With Evil Intent: The Murder of Jessie Blodgett
On the evening of Sunday, July 14, 2013, nineteen-year-old aspiring actress, singer and musician Jessie Blodgett took center stage in a production of Fiddler on the Roof to the delight of a packed house in Hartford, Wisconsin. It was clear to everyone in attendance that she loved the spotlight, and the spotlight loved her.
After taking their final bows, the cast and crew had gathered together for a pool party to celebrate their successful adaptation of the popular musical. While the outgoing and popular young woman had thoroughly enjoyed herself early on, the disturbing behavior of two of her fellow actors had cast a pall over her evening.
Later that night, Jessie had taken to her journal to vent her frustrations. She lamented the fact that she was “being corrupted” by some of the men in her life, whom she felt were mistaking her friendly nature for something more. She had concluded the entry with the optimistic declaration, “I am not helpless…I will recognize problems and confront them without fear. God be with me.”
Before retiring to bed, she told her mother Joy that two men at the party, who were both well into their forties, had made passes at her. She had elaborated by sharing that one of them had been so aggressive that he had pulled her onto his lap against her will. She wondered aloud why it seemed impossible for members of the opposite sex to simply be friends and nothing more. Her words would prove particularly ominous in light of what was to come.
At eight o’clock the next morning, Joy had looked in on her only child to make sure that everything was alright. Seeing that she was fast asleep, she had headed off to work. Her husband, Buck, had left earlier, leaving Jessie to hold down the fort.
When noontime rolled around, Joy returned home for lunch, as was her usual routine. Upon entering the house, she noticed that Jessie hadn’t stirred yet. Since she knew that one of her daughter’s piano students would be showing up at any minute for the scheduled lesson, her mother had gone upstairs to rouse her. When she cracked open the bedroom door and called her name, Jessie had failed to respond.
Figuring that she was worn out from the previous night’s activities, she had approached the bed and given her daughter’s shoulder a gentle shake. As she made contact, the iciness of the skin beneath her hand had sent shivers running down her spine. Pulling back the covers, she saw the unnatural bluish hue that had consumed the teenager’s delicate features. It was then that the horror of the situation suddenly took hold. As her mind struggled to process what she was seeing, she noticed that Jessie’s hair and nightclothes were soaking wet.
With her heart pounding out of her chest, Joy had called both 911 and her husband Buck to tell them that she feared Jessie was dead. While she waited for help to arrive, her eyes fixed on the ligature marks that were evident on her daughter’s neck. Although she found the thought impossible to conceive, she was slowly coming to terms with the realization that a monster had been inside their home that morning.
Within minutes, the house was swarming with first responders. As they were securing the scene, Buck joined his wife in their shared nightmare. As the couple were watching the surreal events unfold, they learned that Jessie had more than likely been strangled to death. Deep abrasions on her wrists indicated that she had been bound at some point during the ordeal.
Investigators soon determined that an intruder had entered the residence earlier that morning through an unlocked door after Joy departed for work. After making his way to Jessie’s room, he had incapacitated her by tying her hands together before subjecting her to a particularly brutal rape. When the perpetrator was finished, he had used a ligature to end her life.
The assumption from the get-go was that the killer was someone known to the family. Detectives theorized that only an individual who was familiar with the Blodgetts’ comings and goings would have known that they seldom locked their doors, believing that it wasn’t necessary, since they lived in a neighborhood where crime of any kind was virtually unheard of. It was also telling that whoever entered the house that morning uninvited had known that Jessie would be the only one home between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., giving them ample time to carry out their deadly plan.
Starting at square one, investigators looked through Jessie’s journal in the hopes that she had mentioned being fearful of someone in her inner, or outer, circle. When they saw the entry detailing how the actor had manhandled her the previous night, they sought him out for questioning. Upon discovering that he had called off work on Monday morning, their interest in him went through the roof.
When they spoke to the man in question, he admitted that he had overstepped his boundaries, but contended that he meant no harm. After providing detectives with a solid alibi, he was cleared of any wrongdoing. To cross all their t’s, they also interviewed the other partygoer who had made Jessie uncomfortable. He too was quickly eliminated as a suspect. With their two promising persons of interest no longer viable, investigators cast a wider net in their quest to catch a killer.
