453: She Was Babysitting Her Friend's Daughter... Then Her BF Killed Her to Get the Little Girl | Melissa Norby

In 2016, a Minnesota home was intentionally set on fire, 35-year-old Melissa Norby was found murdered inside, and the 5-year-old girl who had been staying with her was nowhere to be found. As investigators dug into Melissa’s secret relationship, they uncovered a disturbing connection between her murder and the little girl’s disappearance.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Annie Elise?

  Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is way better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Hey Richmond, Mark Smith, Midas Richmond, 2026. We have been doing what we do for 29 years. Total car care, total community care. In 2026, we are donating $365,000, $1,000 a day to the nonprofits we've historically supported. Gooch and Care, Shalom Farms, St. Joseph's Villa, Ask, the Colonial Heights Food Pantry, everybody we've helped over the years. These are important things making a big impact in our society right now. Total car care, total community care, that is Midas of Richmond.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Home is for impressing, but also resting and entertaining guests in, burning some sage in, decorating and staging. This season, visit HomeSense to get all the things that make your home, home. HomeSense, abundantly affordable.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  A fire leaves one woman dead and a five-year-old missing.

• 1:16Speaker 04

  Once we looked inside, we found out that there was a body. I was really scared. You hear about it all the time. If you don't find your child within first, what, 24 hours? It went from a homicide investigation to now we had an active missing child case. I didn't do anything to the little girl. I haven't seen the little girl. I knew what

• 1:35Annie Elise?

  went wrong.

• 1:39Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialishly.

• 2:03Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialishly with me, your host, Annie Elise. So today's case, okay, it is, I was gonna say it's nutty, but then I was gonna say it's a wild one, but it is nutty. It's one where it's difficult to know, like, was this a, somebody who masterminded this entire thing? Was it a murder, a cover-up? Who was involved? What really happened? It seems like it was a very elaborate plan. So I am curious to know your thoughts as we go through this. I've got my notes right here with me and we are going to go through this case together. Also, really quickly before

• 2:44Annie Elise?

  we get started, wanted to let you know that our fall merch collection is officially on sale and you guys have been asking, you know that at the start of my episodes, sometimes I say, I hope you're having a nice day, but I'm about to ruin it. It's officially on merch. Also, lots of seasonal stuff, lots of spooky stuff, our classic make it make sense with the eyes, you know, hoodie version, lots of stuff. So you can grab all of it while it lasts. It's at annieelise.com. Quantities are limited, though, and the merch shop is going to be closing very soon. So put those orders in now, whether it's for you, a gift, holiday gift, whatever, you can go shop now, annieelise.com. It was the early morning hours of June 22, 2016. Now, just hours earlier, one of the

• 3:29Annie Elise?

  mobile homes in the Mobile Home Park in Bedmithee, Minnesota, had gone up in flames. And at first, it seemed like just a typical run-of-the-mill house fire, a tragic one, yes, heartbreaking, of course, but unfortunately, things like that do happen relatively commonly. So most of the neighbors had already been awake for hours at that point after hearing the sirens and smelling the smoke and seeing this house fire unfold. And as the morning went on, more people who lived further away started making their way over, gathering behind the barricades, trying to figure out what had happened, how this happened, and more importantly, whether whoever was inside this mobile home was okay. Were there more people in there?

• 4:12Annie Elise?

  Was the homeowner okay? Were there guests? Where is everybody? Then, one woman at the front of the barricade caught everyone's attention. She was pleading with this officer who was blocking the scene, desperate to get closer to the home. She was crying and screaming that her five-year-old daughter had spent the night there. Now, as you can imagine, the atmosphere immediately shifted the moment that people heard that. Everybody that was within earshot fell quiet. Like, what do you mean? Oh, my God, this woman's five-year-old daughter was inside this home? Is she okay? Was she brought out? Like, what's going on here? Everybody's stomachs just completely dropped. So they started looking at one another,

• 4:53Annie Elise?

  seeing if anybody had the answer, realizing that if the little girl was inside that home, she should have been outside by now if she was okay. She should have been talking with firefighters, or at the very least, she should have been being checked out by the paramedics. But the problem was, nobody had seen a child. Even worse, it didn't appear that anybody had been taken to the hospital. But as frightening as that realization was for everybody who was standing there, it still wasn't as bad as the truth. The truth was, the firefighters and the investigators had already known for hours that this wasn't just a tragic house fire. They had determined that this fire was arson. Someone had gone to this mobile

• 5:36Annie Elise?

  home. They had intentionally set that home on fire. And even more devastating, the firefighters knew that someone inside that home had died. But the little girl, she wasn't among the victims inside the home. She also, though, wasn't waiting outside for her mom. She wasn't with firefighters. She wasn't with police. She was simply gone. The owner of the mobile home was 35-year-old Melissa Norby. Melissa lived at the Hillcrest Manor Mobile Home Park with her teenage son, although thankfully, he had been staying with a cousin and out of town that night. Melissa was a single mom who was really doing her best to make ends meet. She earned money by babysitting children in the area for family friends,

• 6:18Annie Elise?

  and even though she was raising her son on her own, she had a really solid support system. She had close family and friends, and she knew that she could always count on them. So when those family and friends had heard that there had been this house fire at Melissa's house, they were absolutely distraught, completely devastated. And then came even more heartbreaking news. Melissa had been found dead. But this case took a much darker turn almost immediately because when firefighters first arrived, they noticed several things that didn't sit right. The first being that there was a gas can still lying in the rubble inside the home. They also determined pretty quickly that the bulk of the fire had both started and

• 7:00Annie Elise?

  remained concentrated in one of the southwest bedrooms. But oddly enough, no one was in that bedroom. So as firefighters searched the home, room by room, they eventually found what appeared to be Melissa's remains. They were in a bedroom closer to the middle of the mobile home. Based on the description, investigators believed that it was her and her family and friends later identified her as well. Now, they, of course, still had to wait for official confirmation, but for the sake of everything else that I'm about to share with you, we are going to talk as though her identity had already been confirmed, okay? So she had already died by the time the firefighters had reached her. And sadly, that really is not uncommon in house fires. I've covered so many cases before where entire

• 7:45Annie Elise?

  families died from smoke inhalation by the time a firefighter team arrived because they inhaled all of that in their sleep and unfortunately already succumbed to those injuries. And because this fire happened in the middle of the night, that probably seemed like the most likely explanation at first. But that wasn't what happened here because Melissa wasn't lying in her bed as if she had simply slept through the fire and then died from smoke inhalation. Her body was actually found underneath the mattress in the bedroom, as though someone had tried to hide her. So that alone, as you can imagine, was a huge red flag. I mean, it's pretty common sense that if there is a fire, you don't crawl

• 8:28Annie Elise?

  underneath a mattress to try to hide from it. That's not where you go, right? So investigators knew almost immediately that Melissa very likely hadn't put herself there. And then they got a closer look and they noticed something even more alarming. Melissa's hands had been bound with duct tape. And that right there, that one detail, it changed everything. It told firefighters, okay, we are no longer dealing with a tragic accident that was caused by a candle or faulty wiring and it resulted in this horrible tragic house fire. And then she died from smoke inhalation. No, no, no, no, no. This was deliberate and they knew that they were dealing with something far more sinister than they could even imagine.

• 9:13Annie Elise?

  Another major detail that the firefighters noticed was that even though the fire had started and was mostly contained to that southwest bedroom, Melissa's body and the mattress that was on top of her had been severely burned. Now, at first glance, maybe that might not make a whole lot of sense because here you have a body and a mattress that were found in a room far away from where the fire actually started. But then the investigators noticed another detail that helped piece together what had actually happened inside that home. Some of the windows in the mobile home were broken outward from the inside, going out, being pushed out, smashed out. But this wasn't like somebody had, you know, taken a glass or a candle or an ashtray and

• 9:57Annie Elise?

  had thrown it out the window as a way to escape or try to make the fire break free. It also didn't look like this had been shattered by an accident, by somebody accidentally knocking something over or falling into the window. And the reason being, the glass shards had traveled as far as 12 to 15 feet away from the home. So that told investigators that whoever started the fire didn't just use this gas can that they found inside, they also had used explosives. Now, because of that, because of that detail, knowing that explosives had been used, after they put out most of the fire and cleared the home of anybody else, dead or alive, they got out of there and then they called in reinforcements.

• 10:40Annie Elise?

  Their job had been to put out this fire, but now there was something else entirely going on. They were no longer dealing with just a run of the mill fire investigation. They were looking at a homicide and this home was now very quickly officially becoming a crime scene. So at first, they had been searching for Melissa and her son. Then they unfortunately discovered that Melissa was dead and they later learned that her son was in fact safe. He had stayed at that cousin's house and was out of town. Now, keep in mind, by the time this is all unfolding, this is around noon on June 22nd, more than eight hours after first responders originally had been called to the home. So for those entire eight hours, investigators had been focused on documenting the arson,

• 11:25Annie Elise?

  processing the scene, and really trying to understand what happened to Melissa. And at this point, they had not even started dealing with that woman who showed up at the barricades, that woman who was screaming about her missing five-year-old daughter, which let's talk about that for a moment. That woman was Amanda Smith and Amanda wasn't just someone who knew Melissa casually. She and Melissa were best friends. They were incredibly close. They had known each other for 30 years, essentially their entire lives. They had grown up together. They had been there for one another through everything, including the births of Melissa's son and Amanda's multiple children, and they were just best friends. Amanda's daughter was five-year-old Brittany Rose.

