is a little weird. He's recording them. The first recording happened back in late October 2018. This was right after Anna was born and Monshi's parents came to help out. One evening, Monshi's mother was making them dumplings for dinner, but Joe didn't like.
26:45 Garrett Moreland? I loved. What's that? What's that really popular place that makes dumplings? I've been there once. Always busy.
26:54 Payton Moreland? Din.
26:55 Garrett Moreland? Din Tai.
26:56 Payton Moreland? Fung?
26:57 Garrett Moreland? Din Tai Fung. Yeah, yeah, that place is so good.
27:01 Payton Moreland? I do feel like we're sounding quite uncultured right now, but.
27:04 Garrett Moreland? No.
27:04 Payton Moreland? Neither I nor Garrett have been.
27:07 Garrett Moreland? No, they have like the best dumplings in all of the world.
27:10 Payton Moreland? Oh, that's.
27:12 Garrett Moreland? No, but I know they're really, they're honestly really popular. If anyone's been there, they know what I'm talking about.
27:16 Payton Moreland? I actually have never been.
27:17 Garrett Moreland? It's really good. I mean, it's a chain, so I'm sure there's way better like mom and pop shops and more populated areas that.
27:26 Payton Moreland? Everyone, Garrett was joking about that being the best dumplings in the world.
27:29 Garrett Moreland? No, they're good.
27:30 Payton Moreland? Yes, but people are gonna.
27:31 Garrett Moreland? Okay, no, they're not the best world. I'm just saying.
27:33 Payton Moreland? I know. I was saying he was being sarcastic.
27:35 Garrett Moreland? I'm also not extremely cultured with, I do like Asian food, I'm not extremely cultured with Asian food.
27:39 Payton Moreland? We haven't, we've never really had the opportunity to go visit.
27:42 Garrett Moreland? Wants to invite me to their house to have Asian food, I will come.
27:47 Payton Moreland? Okay, so these conversations aren't looking good for him. Okay, she is. Her mother is making dumplings and Joe does not like the way that she's using their cutting board. It seems that he pulled Monshi aside and started screaming at her. And this is something that Monshi caught on her phone. In the audio, you can hear him telling her there are going to be problems if she lets her parents stay. And when Monshi tells him that he isn't a god and doesn't get to call the shots, he snaps back saying he is a god and that Monshi is brainless and incapable because she's a woman.
28:25 Garrett Moreland? Oh. Kill Joe.
28:27 Payton Moreland? Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. And
28:30 Garrett Moreland? Sorry.
28:31 Payton Moreland? These recordings of Joe's blatant emotional abuse and attempts to control Mengqi, they go on and on as police discover in them. Joe says everything from threatening to physically kick Mengqi's mother if she ever steps foot in their house again.
28:47 Garrett Moreland? What is wrong with people?
28:48 Payton Moreland? To Joe threatening to get Mengqi deported, to Joe then saying that Mengqi abuses him. It's a lot of yelling. It's a lot of nonsense. It's a lot of toxicity, a lot of gaslighting. Honestly, on Joe's part is what police find to the point where Mengqi actually says in one of these recordings, you are brainwashing me. So she knows like she's aware that like she's stuck. But there's one statement from Joe that really sets off alarm bells for investigators during one of these conversations. It's when Joe tells Mengqi and quote, you think you are so empowered because of this society. Well, don't forget that nature exists and you're
29:30 Payton Moreland? still just a woman. So basically saying men are stronger than women. You think because of the day and age we have where women have all these rights and power.
29:39 Garrett Moreland? Which is so ironic because she was making more money than him.
29:43 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
29:43 Garrett Moreland? Like when they met and he was just, he had an internship somewhere.
29:47 Payton Moreland? Like, not that that matters, but it's just like his idea.
29:51 Garrett Moreland? Acting like he's like a billionaire and she's some nobody.
29:55 Payton Moreland? Yeah.
29:56 Garrett Moreland? You know what I'm saying? Even, I mean, obviously even that's not okay. But do you see where I'm coming from?
