Bloody, naked footprints at Minneapolis homicide scene result in decadeslong seek for solutions

Minnesota crime scene investigators captured footage after they acquired their first look inside a high-rise residence in Minneapolis. In response to police studies, at round 5:30 p.m. on  June 13, 1993, a tenant reported water seeping into their residence. A constructing caretaker and a safety guard have been known as to test it out, and found the water was coming from residence 2104.

Bart Epstein | Retired forensic scientist: They went into the residence and so they discovered that the bathe was nonetheless operating and inflicting all this flooding subsequent door.

 After the bathe was turned off, they stumbled on a grotesque scene within the bed room. The physique of 35-year-old Jeanie Childs was found partially below the mattress. That’s when police have been known as to analyze.

Bart Epstein: This was a violent, bloody crime scene … that is … one of many bloodiest that I’d been to.

BLOODY EVIDENCE LEADS TO A PIVOTAL CLUE

Retired forensic scientist Bart Epstein says fastidiously documenting that scene was essential.

Erin Moriarty: Blood stains and blood spatter inform a narrative.

Bart Epstein: Sure … they positive can … on this case we might set up that Jeanie Childs was hit … in entrance of the toilet door.

Epstein says Jeanie then moved into the toilet. She was stabbed and slashed dozens of instances.

Bart Epstein: She was down on the ground smearing blood alongside that space.

Whereas the bathe had been turned off earlier, investigators seen water was nonetheless operating from the sink faucet.

Bart Epstein:There was a whole lot of exercise occurring there. … Why was the sink faucet nonetheless dripping? Was he making an attempt to wash up? 

Jeanie apparently made it again to her bed room the place her physique was discovered.

Julie Rendelman: The blood wasn’t … confined to only the realm the place she was. … the blood was on the partitions, the blood was on the comforter, the blood was on the ground.

Julie Rendelman is a protection legal professional and a authorized advisor for “48 Hours.”

Julie Rendelman: It leads one to consider … {that a} wrestle occurred, that she was preventing to avoid wasting her personal life.

The lounge appeared untouched. A sitcom was nonetheless taking part in on the TV. There was no proof of compelled entry. If Jeanie knew her killer, what might have prompted a lot violence?

Julie Rendelman: This to me looks as if extra rage … somebody who acquired upset … on the time the crime … was dedicated.

Jeanie’s mom, Betty Eakman, was watching tv information when she noticed a report a couple of lady that had been murdered.

Betty Eakman: I known as my husband at work … I stated, I simply seen them on the information taking a stretcher out of that constructing that she lives in.

Eakman quickly acquired the information no mom desires to listen to; the sufferer was her eldest baby.

Betty Eakman: I simply wished to carry her. (sobbing) … I couldn’t consider it. (sobbing)

Erin Moriarty: What have been her plans that weekend?

Betty Eakman: She went to the emergency room … she was in a lot ache … Jeanie at all times had issues together with her enamel, and I don’t know why, so I stated “let me come and get you.” … No mother, cease worrying about me.

Jeanie was useless by Sunday afternoon. Because the crime investigation continued, authorities targeted on gathering proof: a blue washcloth, a crimson T-shirt, a shower towel, blood scrapings from the sink, together with a comforter have been collected and brought for DNA testing. Investigators noticed dishes within the kitchen sink and a knife within the drying rack.

Erin Moriarty: Did you are taking that knife in?

Bart Epstein: I didn’t take that knife in. I checked out it and there was no obvious blood on it. … we by no means discovered any, uh, precise weapon there … that, uh, was … a homicide weapon. 

Investigators have been capable of determine some blood stains discovered within the stairwell close to Jeanie’s twenty first flooring residence.

Erin Moriarty: Did any of the blood … belong to the sufferer?

Bart Epstein: Sure.

Erin Moriarty: Jeanie Childs? … Do you assume it’s doable that the one that stabbed her was additionally reduce?

Bart Epstein: Effectively, it — it could possibly be. That’s why we took samples.

Epstein says whoever murdered Childs unknowingly left behind one thing investigators not often encounter: bloody naked footprints below the bed room window.

Bart Epstein: That drew my consideration straight away … and proper subsequent to it I see the socked foot of … Jeanie Childs.

The footprints have been dusted with black powder on the crime scene.

Erin Moriarty: Whenever you first noticed these, you stated, as a result of she’s sporting socks, this — these belong to the killer.

Bart Epstein: Yeah, that might be my feeling … that’s probably the perpetrator’s footprint. … If there’s friction ridge on the toes … just like the friction ridge in your fingers, there’s potential to determine the particular person’s foot that made that … that was very, very important.