• 12:08Annie Elise?

  Melissa had babysat Brittany many times before and Amanda estimated that throughout Brittany's life, she probably had spent the night at Melissa's house at least 20 times. So Brittany wasn't a stranger to this home and Melissa wasn't a stranger to Brittany. So that's why when Amanda arrived at the scene, crying and collapsing in front of these officers and screaming for her daughter, investigators were immediately concerned because now they had a brand new question that they hadn't been looking for an answer to. Had they missed Brittany inside the home? They already knew that no one survived in the fire and based on what they had found with Melissa, they knew that something terrible had happened there before that fire even broke out that night. So this scene was emotional, to say the least.

• 12:52Annie Elise?

  Amanda was of course desperate for answers and the investigators were doing everything that they could possibly do to keep the details of the case under wraps because at that point, they didn't fully understand what they were dealing with here. They had already uncovered a devastating crime scene and now they were trying to piece together exactly what happened inside that home. So investigators asked Amanda if she had established a fire safety plan with Brittany, which as a parent, I actually do think in hindsight, because I've never done this with my kids, I think it is actually something worth doing with your children, no matter how young they are, but putting a plan in place where God forbid, if a fire ever does erupt, where you go, how you handle it. I know when we were younger, we were taught duck, cover and roll, but where do you go

• 13:37Annie Elise?

  once you flee the house? Is there a safety meeting site? And I think that that is really important to have, not only for fires, but for earthquakes, for anything, because you know, here in California, we are like home of the earthquakes, right? Which knock on wood, I'm not inviting an earthquake anytime soon. So they were really trying to understand whether there was any possibility that Brittany had been able to get out of the home herself and escape this fire on her own. But Amanda told them that she was confident that Brittany was too young. She would have been too scared. She was five years old. She wouldn't have been able to come up with a plan and escape this house and, you know, flee a fire all on her own independently. She believed that if Brittany woke up and realized that something was wrong, she would

• 14:17Annie Elise?

  have either immediately run to go find Melissa or she would have stayed right by her side. Now, keep in mind too, at this point, Amanda did not know that the investigators already discovered Melissa inside the home. She had no idea that her best friend was deceased, that she had been bound with a duct tape on her wrists, then stuffed underneath a mattress. She had no clue. She had like, which I have to say, she had no clue that her best friend had been murdered because that's what this was, right? It appeared that this was a homicide. So investigators searched the home again, but they still couldn't find Brittany. She wasn't near Melissa's body. She wasn't in another room. She wasn't hiding in one of the small spaces inside the mobile home.

• 15:01Annie Elise?

  She was just gone. She wasn't there. So investigators immediately started focusing on looking for Brittany outside of the home, hoping that maybe Amanda had been wrong. Maybe Brittany had somehow been able to get out on her own. They searched the surrounding neighborhood, checked behind neighbors' cars, looked through backyards, searched the nearby woods closest to the home, really trying to look anywhere where this little five-year-old girl may have gone. But Brittany wasn't anywhere. And the reality was, if Amanda hadn't shown up and told the investigators that Brittany had even been staying the night that night at Melissa's house, they wouldn't have even known to look for her. Amanda and Brittany's father, who for whatever reason is not named in the source that we

• 15:43Annie Elise?

  pulled from, they were brought into the police station and questioned. And I don't think that investigators necessarily believed that either one of them had done anything wrong, but obviously in any investigation, they knew that they needed to clear everybody who was close to Brittany. And that happened pretty quickly. Both Amanda and Brittany's father had alibis for the night before. And investigators were also able to confirm that Brittany had been dropped off at Melissa's home by another family member. And as far as anyone knew, she had not been picked up by anyone afterward. So now the focus of the entire investigation completely shifted. The fire and Melissa's death were still being investigated, absolutely, but they were no longer the main priority. The priority was finding little Brittany.

• 16:26Annie Elise?

  Publicly, investigators hadn't even announced yet that Melissa had died. They had only said that an unknown adult body had been found inside the home.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  Police discovered that five-year-old Brittany Rose Balser had been visiting the home last night and is missing. She was last seen wearing a black shirt and pink skirt with stars. She has blonde hair and green eyes. Police are asking for your help. If you have any information, you're asked to contact them.

• 16:54Annie Elise?

  Based on what investigators knew at the time, which honestly wasn't really all that much, they started trying to piece together what could have happened inside that home. And one possibility that they considered was that maybe Melissa hadn't been the target. Maybe Brittany had been the intended victim and maybe the fire and Melissa's death were all part of this elaborate attempt to cover up a kidnapping, an abduction of little Brittany. Now, I know, I know, I know, that sounds like a pretty far out theory, but at the same time, this little girl was missing and nothing about the situation was making any sense whatsoever. So investigators really were just trying to find any explanation that fit. And there was also another possibility that they had to consider in all of this.

• 17:39Annie Elise?

  Maybe Melissa had been the target and maybe whoever went there intending to hurt her, didn't expect her to be babysitting little five-year-old Brittany. But then perhaps they saw an opportunity and took it, a crime of opportunity, as people call it. But no matter which theory that they looked at, one thing remained consistent. Brittany absolutely had vanished and more than likely she had been kidnapped. You guys know I love finding a good deal. There is just something that is so satisfying about the hunt and then finding something that you've had your eye on and realizing you don't have to pay full price for it. And that is exactly why I have been loving today's sponsor, Whatnot.

• 18:20Annie Elise?

  I recently shopped on Whatnot myself and not only what I liked was like being able to actually interact with the seller in real time, but I could ask to see the item up close. I could ask questions. I could get a better feel for exactly what I was purchasing. And I ended up finding an amazing old throwback Dooney and Burke handbag that was in great condition, that was like bringing me right back to my high school days that I loved. Also this MAC lipstick that has been discontinued for years, but found the shade and it was brand new. And I ended up getting an amazing deal. So it makes shopping feel way more fun and also interactive. Whatnot is the number one live shopping app in the U.S. with incredible sellers live 24/7.

• 19:01Annie Elise?

  You can shop name brands across makeup, perfume, clothing, handbags, jewelry, and so much more. So whatever you're looking for, there is always something new to discover. Download Whatnot today and get $20 off your first purchase. Search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the App Store, sign up and start finding the best deals on the products you love with $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Today's episode is sponsored by Zenni. All right, you guys know we all have those things on our to do list that we keep putting off. For me, it is grocery shopping, it's decorating for the holidays, it's so much stuff. And for some reason, getting new glasses, it always seems to be one of them too. But honestly, I realized it doesn't have to be such a production. That's where Zenni comes in.

• 19:45Annie Elise?

  They make shopping for prescription glasses and sunglasses so easy with frames starting under $30. You can browse tons of cute styles. You can virtually try them on too. You can enter your prescription, customize your lenses. And the best part is then you have everything shipped right to your door. And you can get, I recently got not only a new pair of prescription, but also blue light. Because for me, being on the screen all day when I'm researching, when I'm recording, it is just too much. And so because they were so affordable, I was able to try out a few different frames. And I just, it's made my experience so much more pleasant. I don't know why I waited so long. And with over 150,000 five star reviews, you can really feel confident about your choice.

• 20:28Annie Elise?

  So check new glasses off your list today with Zenni. Go to zenni.com/podcast and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off plus free shipping on all US orders over $65. Styles do sell out though, so don't wait. That's Z E N N I dot com slash podcast promo code PODCAST15. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds. Because switching your home and auto insurance is way better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com.

• 21:13Annie Elise?

  Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. Today's episode is sponsored by Wayfair. Now you guys know I'm constantly changing things out in the studio, at my house, everywhere. I always have some sort of room that I just want to refresh. I want to like do a little mini upgrade, change something out, flip it around. So recently I wanted to change my kids' rooms. They have, they're growing, they need like full blown hampers now. I need to organize their stuff more. So I went to Wayfair, knowing exactly that I was going to find what I needed. They spec it out for you, they have the exact measurements available, you can like see the reviews. And it's just, it makes it so easy to find something and feel confident about what you're buying. And I love it now, it like their rooms look so cute, they're so organized. Love, love, love for them.

• 21:55Annie Elise?

  And Wayfair just makes shopping for your home so easy because there are thousands of products across basically every style and budget. Their products also have been hand vetted by product specialists using a 10 point quality inspection. Plus you have those trusted reviews that will help you decide. So whether you're replacing one thing or completely transforming a space, there is so much to choose from. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. As investigators worked through both possibilities, they started to believe that whoever was responsible was likely someone that Melissa knew. Because for this to have been some complete random attack, it just didn't seem to fit.

• 22:41Annie Elise?

  Especially because of where Melissa lived. Hillcrest Manor, as I said, was a mobile home park, meaning that these homes were extremely close together, side by side. Melissa had neighbors all around her. And when investigators spoke with them, no one reported seeing anything suspicious or hearing anything unusual. No one heard someone breaking into Melissa's home. No one heard yelling or screaming or anything that would suggest that Melissa had been caught off guard. And to everyone who was around her, it seemed like a completely normal night. That is until the fire. So investigators started looking deeper into Melissa's personal life, really trying to figure out if there was anyone who could have had a motive or if there were any warning signs that maybe they had missed.

• 23:26Annie Elise?