30:00 Payton Moreland? Right. Like it's
30:01 Garrett Moreland? It's ridiculous.
30:01 Payton Moreland? It's when like, it's the idea of him touting that he is a man, which makes him
30:08 Garrett Moreland? Correct.
30:09 Payton Moreland? amazing when like, there's no hard facts to back it up type thing is what you're saying.
30:13 Garrett Moreland? Exactly. Exactly.
30:15 Payton Moreland? Yeah, I get that. So he brings up this nature concept again later to Mengqi too. Basically, survival of the fittest. This time he says, quote, you know how I conquer nature? I kill it. I grab. Break his neck. That's how you talk for nature. And he's, he's saying nature, but he's referring to it in the context of like survival of the fittest as in like, I'm a man and you're a woman. So technically she's nature.
30:43 Garrett Moreland? This is so embarrassing.
30:44 Payton Moreland? Yes. He is very.
30:46 Garrett Moreland? This is so weird.
30:47 Payton Moreland? He is very much like.
30:49 Garrett Moreland? This is, this is.
30:50 Payton Moreland? Alpha.
30:51 Garrett Moreland? This is cringing me out a little bit.
30:52 Payton Moreland? So to police, this sounds like a blatant threat. Like listening to these fights, they're like, this guy is blatantly threatening her life. Like saying, I am stronger than you and could kill you. Basically. No two ways about it. At one point, things get so intense between the couple that Monshi actually called Joe's mother, Jean, to come over and try to talk to her son. Sensing her urgency, her mother-in-law made the two-hour drive to the couple's house that day, but to be honest, she didn't seem to help much. By the way, that meeting was recorded as well. And while Jean says she's not taking sides, that she's just a mediator. She really doesn't do anything when her son threatens Monshi right in front of his mom.
31:31 Payton Moreland? Asking if he should just smack her or beat her down to get her to behave the way she wants. He says that in front of his mom and the mom really doesn't say anything. So whether.
31:40 Garrett Moreland? What's up, mom?
31:41 Payton Moreland? Whether or not.
31:42 Garrett Moreland? We got some problems going on here?
31:43 Payton Moreland? We're a series. Well, I mean, may, never mind.
31:47 Garrett Moreland? What?
31:48 Payton Moreland? I was just gonna say, sometimes we like to
31:53 Payton Moreland? repeat trauma behavior.
31:55 Garrett Moreland? Oh, I get what you're saying. Like maybe it's happened to her.
31:57 Payton Moreland? Yes. So maybe he learned this behavior. I'm not saying, I have no evidence to back that up. I'm just saying statistically, we know that we do repeat trauma behavior. We like to marry our mothers or our fathers. That's just the way we work.
32:09 Garrett Moreland? I mean, I could see. I know what you're saying.
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35:07 Garrett Moreland? Yeah.
35:07 Payton Moreland? But in Mengshi's case, it may have been because of her immigration status.
35:12 Garrett Moreland? Oh, yeah. A hundred percent.
35:13 Payton Moreland? Just five months.
35:15 Garrett Moreland? It's scary.
35:15 Payton Moreland? After she went missing, she was supposed to have another interview to secure her green card. So it's very possible she was waiting for that last hurdle before leaving Joe. Because if she left him, she could have easily been deported. And then what is she gonna do with Anna? Does she lose custody? It's a whole thing. So while there was no concrete evidence that Joe Elidge had done anything to his wife at this point, those recordings were more than enough for police to consider him their prime suspect. About two weeks after her disappearance, the Columbia Police Department publicly stated they were opening up a criminal investigation on her disappearance.
35:58 Payton Moreland? And that same day, October 25th, 2019, police came knocking on Joe Elidge's door with a warrant. But not for Mengqi's death. This was on completely different charges. It was for child abuse. And trigger warning, I'm just very quickly going to be talking about child abuse. So if that is a trigger, just go ahead and skip. So an anonymous source had called the police to say Mengqi had confided in her before her death that Joe had hit one-year-old Anna so hard, spanked her, he had left a bruise on her bottom. And a statement that was actually validated when detectives found pictures of that bruise on Mengqi's iPad.