Betty Eakman: I knew that God was gonna guarantee that I used to be gonna know what occurred.

WHO WAS JEANIE CHILDS?

Cindy Blumer remembers the deep loss she felt after the homicide of her massive sister Jeanie.

Cindy Blumer: Lots of unhappiness once you wished to choose up the telephone and name your sister … I wanted my sister. I wished to speak to her … questioning what truly occurred. … who did this?

Though her sister was 12 years older, Jeanie’s playful spirit made an impression on Cindy rising up.

Cindy Blumer: Lionel Richie was one among her favorites and as quickly as she would hear him play, I imply, her fingers would begin snapping and … she would dance round.

However these good instances have been few and much between. Betty Eakman says she first seen a change in her eldest daughter when she was a preteen.

Betty Eakman: She type of misplaced her manner when she was in all probability round 12, 13.

Eakman says it wasn’t till a long time later that Jeanie claimed she had been abused by a male family member. Jeanie began operating away from house.

Betty Eakman: I took my life in my very own fingers many a instances to trace her down … I might have been killed … however I had my Nice Dane and a gun.

Erin Moriarty: Would you generally discover her?

Betty Eakman: Oh, yeah … when she would come house, she was like a cat on a scorching tin roof. She was so antsy. She couldn’t keep very lengthy.

Because the time handed, she feared her daughter was utilizing medication and shortly discovered how Jeanie was making ends meet.

Erin Moriarty: And what did your daughter do?

Betty Eakman: Prostitution … I simply hoped and prayed that she would cease.

At one level, it appeared she settled down lengthy sufficient to get married, however her household says it didn’t final lengthy. Quickly after, she married once more to a person with youngsters and Jeanie grew to become a stepmom.

Betty Eakman: They usually trusted her. She was the one mom they actually knew.

Even when Jeanie cut up with their father, she remained within the youngsters’s lives.

Cindy Blumer: In the event that they wanted something, they knew how you can get ahold of her. … She was actually good that manner. 

On the time of her homicide, she was dwelling with a person named Arthur Grey at that residence complicated. After Jeanie’s homicide, he grew to become an individual of curiosity.

Retired FBI agent Chris Boeckers would later be a part of the investigation.

Chris Boeckers: Investigators instantly checked out whether or not Arthur Grey was concerned within the homicide.

In response to police studies, Jeanie—who was a intercourse employee—claimed she labored for Grey, and there was a historical past of violence between them. On the crime scene, authorities discovered hairs caught to Jeanie’s left hand and a type of hairs matched Grey. However Boeckers says the case towards Grey began to disintegrate fairly rapidly.

Chris Boeckers: Arthur Grey as a resident of that residence, it is smart that his hairs can be all through the bed room.

And Arthur Grey stated he wasn’t even on the town — however on a motorbike journey in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the weekend Jeanie was murdered.

Chris Boeckers: He had a very strong alibi that he was out of city that weekend that was corroborated by others.

Authorities in contrast the unknown bloody footprints within the residence to Grey’s footprints and decided they weren’t his.

Erin Moriarty: Are you aware what number of different doable suspects, individuals of curiosity whose footprints have been in comparison with these left in Jeanie’s residence? 

Chris Boeckers: There have been a number of individuals whose footprints have been in comparison with the footprints that have been left in Jeanie’s residence. … You can see that within the case file that a whole lot of effort was put in, trying to resolve Jeanie’s case. 

In response to the case file, on the day of the homicide, a witness within the residence constructing advised police she noticed Jeanie with a tall blond man sporting a trench coat. 

Chris Boeckers: We had no strategy to observe down who that will or might not have been.

Investigators by no means discovered the person. Regardless of efforts to seek out Jeanie’s killer, the case slowed to a crawl. Months became years after which a long time.

Erin Moriarty: How usually would you name the police making an attempt to get an replace to seek out out if they’d something new on this case?

Betty Eakman: Many instances as I might, however I by no means let a 12 months go by with out reminding them.

In 2015, the Minneapolis Police Division started digging deeper into unsolved instances and Jeanie Childs’ homicide was one among them. Jeanie’s household had no thought, however investigators have been hoping science would assist them resolve the case.

Chris Boeckers: Know-how is a lot extra refined and rigorous than it was in 1993.

Boeckers says they found {that a} blood pattern, discovered close to Jeanie’s blood within the stairwell of her residence constructing, had matched to a person named John Esswein. In 2015, investigators interviewed Esswein who was in jail for violating probation on a drunk driving offense.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: Do you’ve gotten any thought why your DNA can be in that constructing, your blood can be in that constructing?