  And sure enough, they quickly learned that Melissa had several different men who had been a part of her life, both in the past and at the present time. One of the first people that the investigators focused on was her ex boyfriend. Apparently their relationship had been very on and off, a little bit, you know, tumultuous. At one point they broke up and they didn't speak for years, but then they eventually ended up reconnecting. But just like before, the relationship eventually ended again. Now, the reason that this ex boyfriend immediately stood out to the investigators was because he did have a criminal record. More specifically, he had a past conviction for arson. And given obviously what had just happened at Melissa's home, that was obviously something that the investigators needed to look into.

• 24:11Annie Elise?

  So they quickly contacted him and they started asking him questions. But according to him, he and Melissa hadn't spoken for quite some time. Now, of course, the investigators and anybody with a brain would have to consider that he was lying, right? He's probably going to, if he was involved, he's going to distance himself. He's not going to just be like, oh yeah, we talk all the time and I was with her last night. Like there is a possibility that he's lying. But when they looked into the alibi that he provided for the night before, they were able to verify it and it was solid. So then the investigators moved on to another man in Melissa's life. However, this person was a lot closer to home, literally. This man wasn't just someone that Melissa knew.

• 24:53Annie Elise?

  He was actually a neighbor, someone who lived right there in the Hillcrest Manor community. Apparently he would often babysit Melissa's son whenever she needed help. But investigators learned that their relationship went well beyond just a friendly neighbor helping one another out. They were also reportedly involved in a sexual relationship. And to be clear, there was nothing inherently wrong or illegal about that. Melissa was a single mom, she needed help sometimes. And whether the babysitting came before or after their relationship became physical, I mean, the fact that two consenting adults were involved, that was not the issue, obviously not. The reason that the investigators paid attention to him was kind of because of a combination of things.

• 25:35Annie Elise?

  He was not only sexually involved with Melissa, but he also lived extremely close by. So you have two factors involved in this. Meaning theoretically, he could have said that he was home all night, yet he still could have had the ability to walk over to Melissa's house without anybody thinking twice about it. And that was another thing that really made this situation stand out. If another neighbor had seen him walking toward Melissa's home, it wouldn't have seemed suspicious. They were all a community, they were all neighbors. It would have just looked completely normal because of the relationship that already existed between the two of them. However, just like the ex boyfriend, this neighbor was also very quickly cleared as a suspect. It wasn't until investigators sat down with Melissa's cousin Tuesday,

• 26:20Annie Elise?

  the same cousin that her son had been staying with the night of the fire, that they finally started getting somewhere with this investigation. Now, as uncomfortable as it might have been to dig into Melissa's personal life, her sex life, her private life, including, you know, all of these exes and relationships that she was in and out of and continuing with. Investigators knew that they needed to understand every single part of her world. They needed to know who she was, who was she close to, who had access to her? Was there anyone who could have any sort of reason to want to hurt her? So they asked her cousin Tuesday pretty directly if she knew anything about Melissa's sex life. And right away, Tuesday said, yes, she did know something.

• 27:03Annie Elise?

  But she also made it clear that it was something that she didn't necessarily agree with or approve of, which that immediately caught the investigators' attention. Because they were then, of course, left wondering what exactly they were about to hear. Like, what do you mean you know more about her sex life, but you don't approve of it? What are you about to share with us? What are you, what kind of bomb are you about to drop on us? So Tuesday went on to tell investigators that Melissa had been involved in a secret relationship. Now, exactly why this relationship was kept secret, it isn't completely clear. But I do have a pretty good idea, which I'll get into shortly here. What investigators learned was that Melissa was dating someone. But this wasn't a relationship that a lot of her family and friends knew about.

• 27:45Annie Elise?

  And she described it as quote daddy little girl situations. Which look, I know people have all different kinks and personal sex fetishes and things like that. Some people like calling your partner or your sex partner daddy and this and that. Or reenacting situations where you're the little girl in the schoolgirl outfit and he's the big bad dad or adult or principal or whatever. Like it's not to shame anyone. But it does become sometimes a little bit concerning when you now find this woman dead and a little girl missing, right? It's like, oh, now things are starting to feel a little bit problematic potentially. And it did not end there.

• 28:27Annie Elise?

  Tuesday went on to say that this man that Melissa was seeing, Chance, that's his name, that he liked things "rough." Now, for my audio-only listeners, I am putting air quotes around "rough" because I think that that word can mean very different things to different people. However, according to Tuesday, what Chance considered "rough" went far beyond just a little tiny hair tug here and there, or a little bit of a toss onto a bed. According to her, it was violent. Tuesday explained that Melissa confided in her that during one of their encounters involving that daddy-little-girl role-play dynamic, things escalated to the point where Chance

• 29:06Annie Elise?

  allegedly punched her, then choked Melissa so intensely that she almost lost consciousness. And it didn't end there. He then apparently put her in the back of an SUV and sexually assaulted her. And as if that wasn't already enough, Melissa even had sent Tuesday pictures showing bruises that had been left behind on her body afterward. Thankfully, Tuesday had been there for Melissa. She allowed her to confide in her, and according to Tuesday, she encouraged Melissa to leave him. And eventually, she did end that relationship. Now, keep in mind, that incident happened back in 2015, about a year before Melissa was murdered. So at first, it did seem like this could be a major break for the investigators.

• 29:49Annie Elise?

  But it actually opened up even more questions. So investigators started searching their systems for any records, reports, or information that was connected to Chance. But almost every single search came back empty. It was like Chance didn't even exist at all. Eventually, investigators also learned that Chance was just a nickname. It wasn't his real legal name. It was just the name that he went by. And Tuesday apparently didn't even know his real name. However, police were able to figure it out, and his real name was Jacob Kin. He also went by Jake. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna call him Jake moving forward, because that's what investigators would later refer to him as. So Jake lived in the area, and he owned and operated a local food truck called Jake's

• 30:34Annie Elise?

  Eats. Now, the story that Tuesday told investigators about what Jake allegedly did to Melissa, it was obviously extremely concerning. But it wasn't even the most shocking thing that they would learn about him. You see, just like Melissa's other ex, Jake also had a history with law enforcement. And when investigators started digging into his background, they found something that was far more serious. Jake wasn't just someone with a few run-ins with the law. He was on the registry. And at the time of Melissa's murder, he was still on probation for a 2012 offense. The details surrounding that conviction were very deeply disturbing and truly painted a picture of someone with a very troubling history.

• 31:16Annie Elise?

  And this is why investigators took it very seriously as they worked to understand what happened to Melissa. Having this new information and his criminal background, his history, the allegations of their dynamic in their relationship, it all was just like beyond alarming and tons of red flags going off. Now, before I get into that part of Jake's past, I do want to warn you that the details are extremely difficult and very upsetting. So take a breath, grab something to drink, you know, get in whatever zen place you need to get to, because it's about to get intense. In 2012, Jake put up a Craigslist ad. And in this ad, he was straight to the point. He wasn't even trying to hide at all what he was after or what he wanted.

• 32:00Annie Elise?

  He said, quote, "I'm looking for a young girl, two to nine years old, to model for my private collection. Nothing illegal, just skimpy outfits and whatnot." Which, I'm sorry, I don't care if there's a technicality on that being illegal or not, the fact that you are literally posting an ad in Craigslist saying you're looking for young children, two to nine years old, wearing skimpy outfits that you can photograph, it is illegal. Because even if they're not fully nude, you're essentially creating CSAM material, and you're advertising it. You're putting an ad out on Craigslist that you want to create CSAM material, and that you are hoping someone will respond and answer to that ad and allow you to do that.

• 32:44Annie Elise?

  It is so diabolical. Now thankfully, the police department became aware of what Jake was doing before an actual child was harmed through these ads. So in order to investigate and build a case against him, they set up an undercover sting operation. An undercover officer posed as the mother of an eight-year-old little girl, and she communicated with Jake as part of the investigation. According to investigators, Jake believed that the situation was real, so he continued engaging in the conversation, ultimately giving these officers the evidence that they needed to move forward with the charges. But despite all the evidence, Jake was only convicted of possession of child material, and he was sentenced to only 120 days in jail with probation.

• 33:28Annie Elise?

  Which this never ceases to amaze me, that these monsters get off with like a slap on the wrist. And it's like, this is something that is not fixed, okay? It's wired in their brain. It's part of their DNA. So they're going to reoffend, and once they reoffend, they're going to escalate. Things are only going to get worse and worse, because then they're going to become desensitized to the photos. They're gonna wanna act it out. They're gonna wanna then escalate even further than that. And it's just like, I don't understand how we are still in such an archaic space legally, where we cannot hold them longer, knowing and seeing a clear history and pattern of reoffenders. It blows my mind. Now, what really shook me to my core after hearing about Jake and this conviction was

• 34:11Annie Elise?

  that in 2012, when police were still investigating his case, they actually recorded an interview that they had with Jake, where in this interview, he admitted to being a sexual predator and also admitted to what his sexual preferences were. Take a listen.

• 34:27Speaker 06

  Looking at child pornography, does it give you a sexual gratification? No. It did a while ago. Do you share any of the clips with anybody, send anybody? I probably do. Okay, did you receive any from other people? Yes. How old do you think they are, roughly? I have no idea. You guess five, six, seven? I suppose. Is there an age that you consider too young? It just doesn't do anything for you? Uh, under, probably under six. You know that these children that you watched in these clips were, say, under the age of ten? I guess not. Yes.