In what was initially believed to be an unrelated incident, three days before Jessie was murdered, a young woman named Melissa Etzler was walking her dog in a nature park in nearby Richfield when she was attacked by a knife-wielding stranger.
Melissa recalled that as she and her dog passed by a van parked in the visitor’s area, a man had jumped out and tackled her from behind. As he raised a knife and tried to stab her, she had grabbed the blade and refused to let go.
The two had struggled for control of the weapon for a while before Melissa was able to wrench it from his hand. When he realized that his intended victim was now in control, the would-be assailant had nervously blurted out, “Can I just go?”
Stunned by the ridiculous request, Melissa had informed him that he wasn’t going anywhere as she quickly phoned police. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stop him from running to his vehicle and speeding away, though she made sure to keep the knife in her possession.
When officers arrived on the scene, they were shocked by the sight of Melissa’s hands, which had been shredded by the blade of the fillet knife as she held onto it for dear life.
Keeping her wits about her despite the traumatic events that had just taken place, Melissa went on to give a remarkably detailed description of her assailant. She recalled that he was a white male with sandy blond hair, pale skin, 18–20 years of age, 6'2, around 210 pounds and wearing plaid shorts. She also knew the color, make and model of the vehicle he had driven: a dark blue, older model, Dodge Caravan.
After giving her statement, she had been whisked away to the nearest hospital. When all was said and done, it had taken fifteen stitches to close the wounds to her fingers and palms.
When the description of the attacker and his mode of transportation were shared with other law enforcement agencies in the district, a deputy who routinely patrolled the park came forward to say that he was certain that he had seen the van in the very same spot a few weeks earlier. Although the driver wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, something about him had made him feel uneasy. As a precaution, he had run the plates, meaning that the owner’s name was now on record.
When investigators in Melissa’s case checked out this promising lead, they were disappointed to find that the van’s owner was a middle-aged man who couldn’t possibly have been the perpetrator. However, after learning that he had a teenage son, they felt that they might be on the right track after all.
When detectives sat down with the registered owner, they found him to be a font of information. After offering to help in any way he could, he told investigators that his twenty-year-old son Dan often drove the van. Their interest was further heightened when they learned that the blond-haired young man stood at an impressive 6'1 and weighed in at 200 pounds.
Though Dan Bartelt wasn’t home at the time, his father had provided detectives with his cell phone number in order to clear up any misunderstanding without further delay. In an odd coincidence that hadn’t seemed particularly significant at the time, when they reached their potential suspect, he was attending a vigil for Jessie Blodgett at her parents’ house.
As it turned out, Dan and Jessie had been classmates in high school and had even dated briefly. While their romantic endeavor hadn’t worked out, their friendship had remained on solid ground well past graduation. Bonded together in part by their mutual love of musical theater, the pair were the best of friends.
Others who were present on the day of Jessie’s memorial remembered seeing Dan taking the call from police. After ending the communication, he had nonchalantly announced to the group of mourners that he had to go meet with detectives about something or other. And with that, he had given Joy and Buck one last hug, dried his eyes, and headed out the door with their blessing.
On their end, detectives were struck by the fact that Dan hadn’t asked why they wanted to speak with him. In their experience, it was unusual for anyone to agree to come down to the station so readily. While his surprising lack of curiosity certainly wasn’t a crime, it had given them pause.
As soon as Dan sat down with investigators, they got straight to the point, asking him where he was on the morning that Melissa was attacked. His alibi was that he had spent the entire day with his good friend Jessie Blodgett who, tragically, was now deceased.
Seizing on this unexpected opportunity, detectives asked him what he knew about the events that had taken place in the Blodgetts’ home on that fateful Monday morning. Without missing a beat, he replied that Jessie had been raped and murdered in her bedroom.
After giving Dan a quick once over, investigators couldn’t help but notice that he had multiple cuts and abrasions on his hands and arms that appeared to be fresh. When they inquired as to the nature of the injuries, he had shrugged them off as the result of a minor accident at work.