JOHN ESSWEIN: No.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: OK.

JOHN ESSWEIN: My blood was in that constructing?

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: Yeah.

JOHN ESSWEIN:  In the event you discovered my blood someplace, all I can consider is that I – I should have fallen down someplace …

Esswein advised investigators he was within the constructing as soon as in 1991, two years earlier than Jeanie’s homicide.

Chris Boeckers: He … simply volunteered his DNA. He additionally, uh, allowed himself his footprints to be taken … then his footprints have been in comparison with the foot — bloody footprints in Jeanie’s bed room. 

In response to a lab report, the footprints have been inconclusive, and Esswein’s DNA was not discovered inside Jeanie’s residence. The thriller solely deepened. Investigators knew from the case file that there have been DNA profiles found on the crime scene that had by no means matched to anybody.

 Andrea Feia, a forensic scientist with the Minnesota Bureau of Legal Apprehension, carried out further testing on the proof that was collected again in 1993 and she or he seen one thing uncommon about one of many unknown DNA profiles.

Andrea Feia: … that DNA profile … repeated itself all through the crime scene …

Erin Moriarty: It was on the comforter. It was on the blue towel. It was discovered on the blue washcloth and the crimson T-shirt.

Andrea Feia: Right.

Erin Moriarty: And on the sink.

Andrea Feia: Sure … These have been the one areas that we examined … that ended up matching one another, basically.

Investigators then turned to investigative genetic family tree for solutions. The unknown DNA profile was submitted to family tree web sites, together with MyHeritage.com.

Chris Boeckers: The forensic genealogist … had indicated that … she had a … match … to probably two brothers right here in Minnesota.

And one of many brothers was a person named Jerry Westrom.

HOCKEY DAD BECOMES PRIME SUSPECT  

Greater than 25 years after Jeanie Childs was murdered, unknown DNA on the crime scene was matched to 52-year-old Jerry Westrom.

Erin Moriarty: What do you know about him?

Chris Boeckers: He was dwelling north of Minneapolis-St. Paul … that he was … working for an organization up within the St. Cloud, Minnesota, space … he’d been a businessman.

Retired FBI agent Chris Boeckers says the married father of three wasn’t exhausting to seek out.

Chris Boeckers: … had a Fb account that we might comply with, he was main a seemingly… regular household life.

Westrom had grown up in rural Minnesota.

Wayne Triplett: He and I have been on a 4-H journey after we have been 14 to Washington D.C.

Wayne Triplett and Jerry Westrom have been farm children. They later grew to become school buddies and when Wayne acquired married.

Wayne Triplett: He was one of many groomsmen in our wedding ceremony.

Erin Moriarty: Which means he was an excellent good friend of yours.

Wayne Triplett: Sure, that’s true … He acquired alongside effectively with lots of people, very low-key gentleman … simply could make associates with individuals.

Westrom and his household have been effectively revered in Isanti, Minnesota, about 40 miles away from Minneapolis. They owned a Sears retailer, and within the 12 months 2000, Westrom constructed his personal subject of desires – a comfort retailer and gasoline station often known as Westrom’s Nook. However in 2008, the turbulent financial system took all of it away.

Erin Moriarty: Was that powerful on him to lose Westrom’s Nook —

Wayne Triplett: I believe it was powerful on him. It’d be powerful on anyone.

Westrom returned to his roots. He started elevating natural corn and soybeans and cultivating a enterprise promoting crop insurance coverage.

Wayne Triplett: He’s an excellent salesperson … he understands the necessity to fill the necessity. He understands how you can talk … and folks should be snug with you to shut on enterprise.

Triplett by no means imagined that the even-tempered good friend he’s recognized since their teenage years would grow to be the prime suspect in a violent homicide case.

Erin Moriarty: Did he have historical past of violent crimes?

Chris Boeckers: No obvious legal historical past involving violent crime.

Erin Moriarty: Jeanie was stabbed over 60 instances and right here’s this man  … no historical past of violence, and that is the man who may need killed her?

Chris Boeckers: Effectively, it … gave some pause that … that degree of violence and that kind of crime, we type of anticipated it will be any individual that possibly had been arrested a number of instances … so sure, that does give somewhat pause.

Investigators have been anxious to verify that the unknown crime scene DNA was certainly Jerry Westrom’s, however to try this they wanted to trace him down.

Chris Boeckers: We would have liked to acquire DNA from Jerry in an effort to examine it to the unknown DNA from the scene.

Forensic scientist Andrea Feia.