• 35:09Speaker 06

  I used to look at it, I guess, as to relieve the want to do.

• 35:15Annie Elise?

  So that recording existed before he was sentenced and years before Melissa's murder. It was why investigators also knew the name Jake Kin so well, which is why, when they learned that Jake was the mystery guy that Melissa was seeing and dating, they were immediately concerned that he might be involved with not only Melissa's murder, but Brittany's disappearance as well, especially given his history or interest in children. Now, even though Melissa and Jake's relationship was kept fairly private, a few people in Melissa's life did know about it. And according to those people, what her cousin Tuesday told investigators, it lined right up with what they knew about the relationship. But there was one detail that came as a shock and surprise.

• 36:00Annie Elise?

  Apparently, Melissa knew about Jake's past. And even more than that, she knew that he was on the registry. Which, honestly, in hindsight, that could have been one of the reasons why she kept the relationship so private, because she was embarrassed by it, she knew his history, and she didn't want people judging her or him or whatever. I mean, she likely understood that if people found out that they were together, it would just raise questions about her relationship. And it would also raise a lot of concerns about the environment around her child and the children that she babysat and cared for. Because remember, Melissa wasn't just a mother, she also made her living caring for other people's children, including little Brittany. So that made her relationship with Jake even more concerning to investigators.

• 36:44Annie Elise?

  Now, this is a little bit of a side note, but according to her cousin Tuesday, Jake wasn't the first man in Melissa's life with this kind of history. Melissa's ex-husband had also been arrested back in 2010, shortly before their divorce, and that arrest was for indecent exposure. And the father of her son was also on the registry in Nebraska. He had a prior conviction stemming from a 2002 third-degree sexual assault case. So when Tuesday then learned about Jake, she confronted Melissa about this. She specifically asked her how she could be with someone who was on the registry, especially considering that he shouldn't have even been around her son. But Melissa's response, it was, quote, "Oh, well, he did something really bad, but he

• 37:28Annie Elise?

  didn't do it, and he got in trouble, so I can't really have him around the kids." So at this point now, one thing that the investigators couldn't ignore was that Melissa seemed to have a pattern of becoming involved with men who had troubling histories. Whether that was simply a coincidence or something more, it was impossible not to notice. But by the time that the investigators had finally pieced all of this information together, it was already late, around 10:00 PM that night. So they immediately went to Jake's house. However, by the time they got there, Jake wasn't home. So at that point, the urgency of the investigation, it skyrocketed. Investigators already knew that Jake had a history of predatory behavior, particularly

• 38:09Annie Elise?

  involving children, but they still didn't know whether he had anything to do with Melissa's murder or Brittany's disappearance. The problem was, though, if he did, the fact that he was now suddenly gone, that was incredibly concerning. So their minds went to the worst-case scenario almost immediately. Had he taken Brittany and run? Was he trying to leave the state? Or worse, the country? So not wanting to waste another minute, the detectives reached out to Jake's probation officer, hoping that they could make contact with him and get answers about Brittany before it was too late. It was risky, though, knowing that if he was the one who had Brittany, they were essentially tipping him off that they were on to him. But shockingly, Jake got back with the probation officer, and he agreed to come into the station

• 38:54Annie Elise?

  for questioning. At the beginning of the interview, the investigators made it very clear that he wasn't in any sort of trouble and that he was not under arrest. They just wanted to see if he could fill in any of the blanks for them.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Did your probation officer tell you what's going on?

• 39:09Speaker 06

  Well, I already knew there was a couple of sheriffs at my food stand, so...

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 39:15Speaker 06

  They mentioned what was going on.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  What'd they say?

• 39:18Speaker 06

  Just that there's a missing girl.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 39:21Speaker 06

  Didn't go into detail, but...

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Okay. Um, well...

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Here's the deal. We get missing kids, guess who the first people we talk to? Us. Yeah. I already knew that. I figured, but... And, and that's why you're here. We're talking to anybody that's registered that has any connection with kids. When you get a kid missing, you know, who do you look at? Well, you look at parents, um, and, and work out from there.

• 39:53Annie Elise?

  Right away, Jake gave his alibi. He claimed that he was working at his food stand, his food truck, well, you know, whatever you want to call it, and that when he was done, he had gone fishing. But he said that he had gone fishing alone, and that's essentially where he says he was for the last forty-eight hours. But then, the interview started getting a lot more interesting because the investigators then shifted the conversation to Melissa. They wanted to know whether Jake knew her, how the two of them had met, what their relationship was like, and, most importantly, when he had last seen her.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Did you hear about the fire? Um, yeah. Okay. I do know that lady, actually. Okay. I haven't talked to her in like six or eight months, but she worked at Anderson Fabrics. Okay. Before, so... And that's how you know her? Yep. Um... And what's her name? Melissa Harvey. Okay. If that's right, then... Yep, that's, that's why I was asking you. Right. When you said lady, I didn't know your time was... Oh, good. Yeah. Alright. So you worked for there at Anderson? Anderson Fabrics. Okay. Yeah. When's the last time that you've seen her? Like, six or eight months ago. Oh, so it's been a long time? Yeah. Do you have any way to get a hold of her, or? No. I'll have her phone over here. Okay.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Okay. What else about work, like, do you know if casually through work, or knew of her? Do you know of her? I knew her casually.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  I stopped at her house once because a mutual friend left a chair there that she didn't want. He said I could have it, but then I didn't want it either, so... Was that the house at Hillcrest? Yep. Okay. That was like a year and a half ago. Alright. I stopped there, so...

• 41:43Speaker 03

  I mean, she's, she's also a focus of investigation. You know, there was a fire, you know? There was a body found. Um, we don't know what happened, okay? Yep. Um, but, and we also have a missing kid, so how is this all connected? We're trying to figure out. Anytime we have a missing kid, again, you guys are the first person that we look at. You know, is it fire? Who knows, but until we know, we're out. Yep. It's a little annoying, but I understand that. Yeah, and I appreciate, again, coming in. Um...

• 42:23Annie Elise?

  So far, the investigators were playing nice with Jake. Since he was there willingly, they obviously didn't want him to run off or get spooked just yet, but still, they were noticing some red flags. Jake told them that his and Melissa's relationship was casual, which everyone has different interpretations of things, but I definitely personally wouldn't consider what Tuesday described to the police as being casual. When I think of casual, I think maybe a work acquaintance. Maybe you don't really see them all that much or talk to them all that much outside of the workplace from nine to five. You know, you don't know much about them. They don't know much about you. Maybe if you're sexually inter, involved with somebody casually, it looks more like you hang out once a month and you have sex, or even less than that.

• 43:07Annie Elise?

  But from what Tuesday described, and what some of Melissa's friends had described, they were anything but casual. And what I found interesting was that as the interview went on, Jake definitely seemed like he was trying to distance himself from Melissa. He was talking about what she was like as if he truly didn't know her at all, or had just observed her from afar from time to time.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Well, she was a little odd. I mean, you know, it was, but a lot of people up there are, so...

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Uh, like, odd in how?

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Just the way she talked and, you know, like, the first time I met her, she started, um, she came up and she started talking to me, and then she started shooting rubber bands at me and a couple other people and just, you know, more kiddish stuff, I guess. Mm-hmm. Um, which kind of, you know, just threw me off from really wanting to talk to her. I mean, I talked to her a few times, but... She had it, or most of it? Was it? She was, she threw rubber bands? Quite a bit, actually. Okay.

• 44:16Annie Elise?

  At one point, the investigators straight up asked Jake if he and Melissa ever dated, and he was very quick to shut that down.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  She dated anybody there? No, no, no. You dated her at all? No. Alright. Um, how come? I was dating somebody else, and I didn't like her like that. Alright. In person, you ever talked to her on the phone? She ever call you, try to date you again, send you messages, anything like that? Date me again? Well, or, or, or try to, not, you didn't date her, but... Yeah, um... You know what I mean? Yeah. We, we did talk a few times on the phone, but, you know, like, a couple of years ago, but like... Nothing, anything recent? No. No, nothing recent, so... Alright, so you last saw her six, eight months ago? Yeah. And...

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Well, I've seen her, you know, like, around town, but I haven't talked to her, had in contact with her, once.

• 45:17Annie Elise?

  Slowly but surely, the investigators start to go from being nice and understanding, taking notes on everything he says, almost as if they believe him, to then becoming more skeptical of his version of events.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  Everything you told us is the truth? Hmm? Everything you told us is the truth? Yes. I, I, your whereabouts, anything like that? My whereabouts are exactly what I told you. Yeah.

• 45:42Annie Elise?

  But here's the problem. Even though he says he's being honest, the investigators weren't so sure. Starting with his alibi, he claimed that he had been fishing, but that he was fishing alone. So it's not like he was with a group of people who could verify that, right? Not to mention, he wasn't even sure where he was fishing.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Who can put you there tonight? You know, is there somebody there that, uh, saw you there? Uh, the resort owner? No. You know, um... I talked to my ex on the phone. Okay. I mean, she knew I was out fishing up there, but... So you're at this resort that you don't know the name of, um, can you describe it to us? Can you help us out a little bit with that?

• 46:27Speaker 03

  Just a resort, you know? Log-sided, dark, painted, or any description?

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Believe the, well, the cabins are usually what I see in my log-sided. I mean, I think it might even be named Clear Lake Resort. Not positive. We'll find it here in the map.