36:43 Payton Moreland? So while Joe argued he was playing and maybe pinched her a little too hard, investigators knew a pinch doesn't make that large of a bruise and it rarely turns purple, blue and yellow like the one in the photo. And I just can't with that. I can't. So Joe was brought down to the station and charged with a felony for child abuse. What could a one-year-old do?
37:05 Payton Moreland? His bond was set at $500,000. This is a price officers knew Joe couldn't afford, except this is obviously all part of their plan. With Joe behind bars, they are one step closer to nabbing him for Mengqi's disappearance. But that wasn't all the detectives accomplished that afternoon. See, they didn't just show up at the house with just an arrest warrant for Joe. They also showed up with a search warrant for the property. So while he's in jail, they are searching his property. They find some pretty interesting stuff like Mengqi's passport, all of her luggage. This is a very clear indicator that Mengqi had not fled the country to be with someone else, as Joe had initially theorized to police. But there was also a backpack full of notes belonging to Joe.
37:50 Payton Moreland? One with the heading, "What to tell the police." There was another note in this backpack that seemed like a reminder he had written to himself to quote, "Speak to Mengqi in the present tense instead of past."
38:06 Speaker 06 But yeah, she was, I guess she was this always kind of reserved person and...
38:10 Garrett Moreland? Wow. This is crazy.
38:13 Payton Moreland? Yes, something he'd already dropped the ball on. It's almost like he had like flashcards that he was studying on how to act after. But there was one thing officers collected that at the time might not have seemed too significant, but would actually end up playing a huge role in the case later. And that was a pair of muddy hiking boots. Now, at the same time, officers are analyzing Joe's cellphone data because remember, he told them that instead of calling the police when he woke up that morning and found his wife missing, he drove around with his daughter looking for new hiking trails. One plus one equals two. They're hoping if they can ping his cellphone, they might know where to search. And they find that Joe visited the area along the Lamine River.
38:57 Payton Moreland? This is about a 40-minute drive from their house. And he was there for about 30 minutes, according to his cellphone records, something that Joe never mentioned in his conversations with police. So naturally, they think, okay, he went to a river. It is very possible that he left Mengqi's remains there. So they conduct several searches of the area from highway patrol and cadaver dogs scanning the perimeter to dive teams searching the water, but nothing turns up. Still, police know they have the right guy. Those voice recordings especially are haunting them. Same with the prosecutors, who are now looking at Mungshi's case. And with Joe behind bars for child abuse, they take their
39:35 Payton Moreland? chances. Even though they still don't have a body, this is rare in cases like this, prosecutors feel confident that a court will see their side of things. So on February 19th, 2020, they file first degree murder charges against Joe. But that doesn't mean they're giving up the search for Mungshi. Investigators still believe her final resting place has to be somewhere along that river where his phone was pinging. So much so that Mungshi's parents even hold a memorial for her there around March of 2020.
40:07 Garrett Moreland? That's so sad.
40:08 Payton Moreland? But for the next year, that's how things stand. Joe and Mungshi's daughter Anna stays with Mungshi's parents until their visa is up and they have to go back to China. And then she goes to Joe's mother's house, which I'm sure is just absolutely devastating.
40:22 Garrett Moreland? Oof, I don't know how I feel about that. I know people probably have a lot of different opinions, but that is so hard. That's so difficult. And I'm sure it's case by case. But
40:33 Payton Moreland? I guess for me.
40:34 Garrett Moreland? My, like, should the kid really go to the killer's parents? No. Like, I know that's probably more than that. It doesn't mean the parents are killers, obviously, so on and so forth. But the other parent's daughter just died. They should probably get the granddaughter.
40:53 Payton Moreland? Well, I just guess I don't understand how there's not a rule in place in immigration where if there's like a court case or something going on that is unsettled, you can't extend your visa.