What detectives knew that Dan didn’t, was that his father had already told them that he was unemployed. After catching him in a blatant lie, they pressed him to come clean. Upon reflection, he suddenly recalled that he had cut his hand and forearm in a cooking mishap.
Skeptical of this story as well, investigators let him know in no uncertain terms, that his feeble attempt at an explanation didn’t ring true. After all, there was no shame in being a clumsy chef and, therefore, no reason to lie.
After taking a deep breath, Dan confessed to the attack on Melissa. He elaborated by saying that he often went to the park to write in peace. It seemed that he had been working on a novel for years and he found the setting conducive to his creativity. He explained that oftentimes when his parents thought he was in school or working, he was actually sitting in the van, people watching and toiling away at what he envisioned would be his magnum opus.
When asked what made him decide to attack an innocent girl walking her dog, the coldness of his reply had chilled the room. According to him, he had merely “wanted to scare someone.” A ne’er do well who was a jobless college dropout with no plans for the future, he explained that he had been so frightened by the world around him that he wanted to release his growing fear onto someone else.
With his admissions in hand, detectives placed Dan under arrest for aggravated assault. Although they were now aware that he had been close to Jessie Blodgett, they had no reason to believe that her murder and the attack in the park were related — but they soon would.
Since the interview with Dan had taken place early on in the investigation into the Blodgett homicide, detectives working Melissa’s case weren’t aware that Jessie had been raped. While they had been in the dark, the young man they were interrogating in regard to an entirely different matter had readily offered up that important bit of information. Since only the perpetrator would have known about the sexual assault, Dan’s slip of the tongue had put him at the top of the suspect list once the autopsy results were made available to members of local law enforcement.
When he was questioned about Jessie’s murder, Dan had denied any involvement, which had come as a surprise to no one. After obtaining a warrant to search his personal belongings, investigators found disturbing images on his computer that had allowed them to look into the dark inner workings of his mind.
Among other things, he had routinely looked up materials relating to serial killers and their methods. Disturbingly, he had also searched for snuff films, which are underground offerings that allegedly show a victim, usually female, being raped and murdered live on camera. Various other pornographic images were found on his electronic devices, many of which depicted violence against women.
In one of the videos he viewed, a woman is seen being raped and strangled by a killer who then washes her body and places her back in bed, covering her with a blanket as if she is only sleeping. It wasn’t lost on detectives that the sickening acts being portrayed on film eerily mirrored what happened to Jessie in what should have been the safety of her own bedroom.
Even when confronted with this damning evidence, Dan refused to budge. He did, however, amend his story. Now, instead of being close friends, he claimed that he and Jessie had rekindled their romantic relationship in the weeks leading up to her death. He explained that he hadn’t wanted to say anything before out of respect for his girlfriend, who didn’t know that he was seeing someone else.
He had gone on to say that he had told his parents that he was going to work on the morning of the murder, when actuality, he had spent most of the day either writing at Woodlawn Union Park or driving around aimlessly. When detectives checked out CCTV footage taken at the park, it confirmed that he had been on the grounds on July 15. For once, it seemed that he had been telling the truth.
On a hunch, investigators had paid a visit to the park where they searched the trash bins for evidence. Inside one of the cans, they found a cereal box containing a ball gag — a device often used in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) to stifle the screams of the wearer— ligatures, and several blood-soaked disinfectant wipes. Lengths of rope were also discovered among the refuse which were later matched to the marks on Jessie’s neck.
With the case against Dan Bartelt heating up by the minute, a search warrant was executed on his family’s residence. In addition to finding more of the same style of rope in the garage, investigators found tape on the air ducts that matched discarded samples Joy discovered under her daughter’s bed in the days after the murder, as well as strips retrieved from the scene of Melissa Etzler’s botched abduction. When the various pieces of tape were examined by forensics experts, they were found to be covered with Dan’s fingerprints.
The evidence being collected painted a terrifying picture of Jessie’s last moments. From what they could gather, detectives were convinced that Dan had entered the residence shortly after Joy left for work. Once inside, he had crept up to Jessie’s room where he hog-tied her and placed a ball gag in her mouth, securing it with tape. He had then raped her before strangling her to death with rope he had brought along for that very purpose.