• 46:53Annie Elise?

  About an hour into the interview, the vibes shifted significantly. The first half of the interview was just a lot of taking notes. The second half, though, this is where they really started to question the things that Jake had been saying.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  Here's the deal. We'll look for a fighter over there. Little girl. I hope we find her. So do we. So do we. And that's our goal. Um...

• 47:24Speaker 03

  We would like any help that we can.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Jake?

• 47:34Speaker 03

  We got reports that you had a relationship with Melissa. Yep, I heard a lot of the same thing. What'd you hear? That we had dated. Okay. Um, and... Tell us about it.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  There was nothing to tell. I was dating another girl at work and she got pissed off. Who was that girl? Uh, Jessica Lanier. Okay. Um, this was, you know, two year, year ago, two years ago. Okay. But, you know,

• 48:08Speaker 03

  smoothed over, whatever. She stopped by the house a couple of times. We argued, but... You, when you say we, you and Melissa? Yeah, but not like argued argued, you know, she's,

• 48:20Speaker 03

  said she wanted to be with me. I said no, you know, that kind of thing, but it wasn't anything, you know? That's, that's what we heard. There was never actually a relationship, um, which is what I already said. Well, yeah. I mean, it's... Well, we, we heard that, no, there's more of a relationship than just her wanting to date you.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  I think it was you guys were having sex and and it was it was a relationship. Yeah, no. No, all right.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Or or maybe maybe we're not using the word relationship, right? That you guys were having sex. Yeah, no, okay. Not sex partners or? Friends with benefits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's what I mean.

• 49:10Annie Elise?

  Even when the investigators started to apply some of that pressure, Jake still denied everything. Any sort of relationship with Melissa in any sort of way, romantic, sexual, all of it. He was denying it, but the investigators were not going to give up that easily.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  Um, do you know her son? I've never met him, no. Okay. I've seen him, but I haven't talked to him. Is there a reason why he would say that you guys had a relationship?

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Not that, no, unless his mom said we did, but otherwise, no.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  All right, what about her coworkers where she's working now?

• 49:54Speaker 03

  I don't know any of the coworkers. Well. I don't know where she's working now. Okay, well, she the coworkers indicated that you guys were having sex. I don't know any of the coworkers, so I can't say anything to that. Okay, well, I'm not asking to account for what they said, just that they said you're having sex. You're again saying, no way. No, I wasn't the least bit attracted to her. Um, and, you know, we didn't have a relationship, so. All right.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  And we're not going to find anything later on that you did? What do you mean? You know, you have a relationship, sex talk on Facebook or anything like that? I don't think Facebook can. Or but anything like that? How about on your phone or her phone? Related text messages or anything? You wouldn't find anything on my phone. Okay. How about on her phone? I wouldn't find anything on her phone that I'm aware of, not for me.

• 51:09Annie Elise?

  Jake's story just wasn't adding up. Remember, Tuesday wasn't the only person who knew about Melissa and Jake's relationship. Investigators had multiple people telling them that the two of them were involved, and at the very least, that they were having a sexual relationship. Yet Jake was now claiming the exact opposite. According to him, they barely knew each other outside of work, and he also insisted that he had never even been attracted to Melissa, which those two versions of events couldn't both be true. So detectives kept pressing him, pointing out the consistencies, asking him to explain them. And as the questions continued, Jake started getting visibly frustrated, all until he finally announced that he was done talking and he was going to leave.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest to the other two. We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hader, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless now on the Sirius XM app. Download it today. I'm Libby Dunn, all American gymnast and Viori athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where you are.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  On the mat or on the sand, movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance joggers by Viori. Made from Dreamnet fabric that's made of eighty-nine percent recycled materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Get twenty percent off your first purchase at Viori dot com slash Libby. That's V U O R I dot com slash L I V V Y. Exclusions apply. Not only will you receive twenty percent off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on U S orders over seventy-five dollars and free returns. Go to Viori dot com slash Libby and discover the full versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.

• 53:20Speaker 05

  Quick question, how much of your day is spent typing? Emails, Slack, Notes, prompts to Chat G P T. Whisperflow is a voice to text app. Instead of typing, you talk and it types for you. And any app on your Mac, Windows, iPhone, or Android, it takes out the ums, fixes the typos, and the result sounds like you wrote it, four times faster than typing. So the email that used to take two minutes now takes thirty seconds. Whisperflow is free. Download it at whisperflow dot A I. That's W I S P R flow dot A I. The Halloween party is at my place this year. It's my favorite party to host. With the lowest prices and the huge selection, Total Wine & More is my first stop. A bottle of wine for me while I'm preparing, ready to drink cocktails for the party,

• 54:05Speaker 05

  and beer for the friends who always end up on the couch. Between hosting and grabbing something to bring, I love getting the lowest prices. Get the fun started at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, be twenty-one.

• 54:20Annie Elise?

  Here's the thing, right after he walked out of that interrogation room, he walked right back in. He was still free to go, though, so I don't know entirely why he came back, but he did.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  She's dating a guy, she's seen a guy with blue eyes, has a food truck. That's you. She's telling people that. Okay, hang on.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  Her cousin in the cities. Jake owns a food truck, sells food by Rutgers. Um,

• 54:56Speaker 03

  that's you. That would be me. Co-workers.

• 55:01Speaker 03

  Describe you. What, no. And has anybody seen you with her? Here's the deal, that one night encounters, maybe because he didn't go to the bar dancing with her and no one saw you. Why would Melissa brag about you or having a relationship with you to someone that doesn't even know you? You know, they're in the city for her, so yeah. I could be lying to Chad that I'm I'm dating uh some supermodel. You know, well, Chad would know because I worked at you and see me, he would know, you know? Or someone that lives in Nebraska in the cities, they don't know you, they'll never run into you.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Why would Melissa say she has a relationship with you? She could say anybody. She could. Why would she give your name? So and that's if it's not just one person, Jake. Her son talks about you.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  Her cousin, coworkers, this girl in Nebraska, that's five different people. I've never. That say you, it's you. I've never met any of them, so. I know, so why why is Melissa describing you?

• 56:21Speaker 03

  She could say to her friend in the city, she could say she's dating the mayor of Bemidji, right? Yeah. Why you? I don't know, because she had a crush on me a long time ago and she wanted to date. I already told you this. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's years ago. You know, a year ago, two years ago, yes. Yeah, it just doesn't make sense that she doesn't even work at Anderson Fabric anymore.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  I don't. According to you, you haven't you haven't seen her. I haven't seen her, talked to her in six, eight months. Okay.

• 57:00Annie Elise?

  Whether or not Jake knew Melissa wasn't the only discrepancy that the investigators were concerned about. At some point, they had also looked into the places where his cell phone had pinged, and they were pretty unsurprised to find out that it was not where Jake said he was when he was on his little fishing expedition.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Let's talk about that now, get out in front of it and let this community heal. And I, you know. You know what I'm saying? Let this community heal. There are people out there looking for this little girl right now. Yeah, there's lots of people. If it was my daughter, I'd be going breaking down doors myself, yeah, but

• 57:37Speaker 03

  I didn't do anything to the little girl. I haven't seen the little girl. I haven't seen Melissa in a long time. I haven't done anything. Okay. I was in bed sleeping. I'm sorry, I don't live with anybody to corroborate that story.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  But today I was working, yesterday I was working, then I was fishing. And I haven't seen either one of them or talked to either one of them. But nobody can put you fishing, that's the hard part.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  And. Even if people did see me, like yesterday.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Jake, your cell. I don't know who it was. Your cell phone is not even close to.

• 58:22Speaker 04

  Where you say you're fishing. That's, that's concerning to us.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, and I understand that, but I can't explain it.

• 58:30Speaker 04

  You should have been within a five mile radius of where you were fishing, and it's not. It's like forty miles away.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Like I said, yeah, that's concerning, because I kind of like, oh, what was he doing?

• 58:45Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  But I can't explain it, because I was frickin' fishing.

• 58:53Speaker 04

  Is there fishing rods in your Jeep?

• 58:55Speaker 03

  There's a fishing rod, a tackle box, yes.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  You can't search my Jeep, but you can see, I'll let you see the fishing rod and the tackle box.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Why won't you let us search your Jeep?

• 59:15Speaker 03

  Because at this point, I don't trust you guys.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  Did we lie to you?

• 59:20Speaker 03

  You're pushing me to say something that I didn't do. And to say that I had a relationship with Melissa. You're pushing me to say I had a relationship with somebody I did not have a relationship with. No, we are trying to clarify that. Ever. Discrepancy. And I'm clarifying, and I'm sorry she told five, six different people that she was in a relationship, a sexual relationship with me. Was not true. And, and you said she said, you know, at first you, you were saying she was telling these people my name was Chance. I don't know a Chance. I've never been called Chance, or Chase, or whatever it was. Fair enough.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  I mean, so is it Jake, or is it Chance that she has some relationship with?

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  It's Jake.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  No, it's not Jake. She's never had a relationship with Jake.

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  And I can't explain it.

• 1:00:17Speaker 03

  It's not my deal, you know, I'm.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  I wish I could help you find the little girl. I'm sorry something happened to her, but I have nothing to do with it.

• 1:00:30Annie Elise?