41:05 Garrett Moreland? Not even extend it. Just give them like a five-year residency or something.
41:10 Payton Moreland? Right. Because it's like, they're obviously going to want to be there for the court hearings. Like, they are gonna want to be there. And so if there is-
41:17 Garrett Moreland? Because their daughter just got killed.
41:18 Payton Moreland? Murdered, is missing.
41:20 Garrett Moreland? In the US.
41:21 Payton Moreland? Yeah. So it's like, to me, I just don't quite understand how there's not some loophole or even just-
41:27 Garrett Moreland? I don't know how I feel about the daughter going to Joe's parents, especially after-
41:33 Payton Moreland? He's the prime, he's been charged.
41:34 Garrett Moreland? Well, not even that. I mean, there's recordings of the mom obviously not doing anything while Joe's threatening her. Like that should raise red flags where it's like, eh, we probably shouldn't put that kid in that household.
41:47 Payton Moreland? Right.
41:48 Garrett Moreland? I don't know. Just my thoughts.
41:50 Payton Moreland? I'm not a parent. I don't know how hard that would be to hear your kid threaten life. I just know, like, if I know personally, if one of our parents heard one of us do that, it would raise alarm bells and they would be like, absolutely not.
42:01 Garrett Moreland? No, whoa.
42:03 Payton Moreland? Right. So, I don't know. Meanwhile, Joe Elidge sits behind bars awaiting his trial while the hope of ever finding Mungshi's body kind of dwindles. But that's until March of 2021. On the 25th, a hiker named Seven Roberts is strolling through a wooded area of Rockbridge Memorial State Park. Obviously, this is the same park that Mungshi and Joe got engaged in back in 2017. So as he makes his way further down a path lined with juniper trees, he spots something in the dirt. It's actually a pop of color that's just standing out. So he gets closer and he sees it. It's a
42:41 Payton Moreland? woman's purse. The hiker uses his walking stick to poke around a little further and then he spots a pair of sneakers. And then that's when he finds human remains lying face down in the dirt in this park. So Stephen reported the discovery as soon as he could and within hours, he was leading detectives to the site. Now, once they looked inside the purse, they found identifying documents belonging to Mungshi. Not only that, the red, white, and blue purse and black shoes found at the scene fit the description of the items Joe said Mungshi had taken with her the
43:19 Payton Moreland? day she disappeared. So finally, after 17 long months, Mungshi's body was found and the final pieces of the puzzle would soon fall into place. But given that Mungshi had been left to the elements for so long, there was only so much they could learn from an autopsy. One thing was clear, though. Mungshi had three broken ribs on her left side and one broken rib on her right. To the prosecution, this was clear evidence that Mungshi had been beaten before she died. There was just one detail they needed to prove, that Joe was in fact, the one that caused these injuries. And shockingly, that connection didn't come from a piece of hair, or blood, or even fingerprints left on Mungshi's items.
44:03 Payton Moreland? It comes from a tree. So remember how I briefly mentioned that pair of muddy hiking boots police collected from Joe and Mungshi's apartment the day of his arrest? Well, it turns out, that caked and dried mud on those boots held everything the prosecution needed to place Joe at the scene of the crime. Forensics found 12 different types of vegetation in his boots, and plants, just like people and animals, have their own unique strands of DNA. So detectives took samples from Mungshi's burial site alongside Joe's boots, sent them to the Missouri Botanical Garden. There, they were analyzed by plant population geneticists, and once they were finished with
44:43 Payton Moreland? their analysis, they concluded the juniper needles in Joe's boots came from the exact trees surrounding Mungshi's grave site.
44:52 Garrett Moreland? I didn't know you could even do that.