When he was sure that she was dead, he had washed her hair and body in an attempt to destroy evidence. After placing her back in bed and covering her with a blanket, he had headed to the park to dispose of the implements of his crime. Little did he know that the alibi he provided when the law came calling would lead to his undoing when it was discovered that the items were still in the park’s trash bins days later.
To solidify the case against him, Dan’s DNA matched the samples taken from Jessie’s rape kit, as well as those that had been scraped from under her fingernails. To hammer the final nail in his coffin, both his DNA and that of his victim were confirmed to be present on the ligatures.
On July 31, 2013, Dan Bartelt was officially charged with the first-degree intentional homicide of Jessie Blodgett. In addition, he was also held over for trial for attempted first-degree murder, first-degree reckless endangerment and false imprisonment in relation to the attack on Melissa Etzler.
On October 14, 2014, a jury of his peers deliberated for three hours before finding Bartelt guilty of Jessie’s murder. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It was a victory for the victim’s family, as well as the prosecutor who described the defendant as “the most dangerous criminal he had ever met.”
When Bartelt was given a chance to speak at his sentencing, he had used the opportunity to plead his innocence, telling Jessie’s family — who had always treated him like a son — that the prison uniform and restraints “don’t make me guilty.” He offered no apologies, even as Jessie’s father forgave him in open court for his unspeakable acts.
In exchange for pleading guilty to the charges of attempting to abduct and murder Melissa Etzler, Bartelt was sentenced to a paltry five years behind bars, with an additional five years of supervision tacked on for good measure. Thankfully, since he will never again walk the streets a free man, these determinations were more or less symbolic.
In September of 2017, Bartelt appealed the verdict in Jessie’s case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the grounds that he had provided information to detectives that was then used against him without a lawyer present.
After completing a careful review of the tactics used by investigators during the course of their search for answers in the death of Jessie Blodgett, the court upheld Bartelt’s guilty verdict.
As of August 2023, he is being housed at the Waupun Correctional Facility in West Bend, Wisconsin, where he will remain, barring anything unforeseen, for the rest of his natural life.
The horrifying details of what happened in Jessie’s room on that dreadful morning will probably always be shrouded in mystery. Since the only living witness exists in a perpetual state of denial, odds are that he will never expose the depths of his depravity to the light.
What isn’t in doubt is that the terror that Jessie must have felt when she realized that she was about to die at the hands of someone she both loved and trusted is unimaginable. Sadly, despite the countless hours they had spent together over the years, she had never really known him at all.
Although her life had come to a tragic end, Jessie Blodgett had made every minute of her short time on Earth count. A gifted singer and all-around performer, she was planning on pursuing a career in the arts at the time of her death. To earn extra money, she had worked as a children’s piano and violin instructor. Her innate goodness and patience had endeared her to her students and their parents alike.
Besides her love of music in all its forms, the University of Wisconsin sophomore was a staunch supporter of such causes as animal rights and environmental protection. She was also an anti-bullying advocate in school and, ironically, an outspoken warrior against domestic violence, especially among high school and college students.
Although Jessie didn’t live to see the social changes she envisioned come to pass, the loved ones she left behind are determined to see to it that she did not die in vain. To that end, in 2016, her father Buck established the LOVE>hate Project in her honor.
The organization’s mission statement includes their pledge to work towards “ending male-on-female violence, inspiring love over hate” through education and social programs aimed at teaching those with aggressive tendencies better ways to channel their energy.
In the end, how high Jessie would have flown had she been given the chance will never be known. That her life was taken by an individual who had worn the guise of a friend, when he was in fact her worst enemy, is yet another sad factor in this unsettling case.
Resources:
·7news.com.au
·supremecourt.gov
·fox6now.com
·chillingcrimes.com
·bedbible.com
·theloveisgreaterthanhateproject.com
·patch.com
·wmtv.com
·washingtoncountyinsider.com
·oxygen.com
·webmd.com
·investigationdiscovery.com
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