  I always find it interesting when investigators point out that multiple people are telling a completely different story. And when the suspect then just responds to that being like, well, I don't know why there's a discrepancy. Well, I don't know why things wouldn't be adding up, as if that is somehow enough to explain it away. Because hello, that doesn't explain anything. It just creates even more questions. Regardless, Jake told investigators they weren't going to be searching his Jeep, almost like that was his decision to make. But by that point, the truth was detectives were already in the process of obtaining a search warrant. And when Jake learned that, his reaction was very telling.

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  This is what's gonna happen.

• 1:01:11Speaker 04

  Based on the information that we got from these, these people, about your connection with Melissa, okay? Based upon cellphone

• 1:01:25Speaker 04

  location that we got, we're gonna be executing a search warrant.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  That's fine. You don't, you don't even need one. You can just ask Tiffany if you can. I thought you could.

• 1:01:39Speaker 04

  No, we're not gonna ask her.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  Okay, you execute a search warrant.

• 1:01:44Speaker 04

  Will be on your person, your vehicle, in your home.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  It's fine.

• 1:01:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:01:54Speaker 04

  You can't have access to those things right now.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  I have to. I can't sleep anywhere else. And you don't have the search warrant yet.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  That's correct, but it's, uh, it's being done.

• 1:02:09Speaker 03

  Well, that's nice, but I can't sleep anywhere else. It's a condition of my probation.

• 1:02:14Speaker 04

  Well, we can work that out with Tiffany.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  We're, you're gonna have to do it now, and.

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  Uh, Tiffany's not gonna be checking tonight.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  Where exactly am I supposed to go?

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  Um, you can go hang out at your mom and dad's?

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  I can't.

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  Why?

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  They live and own a mental health home. I can't stay there.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  You can't have access to your car or your house.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  And can I ask where exactly that's written? Because you said I was free to leave when I walked in here.

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  But now we're gonna be executing a search warrant.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  You are still free to leave, but you're not, you're not free to drive away in your vehicle that we now are doing a search warrant for. You're not free to leave in the clothing that we're gonna seize. We'll get you some clothing.

• 1:03:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I'd like to see the judge's order for that. Well, yeah. But I'm leaving right now. So you're bringing me to judge's order that, you know? Because I know my rights. I can drive away in the clothing I'm wearing. When you get the search warrant, you'll find me. I'll be at home sleeping.

• 1:03:27Speaker 04

  Jake, we can, we can seize your car because it's a mobile, it's mobile, it can be driven away, so the car will be here.

• 1:03:37Speaker 03

  My clothes are mobile. That's why we're gonna get up for him? No, you're not. You're not. You, you can't take my clothes unless you're arresting me and you have no probable cause to arrest me. Well, that's arguable, I guess.

• 1:03:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  You have hearsay. If you had that, you'd be arresting me. Well, at some point, we'll make an arrest decision, and whether that's tonight or next week, or whenever we get DNA back. You already said that I was free to go.

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  You are?

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  I'm not changing clothes. That's, you're stripping me of my rights there. I, I do know my rights. Give me, give me a phone.

• 1:04:14Speaker 04

  Give a phone?

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, I'll, I'm gonna make a phone call.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Or a few. If I can't get a whole, well, I'm leaving anyways, and I'm calling an attorney.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  And you guys are sitting here telling me I have to change my clothes, and I can't drive away in my vehicle.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  Which all my stuff is in, my inhaler, my cigarettes, my pop, everything. Tell me I have to go sleep on the fucking street, because I don't have anywhere else I can go.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Is what you guys are saying.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  And you cannot do that without a judge's order. So you can either go get me the judge's order right now. No, like right this second, or I am walking out the door and taking my car with me.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:05:09Annie Elise?

  The investigators weren't lying. They were working on the search warrants. But Jake did have a point. He was allowed to leave without that warrant. So, just like that, he walked out.

• 1:05:21Speaker 05

  Did you know, when you released him, that he held the answers to where this little girl was?

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  It was him. No doubt in our minds. It was him.

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  And watching him walk out that door had to be tough.

• 1:05:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Annie Elise?

  The one positive thing was that even though Jake walked out of the interview, he left behind everything that the investigators had asked him to. Including his clothing, his phone, and his Jeep. Within minutes of him leaving, the detectives began searching his phone. And what they found was incredibly disturbing. As you might expect, his time in jail and on probation, it hadn't changed his behavior. Investigators found numerous explicit images involving children on his device. During his interview, Jake had mentioned that he had four young children. They lived with their mother, and because of his criminal history, he was only allowed supervised visits. So it's unclear whether these photos on his phone were of his own children, other children he knew,

• 1:06:20Annie Elise?

  or images that he perhaps obtained online independently. The important thing, though, was that none of the children in those photos appeared to be Brittany. So while what they found was, yes, deeply concerning and potentially relevant to Jake's criminal behavior, it didn't help answer the biggest question that the investigators had. Where was Brittany? So detectives were still trying to figure out their next move when everything suddenly changed. As the team sat together comparing their notes, the special agent examining Jake's phone suddenly shouted out, bingo. The agent had uncovered a whole series of deleted text messages on Jake's phone. Now Jake may have thought that by deleting them, they would get rid of the evidence, they'd be gone forever.

• 1:07:05Annie Elise?

  But as we all know by now, deleted does not necessarily mean gone forever. And these messages were between none other than Jake and Melissa. So right away, investigators knew that Jake had lied. They had already suspected that he was being dishonest about the nature of their relationship. But now they had proof right there in black and white. What shocked them, though, wasn't that Jake and Melissa had been texting. What shocked them is what they had been texting about. The conversations weren't about their relationship or the two of them meeting up. Instead, investigators found messages discussing a plan that Jake and Melissa had allegedly come up with together. A plan to kidnap Brittany.

• 1:07:50Annie Elise?

  When detectives read those text messages, they were stunned. It was not the direction that they expected this investigation to take, not at all. What do you mean she was plotting with this deviant to kidnap her best friend's daughter? What do you mean, like she appears to be complicit in all of this, yet still ended up bound, burned, and under a mattress in this house fire? What is going on here? I mean, the idea that Jake might have killed Melissa to abduct Brittany, that was one thing. But the possibility that Melissa had allegedly been involved in planning Brittany's kidnapping? That was almost impossible to wrap your head around. And just to reiterate again, the close relationship between Melissa and Brittany's mother Amanda,

• 1:08:35Annie Elise?

  they weren't acquaintances, they weren't neighbors, they weren't new friends. They were lifelong best friends for 30 years. Which this made the investigators all the more shocked when they were reading these messages. And I don't say that to mean that this wouldn't have been shocking or upsetting in any other situation, even if they were acquaintances. But the fact that Amanda trusted Melissa so much, this was a lot to take in. Now luckily Jake and Melissa, they were not the sharpest tool in the toolbox. They literally documented every single detail of their plan over text. And what they said to one another, it is going to shock you. The special agent who was going through the text messages

• 1:09:15Annie Elise?

  literally said that this was probably one of the most well documented crimes that he had ever worked on. The original kidnapping was supposed to happen a week before the fire and Melissa's death. The original plan was for Jake to assault Melissa. And I don't know if this was physically, sexually, or both. But then he was going to quote "carjack her car and take Brittany." Except when Melissa talked to the investigators, she was going to say that it was all random. She was going to claim that she had no idea who this man was that attacked her. Pretty much making it seem like everything was completely random and unexpected because she was going to be assaulted in the process and then she was going to be confused, she wasn't going to know what happened. And the hope was that she would just look like a victim in all of this.

• 1:10:00Annie Elise?

  And that because of her attack, all of the small details would get overlooked. Now, when it came to Brittany, their plan was to hide her. Now whether that was for a short period of time or the rest of her life, I don't know. I don't actually even know if they knew. But the most twisted part of all of it is that this wasn't just a situation where Jake and Melissa wanted to raise a child together and run off into the sunset and have Brittany as their own because Melissa loved Brittany so much. According to these text messages, the alleged plan? It all centered around Jake's sexual interest in Brittany. Almost as though Melissa was procuring Brittany for him. And not almost as, it is that, right?

• 1:10:42Annie Elise?

  So investigators believed that this conversation showed that they were discussing Brittany as an object for Jake's gratification. And the language that they used, oh my God, that was incredibly disturbing. In these messages, they allegedly referred to Brittany as Jake's toy. Which, this whole thing, it is beyond vile and disgusting. So the weekend that this was supposed to go down, Brittany ended up getting sick. So her sleepover with Melissa ended up being canceled. But then, as we know, a week later, she was headed back to Melissa's. Now what's interesting is that there is no conversation in their text messages about changing the plan from carjacking to what it ended up becoming.

• 1:11:25Annie Elise?

  Just based on the initial plan, the investigators believed that Melissa likely did agree to being tied up. It would have been the same as the assault plan that they had, the one that was supposed to take place the week before. So all of that did seem to align. But what transpired was very different from what they were texting each other. Because they were talking about her pretending to be tied up, which we know she was bound and duct taped. And investigators believed she had actually been restrained and then intentionally killed. And based on what they uncovered, it appeared that her death likely wasn't a part of this original plan. Which my thought goes to, oh yeah, he was lying to her. He was saying they were going to live happily ever after, that she was just going to help him and it was going to be fine. But he didn't, he didn't give a shit about Melissa.

• 1:12:11Annie Elise?