44:54 Payton Moreland? So this is what Joe tells the jury at trial when he took the stand. He said on the night in question, October 8th, 2019, he gave Mungshi a massage. He tried to initiate sex. But when he went to undress Mungshi, she stopped him. She told him she was meeting with someone the next morning, and that's when Joe confronted her about the messages he had found on her devices, the messages she had been sending to another man. Joe said he got dressed and planned to leave for the night, but when he told Mungshi he was taking Anna with him, she forcefully pushed him. So he pushed her back, and that's when she hit her head against the kitchen cabinet. She was still conscious. He said he led Mungshi to the couch to rest, got Anna, and left the house for 45 minutes to cool off. When he came back, he said Mungshi had moved herself to the bed. She was still fully dressed but asleep.
45:37 Payton Moreland? Finally, he woke up at around 5:00 a.m. when he heard Anna cry, but when he came back to the bedroom and checked on Mungshi, he realized she had died in her sleep.
45:45 Garrett Moreland? Oh, give me a break.
45:47 Payton Moreland? Now, I'm not sure why Joe or his defense team thought this would be convincing to the jury. There's just so many plot holes in this story.
45:54 Garrett Moreland? That she has like five broken ribs.
45:56 Payton Moreland? Also, like if you find your wife unresponsive, you would probably call 911. You wouldn't bury her. Also, keep in mind while he's burying Monshi, his one-year-old daughter is alone in the car.
46:06 Garrett Moreland? That's some of the most messed up.
46:08 Payton Moreland? For at least 30 minutes, he leaves his one-year-old daughter alone in the car to bury his wife, the mother. Okay, the details of this case just get worse and worse and worse. After 10 days of testimony, closing statements were made and the jury left to deliberate. And they found Joe not guilty of first-degree murder, but guilty of second-degree murder. They think that it was in the heat of the moment. It was a fight that turned ugly.
46:33 Garrett Moreland? What is wrong with juries these days, man? Last week, the jury dropped the ball. This week, the jury dropped the ball. I'm getting sick of you guys.
46:41 Payton Moreland? So they recommended the judge give him 28 years in prison. This is one for every year of Monshi's life, and the judge agreed. But that wasn't it for Joe. He still had to face trial for those child abuse charges. Charges he pleaded not guilty to initially, but in February of 2022, finally changed his mind. He was then given an additional 10 years to his sentence, bringing his total time behind bars to 38 years. As of June 2024, Joe Elidge was trying to appeal his second-degree murder conviction, stating ineffective assistance of counsel. He said the defense brought in unqualified evidence and photographs that were irrelevant to the case, and also said he was called as a witness by the defense when he wished to stay silent.
47:22 Payton Moreland? Really, what he wanted was a last desperate attempt to control the narrative, just like he tried to control his wife. But in August of 2024, Joe's appeal was denied. As of this recording, he remains behind bars at the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Missouri. And that is the closing of the case.
47:41 Garrett Moreland? I don't know. You know, people will always disappoint me.
47:46 Payton Moreland? I just think, I just think Joe's a bad dude.
47:49 Garrett Moreland? So many bad people out there. It's crazy.
47:52 Payton Moreland? And like honestly.
47:55 Payton Moreland? Mung Shi is not the only victim in this case like we often say her parents, but also there is a one year old daughter who not only was being abused, or at least once that we know of, also now grows up without parents and like
48:14 Garrett Moreland? And has to learn all this.
48:15 Payton Moreland? Yes, and like your dad killed your mother while you were sitting in the car like that is actually awful.
48:24 Garrett Moreland? It's horrible.
48:25 Payton Moreland? It's just completely heartless and there were so many minutes and hours that he could have changed that, that he could have decided not to do that. That is the case of Mung Shi Ji, please keep her family in your thoughts today. Um, you know, just remember that this is more than a true crime case. These are real people involved and I just wanna maybe take today to honor that. Thank you guys so much for listening to this week's episode and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.
48:59 Garrett Moreland? And I hate it.
49:00 Payton Moreland? Goodbye.
49:08 Speaker 01 You know that feeling when too many things fall through the cracks? Monday.com was built for that gap. The AI work platform where people and agents work side by side to deliver more together. Create your first Monday agent today at monday.com.
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