Erin Moriarty: And what did you inform them can be the most effective DNA if they might get it?

Andrea Feia: Finest DNA is one thing that has been in an individual’s mouth. Like in the event that they drank out of a consuming container, a straw, in the event that they spit out chewing gum, something that might have saliva on it.

Erin Moriarty: Why is saliva the perfect? Why did you say get one thing that had touched his mouth?

Andrea Feia: There’s a whole lot of DNA in saliva.

Westrom, a faithful hockey dad, continuously attended his daughter’s school video games. In January 2019, Westrom traveled to a recreation in Wisconsin. Agent Boeckers, alongside together with his companion, surreptitiously adopted him there.

Chris Boeckers: Westrom went out to the foyer concession stand and made a meals order. We watched him sit on the desk and eat his order. And when he completed, he took a serviette, and he wiped his mouth.

Westrom tossed that serviette and meals container within the rubbish can, and when he returned to the rink, Boeckers made his transfer.

Chris Boeckers: I used to be gloved … I simply reached down and acquired the container and … we bagged it up for proof.

Andrea Feia: I examined and acquired a DNA profile from the serviette and in contrast it to the unidentified profile on the comforter and the blue towel.

Erin Moriarty: And what was the consequence?

Andrea Feia: They have been in step with one another.

A month later, in February 2019, Jerry Westrom was arrested and charged with the homicide of Jeanie Childs.

Erin Moriarty: As you sit right here proper now Wayne, do you consider that Jerry Westrom is the one who killed Jeanie Childs?

Wayne Triplett: Particular no.

Erin Moriarty: Particular no?

Wayne Triplett: Particular no. Not an opportunity.

In a videotaped interview on the jail, Agent Boeckers and his companion questioned Westrom.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: Does this woman look acquainted to you in any respect?

JERRY WESTROM (shaking head): Mm mm.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: OK. Her identify is Jeanie Childs.

JERRY WESTROM: OK.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: And she or he was present in her constructing in her residence deceased. Are you aware something about that in any respect?

JERRY WESTROM: No.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: Do you assume you’d’ve ever had intercourse together with her?

JERRY WESTROM: I doubt it.

SGT. CHRIS KARAKOSTAS: In ’93 would you’ve gotten been with a prostitute?

JERRY WESTROM: No. No.

WCCO-TV senior investigative reporter Jennifer Mayerle.

Jennifer Mayerle: …he doesn’t give a lot within the interview, however what he doesn’t say, virtually says extra.

Erin Moriarty: What do you imply?

Jennifer Mayerle: He doesn’t ask any questions on what occurred, about why he’s there, about why they’re taking a look at him.

Jerry Westrom had no historical past of violent crime, nevertheless it appears he had been preserving a couple of secrets and techniques from his associates. Westrom had advised Triplett about two DWI arrests, however by no means shared he’d been arrested twice for soliciting intercourse staff.

Erin Moriarty: You didn’t know something?

Wayne Triplett: No.

Erin Moriarty: What was your response?

Wayne Triplett: It was exhausting to know … That’s the … exhausting tablet to swallow, which means how does an individual with an excellent household and a loving spouse have the necessity for solicitation? What’s occurring there?

Investigators questioned Westrom for 11 minutes till he requested for a lawyer. He was then handcuffed and spent the evening in jail.

Chris Boeckers: And the next morning we went to the jail with Minneapolis Crime lab personnel, and so they obtained … his footprints.

“48 Hours” authorized advisor Julie Rendelman says the footprints have been essential as a result of Westrom’s DNA was not the one DNA recovered there.

Julie Rendelman: DNA that was recovered was from a number of people … In the event you don’t have anything, that in and of itself doesn’t set up past an inexpensive doubt that … Jerry Westrom is the person who dedicated this crime.

WERE THE FOOTPRINTS JERRY WESTROM’S?

For greater than 25 years, Betty Eakman had prayed for a break in her daughter’s unsolved homicide case. In February 2019, her prayers have been answered.

Betty Eakman: I acquired a telephone name, and he stated …  “I’m the detective that worked on your daughter’s case” … and I stated, “OK, what’s going on?” “We found him” … And I — I had —acquired goosebumps throughout me and I stated, “are you sure?” …He stated “yes, we got him.”

However when Cindy Blumer discovered the identify of the suspect in her sister’s homicide, she had bother believing it.

Cindy Blumer: I stated no manner, no manner.

Jerry Westrom was a well-recognized face who lived of their city of Isanti, Minnesota.

Cindy Blumer: I’d seen Jerry as a result of our boys performed hockey. … He’s tall. He type of stands out … he additionally owned the enterprise — the gasoline station.