  Why would he care about Melissa when he cared about children? Like, that's what his end goal was in this, right? She was going to just be collateral damage and the facilitator. So the investigators started piecing together what they thought may have happened. And their theory was that Jake and Melissa changed the plan once they were together in person. Like I said, Melissa may have agreed to being tied up, believing it was some kind of part of the sexual situation. But then something changed. What if Melissa had changed her mind? What if in the aftermath of their plan, she saw her best friend grieving her missing daughter and then decided to come clean with what really happened? And where Brittany was and who was responsible? But like I said, maybe she was just a pawn in this entire sick game and he killed her, so there would be no witnesses at all.

• 1:12:55Annie Elise?

  I mean, there were just too many loose ends. Melissa's autopsy report later showed that she had been strangled to death. And of course, she was already tied up when Jake went to go and choke her, so there was no way she could fight back. The fire was probably just an attempt to cover up any evidence. However, these text messages were both a huge break in the case and a terrifying discovery. Because on one hand, they did give investigators hope. If Jake was still following through with his plan, his plan to keep Brittany alive and keep her hidden, then there was a chance that she could still be out there somewhere. But on the other hand, it made the situation far more dangerous. Jake had just left the police station.

• 1:13:37Annie Elise?

  He knew investigators were looking into him, he knew that they were suspicious. And now, they had evidence that connected him and Melissa in a way that they never had expected. So my first thought was that Jake could have hurt Brittany and then tried to hide her somewhere to avoid getting caught. It was a race against the clock. And investigators knew that whatever happened next could determine whether or not Brittany would be found alive. While Jake was being interviewed, the detectives were also taking a closer look at the outside of his Jeep. They were still waiting on the search warrant, which would allow them inside of the Jeep. But they knew that the exterior of the vehicle could also tell them just as much as the inside. And in this case, they were right. When investigators examined the undercarriage of the Jeep, they noticed several things that immediately stood out.

• 1:14:22Annie Elise?

  There was a significant amount of vegetation stuck underneath the vehicle. Everything from grass to small yellow and white flowers. The tires were also completely covered in mud. And to investigators, these details suggested that the Jeep had recently been somewhere other than normal roads and parking lots and freeways. The question was, where? So this was a major detail to note. Granted, it didn't point directly to where he could have been driving the Jeep recently, but it did show that he was driving on unpaved roads. He had probably been driving somewhere more rural, which you know, I hate that word, but somewhere like that.

• 1:15:01Annie Elise?

  So pretty quickly after Jake left, the investigative team found that Jake had a family member who did in fact own a more rural stretch of land. It was about three miles from the cell phone tower where his phone had pinged also. The same tower that he had no explanation for when he was confronted during their investigation. So the investigators started heading that way. By this time, it was night, and the deeper that they got into these rural areas, the darker it became. To make matters even worse, it started to rain. The visibility in the area was next to nothing, even with flashlights and car lights trying to help guide them through the heavy rain and the darkness. It was very challenging. Eventually though, the sun came up and the rain started to lighten up, which that made all the difference.

• 1:15:46Annie Elise?

  And pretty soon, the investigators found something major. They found tire tracks in both the muddy rural road nearby and also in a field of grass. When they found the tire tracks, the investigators got excited, nervous, optimistic. I mean, all the feelings that they could possibly feel in that moment. But when they did a comparison and confirmed that the tire tracks were an exact match to Jake's Jeep, they were feeling more hopeful than ever that they were on the right track here. So investigators followed the tracks through the tall grass. And about half a mile into the field, they found something they weren't expecting. A camper, sitting completely alone in the middle of the field.

• 1:16:30Annie Elise?

  Now, at first glance, it looked completely abandoned, this camper van. It was so far away from everything that if you didn't know that there was an active investigation happening, you might have just assumed that somebody had parked it there for storage or planned to come back later. There was nobody outside of it, and from what the investigators could see, there didn't appear to be any movement inside the camper either. Which you know how sometimes if you see a camper, you'll see it rock or shift a little bit when they're not properly secured and kind of moving around? Well, that wasn't happening. Then, they got closer to the door. And that's when they noticed something that immediately raised concerns. The handle had been wrapped shut with black electrical tape.

• 1:17:11Annie Elise?

  Almost like someone had intentionally sealed the door closed, locking someone on the inside. At that point, investigators knew that they had to be careful. They had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side of this door. So they started recording everything. Whatever was inside that camper, they knew that they needed to document it. And I'm going to play some of those clips for you. But for my audio only listeners, you may want to go over to YouTube after this to see those clips.

• 1:17:55Speaker 04

  Oh, what's his name?

• 1:17:58Speaker 04

  Okay, when did he bring you here?

• 1:18:02Speaker 04

  Right now? Okay.

• 1:18:04Speaker 03

  Does he have a car?

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  What kind of car does he have?

• 1:18:08Annie Elise?

  Thankfully, this wasn't a situation where investigators arrived too late. Brittany was inside the camper and she was alive. She was lying there, alone on one of the beds, and it was clear that she had been through something so traumatic, just beyond words, beyond comprehension. So the investigators immediately started consoling her and checking on her. They also found that same black electrical tape that was used to seal the door shut, wrapped around Brittany's ankles and legs. And seeing this footage, that black tape in contrast to her neon pink pajamas, it's hard to think about, let alone for the investigators to see this.

• 1:18:48Annie Elise?

  The innocence of these sweet pajamas, this sweet little girl, and electrical tape just bound around her ankles and legs.

• 1:18:56Speaker 04

  Can you show me your feet?

• 1:19:00Speaker 04

  Right there? Okay. Where are you taped at? Okay, anywhere else? Did you have tape on your arms?

• 1:19:10Annie Elise?

  Brittany bravely explained to the officers that the only thing that hurt were the few scrapes and bruises on her arms and hands. I mean, when I say brave, this little girl was so beyond brave. Brittany continued to talk to the officers while they were waiting for the first responders to arrive. And she explained everything that she had experienced in the last 26 hours since being taken from Melissa's house. Though she, of course, didn't understand that it had been 26 hours. To her, it had probably been either a very short scary period of time or much longer scary period of time.

• 1:19:47Speaker 03

  Did you go to his house at all? You know what color his house is?

• 1:19:53Speaker 03

  What's it look like?

• 1:19:54Speaker 04

  White. Is it a big house or a small house? Small house. Okay.

• 1:20:00Speaker 03

  Does he have any animals or? No? Okay.

• 1:20:04Speaker 04

  The mama cat has really kittens.

• 1:20:08Annie Elise?

  As incredible as it was for these investigators to find Brittany alive, it was an absolute miracle for her family. And it's important to remember the timeline here because all of this happened within about 24 hours of time from that fire. Brittany's family had spent the entire night terrified, watching it rain outside, knowing that she could be out there somewhere, alone, cold, scared, or worse, that they may never see her again. So when they finally got the call that Brittany had been found alive, the relief was overwhelming. Her family said that they immediately broke down crying, happy tears, of course, and some were so overcome with emotion that they collapsed to the floor when they heard the news. But the investigation? It wasn't over.

• 1:20:52Annie Elise?

  About an hour and a half later, an officer spotted Jake driving his dad's truck in the direction of the camper. They were able to pull him over and they were able to arrest him, which honestly, I cannot even imagine what was going through his mind at that moment while he's on that drive, beelining it to that camper. Was he planning to move Brittany? Move the camper? Kill Brittany? Get rid of evidence? We don't know. What we do know is that Jake already knew investigators were on to him. He knew that he was the main suspect in Brittany's disappearance. And people can make terrifying decisions when they feel like they are running out of options.

• 1:21:29Speaker 04

  All right, Jake. You're under arrest. Okay?

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  I see that.

• 1:21:34Speaker 04

  You see that?

• 1:21:37Speaker 04

  Has anything changed from we talked last?

• 1:21:42Speaker 03

  Other than being confused as to why I'm arrested, being arrested now and what changed from a couple hours ago? I don't even know what time it is now.

• 1:21:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's time of the morning.

• 1:21:54Speaker 03

  So, three hours ago. Two, three hours ago.

• 1:21:58Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  Last night when we talked, you said you had no contact with

• 1:22:06Speaker 04

  Melissa Norby. You didn't date her, you weren't seeing her, you didn't have a relationship with her? Is that true?

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  You'd never, I didn't ever enter her house. I've been there once. Once? When was the last time that you were there? Year and a half ago or something. Went and looked at a chair that a mutual friend left there and she didn't want it there and offered it to me and I went to look at it. About a year ago.

• 1:22:35Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:22:37Speaker 04

  And you had no contact with the little girl?

• 1:22:41Speaker 04

  You didn't see her? She didn't come to your food station? You didn't see her at Melissa's house? You don't know her parents? And there's gonna be no connection between you and her?

• 1:22:55Speaker 04

  And?

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  Whatsoever, in any way, shape, or form? Whatsoever. Okay.

• 1:22:59Speaker 04

  And no connection between you and Melissa?

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  Well, not, not a year ago.

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  Connection? Is there gonna be evidence that says you were in Melissa's house?

• 1:23:10Speaker 03

  I don't believe so, no.

• 1:23:11Speaker 04

  Okay. And that gas can that we talked about, showed you a picture? Is that? Any of your evidence gonna be on that?

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:23:19Speaker 04

  DNA or fingerprints?

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  Not that I'm aware of.

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:23:24Speaker 04

  Nothing's changed from last night?

• 1:23:28Speaker 04

  Hundred percent sure?

• 1:23:31Speaker 03

  Ninety-five percent sure. Ninety-five percent sure. I'm tired and groggy and you guys kept me up all night and I tried to sleep, I, you know, sleep in a vehicle for two hours and I'm still...

• 1:23:45Speaker 04

  A little tired, groggy?

• 1:23:47Speaker 03

  Extremely tired, yes.

• 1:23:51Annie Elise?

  When Jake was first taken into custody, he continued to act confused. He maintained that he didn't understand why he was being arrested and he acted as if he had done nothing wrong. But then, investigators showed him something on one of their phones, which I would assume that it was a picture of Brittany after she was found safe. And the second that he saw this, his entire attitude seemed to change. The confidence and the confusion, all of that stuff that had been showing moments earlier, it just disintegrated, disappeared. And his reaction was completely different.

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  Started talking to Melissa a few

• 1:24:45Speaker 03

  weeks, two months ago.

• 1:24:46Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:24:56Speaker 03

  She'd gotten ahold of me and we talked.

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  And we weren't dating, but we, we actually hadn't had a sexual relationship, but we, you know, role played on the phone.

• 1:25:15Speaker 04

  Role played and what was her role?

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  It was daddy-daughter, um, that kind of stuff.

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:25:31Speaker 03

  Then I went over there the other night.

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  What, what night?

• 1:25:46Speaker 03

  Today's Thursday.

• 1:25:50Speaker 03

  Tuesday night. Tuesday night?

• 1:25:55Speaker 04

  Back, back to Tuesday, Jake.

• 1:25:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm, I'm thinking, I'm...

• 1:26:08Speaker 03

  Trying to step that one again, turning it on. Before I go farther.

• 1:26:12Annie Elise?

  Eventually, Jake decided to talk a little bit more. He still wasn't exactly open or cooperative, but he at least started answering some of the investigators' questions. The one thing that he was adamant about, though, was that according to him, none of this was his idea. He claimed it was all Melissa's plan, not his.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  Did you go there for her or for Melissa? Who was?

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  For Melissa, but it was...

• 1:26:44Speaker 04

  And you know that she was gonna be there?

• 1:26:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47Speaker 04

  Was she part of the role playing? Did Melissa bring her in for role playing?

• 1:26:58Speaker 04

  How do you know that?

• 1:27:12Speaker 06

  Did you ask her to bring her in?

• 1:27:15Speaker 04

  Did she offer it up?

• 1:27:18Speaker 04

  Do you think his mother knew what was going on?

• 1:27:23Speaker 06

  Did you know something?

• 1:27:26Speaker 04

  How did all that come about? Did she, did Melissa offer, "Hey, I can get a five-year-old girl here"?

• 1:27:35Annie Elise?

  Yeah, it was a couple of years ago, but yeah.

• 1:27:41Annie Elise?

  For a split second, literally only a couple of minutes, Jake admitted to something, something extremely disgusting and so, so vile. He told the investigators that Brittany had been present and nude one time when they had sex, and the purpose of that was to enhance their own sexual experience, referring to him and Melissa. So before Brittany was ever even kidnapped, she was a victim. The two of them having sex with this little girl naked, standing nearby to, quote, "enhance the experience." Filthy, disgusting, I don't even have the words. But that was about all the information that they were able to get from him before he finally made the decision to not talk to anybody else and to lawyer up.

• 1:28:25Annie Elise?

  Now, whether or not Jake was willing to talk didn't really matter at this point. Investigators already had enough evidence to arrest him, and they started piecing together their own theory of what happened. And unfortunately, as the investigation continued, they would uncover even more disturbing details. Investigators determined that after Jake had killed Melissa and set her house on fire, he took Brittany back to his own home. There, he did sexually assault her, before then moving her to the camper. It was a horrifying discovery that showed just how much danger Brittany had truly been in. But you know what? I also want to pause because, remember we talked about her bravery and how she only complained of cuts and bruises?

• 1:29:07Annie Elise?

  And I don't know if that's because she didn't know what happened to her truly, or because she was just being so courageous and brave. I really don't know. But it is like devastating to think about this five-year-old little girl. I mean, on one side, as I'm saying it out loud, maybe it's a blessing that maybe she didn't fully understand what had happened to her because she was so young, but also it's devastating to think that maybe she was so numb and in shock that all she could complain about was the bruising and the cuts. I just, children are the most vulnerable victims out there, children and the elderly. And these cases are so difficult to wrap your mind around, the fact that there is such evil out there in the world with such sick perversions.

• 1:29:50Annie Elise?

  And even though she had come out of this situation alive, she hadn't been unharmed. Now, shockingly, Jake's initial charge was only one count of felony kidnapping. After being found competent to stand trial in June of 2017, he was also charged with second-degree murder for Melissa's death. The following day, Jake pleaded guilty to three different charges: second-degree murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and kidnapping. Ultimately, Jake was sentenced to 52 years in prison. During his sentencing, Brittany's godmother read a letter to Jake on Brittany's behalf, and it spoke volumes. Quote, "She told him she hated him.

• 1:30:34Annie Elise?

  She doesn't like the way that he plays with her. She doesn't want to play with him. But thank you for letting me play with your kitties. He bribed our baby with kitties because she loves animals." So somehow, she is strong enough with everything he did to still be thankful that she got to play with a kitty. Which, hearing that, it not only illustrates what a predator he is, trying to bribe this little girl with kittens, but the fact that she still is expressing that thankfulness of, "You're a monster, like, I hated playing with you, I didn't like the way you played with me, but thank you for letting me play with your kitties." There's just, heartbreakingly, and it's gonna make me cry thinking about it, such an innocence in that, which makes this even more evil and cruel that this little innocent girl,

• 1:31:19Annie Elise?

  who still luckily has that innocence intact, was exploited by this monster. It's sick. Today, Brittany's family is beyond thankful that she is still alive and with them, that she's able to grow up and experience the life that she deserves. But it doesn't mean that anything that happened to her or anything that happened to her family has been easy. Brittany has gone through extensive therapy, something that has been a saving grace, but something that she never should have had to even do in the first place. Her mom said that she is full of life and spunk by day, but at night, she has night terrors, and she has flashbacks that wake her up out of her sleep, confused and scared. Brittany's family, Amanda specifically, will never understand the things that happened to her.

• 1:32:04Annie Elise?

  They trusted Melissa, and they thought that they really knew her. Amanda not only had to grieve a friend that she thought she knew, but she also had to actually grieve her in the literal sense, the loss of her friend physically, while coping with everything that her daughter had gone through and will continue to go through mentally and emotionally throughout her life. And even though this case, yeah, did have a happier ending than some that I cover with you, nobody came out unharmed. Not mentally, emotionally, or physically. And I have to say, hot take possibly, but my personal opinion, I'm glad he killed Melissa in that fire. I'm glad he bound her, strangled her, and burned her. I hope that she was scared.

• 1:32:48Annie Elise?

  I hope that she was terrified, because what a freaking monster, to be so caught up in your own perverted relationship with this man, that you procure your best friend of 30 years' daughter for his play toy. Not to mention, you're a mother yourself. What, like, what does your son think about all of this? It is devastating to think about, and good riddance to her, good riddance to Jake. I wish he got more than 52 years. I wish he got the, the needle, or life in prison. I, it's just, it is so sick. And going back to what we talked about earlier in the episode, I don't know why there are

• 1:33:28Annie Elise?

  not stricter punishments for offenders like this, because they will, more times than not, I would bet my life, 99.9%, they will reoffend. So why even allow the opportunity? Why even take the risk of allowing them back on the streets? Why? So they can victimize more people? So they can escalate to murder? So they can continue to traumatize young children? I will never understand it. Whoever came up with, like, the rules of punishment, I don't know if that's like, you know, and maybe I need to look into that, I, maybe I'm like, brain dead right now and brain doc, brain rot, so I can't figure this out.

• 1:34:08Annie Elise?

  But like, whoever came up with the Bible of punishments and what sentences go for each charges, someone needs to reevaluate that, okay? I don't know if it's in like, you know, Constitution, the judges, the Supreme Court, wherever it lives, this needs to be reevaluated, okay? Point blank, period. So, I know today was very tough, guys. I appreciate you sticking with me. Thank you for hearing this story, for hearing Brittany's story, and hopefully it helps raise a little bit of awareness that you can't always trust the person next door, or sometimes even your own best friend. You always have to be cautious. And I think that's why this, in this day and age too, there are far few sleepovers happening,

• 1:34:53Annie Elise?

  because you never know what somebody's true intentions are. Thank you so much. Don't forget, subscribe, like, share the link to this episode, whether that's on your social media, your group chat, wherever. Hopefully, we can raise some more awareness about this topic. It is an incredibly important one, and I just appreciate you being here. All right, now, really quickly, before you go, just a reminder, all of our fall merch is officially on sale, but it will not last, and the merch shop will be closing soon. AnnieElise.com, get all of your merch while you can. The make it make sense, the, I hope you're having a good day, I'm about to ruin it, stay spooky. It's true crime documentaries or Christmas movies, there is no in-between.

• 1:35:35Annie Elise?

  So many different pieces of merch, so go grab it, AnnieElise.com. But, warning, some of it is already starting to sell out, so grab it quickly. I'll be back on the mic with you Thursday, going over everything happening this week in true crime, but until then, be nice, don't kill people, protect your children, and don't date skeezy people. All right, bye.