The hockey dad and native businessman was now charged with homicide. Westrom was later indicted by a grand jury and pleaded not responsible.

Westrom’s DNA, in accordance with forensic scientist Andrea Feia, discovered on the comforter and towel within the toilet, was recognized as semen. However she says her crew couldn’t decide the kind of DNA that she says Westrom left on the crimson T-shirt, the toilet sink and the washcloth.

Erin Moriarty: You possibly can’t say definitively that his blood or some other type of DNA was discovered on the scene. You recognize it’s his DNA, however you don’t know what sort. Is that right?

Andrea Feia: Right. I don’t the way it was deposited, basically.

Wayne Triplett: You say DNA to the overall Joe Q Public, effectively that’s a slam dunk.

Wayne Triplett, nonetheless, has questions on how and when the DNA was left there.

Wayne Triplett: There’s no timestamp on DNA.

Regardless of advances in DNA expertise, there’s no strategy to know the way lengthy Westrom’s DNA had been there. And Triplett says the proof solely suggests one factor.

Wayne Triplett: … that simply doesn’t mysteriously present up. He needed to be there.

Erin Moriarty: So, you assume he in all probability was in that residence sooner or later?

Wayne Triplett: …you already know, you may’t run from that proof. He needed to have been there. Don’t get there by chance.

Erin Moriarty: You don’t consider he was there the day that Jeanie Childs was murdered?

Wayne Triplett: I — I don’t.

“48 Hours” authorized advisor Julie Rendelman says the proof on this case does elevate questions. In response to lab studies, there was different DNA from semen found on Jeanie’s purple panties that doesn’t match Westrom. Whose DNA it’s stays, even at this time, a thriller. And that wasn’t all.

Julie Rendelman:There was DNA from different people … that didn’t belong to Jerry Westrom, however clearly belonged to a male supply.

Rendelman factors to that DNA discovered within the stairwell near blood stains recognized as belonging to Jeanie Childs.

Julie Rendelman: Jerry Westrom’s DNA will not be within the stairwell, however we all know that there’s a minimum of one different particular person, whose DNA blood is present in that stairwell.

Keep in mind, that stairwell DNA matched John Esswein. When investigators interviewed him, he couldn’t recall how his blood ended up within the stairwell not removed from Jeanie Childs’ residence on the twenty first flooring.

Julie Rendelman: …his solutions have been a bit peculiar I — I discovered … and the explanation I say that I as a result of he truly describes being there one time.

Erin Moriarty: And why does that hassle you?

Julie Rendelman: So, it bothers me as a result of how on earth … would he keep in mind … when he’s interviewed all these years later that he was there however solely as soon as. And the one time he says he was there was years earlier than the homicide? It simply, it felt a bit handy.

“48 Hours” reached out to Esswein for remark, however he didn’t reply. He has by no means been charged on this case.

Rendelman additionally factors out that earlier than Jerry Westrom’s DNA was recognized on the crime scene, authorities had found a mix of DNA sorts on the comforter. In response to a 2012 lab report, a person named James Luther Carlton couldn’t be excluded as one of many contributors.

Julie Rendelman: …we all know that is a person that had dedicated a number of intercourse crimes previously…

And what makes Carlton so important?

A bit greater than a 12 months after Jeanie Childs’ homicide in July 1994, Jody Dover, a 26-year-old hospital employee, was stabbed to demise in her Minneapolis residence. Jody’s homicide was eerily just like Jeanie’s homicide. Jody’s killer had additionally left behind bloody footprints.

Authorities arrested Carlton and decided a footprint discovered inside Jody Dover’s residence belonged to him. He was convicted of her homicide in 1995 and is serving a life sentence. “48 Hours” can’t verify if he was ever questioned across the time of Jeanie Childs’ homicide. We reached out to Carlton. He declined our interview request.

Carlton’s legal historical past was a crimson flag for Westrom’s protection crew. Legal professional Steven Meshbesher advised CBS station WCCO that it was a rush to judgment on this case.

Steven Meshbesher: You could do the investigation first, discover out what the details are, discover out what the proof is, after which decide the cost. Now they’re charging it first.

Had been the footprints Jerry Westrom’s? As each side ready for trial it grew to become clear that it will all come all the way down to this distinctive proof.

Mark Ulrick: In Minnesota right here, individuals are not committing crimes a whole lot of instances with the socks and sneakers off.

Mark Ulrick, a supervisor with the Minneapolis Police Forensic Division, examined the footprints. He says he targeted on the friction ridge pores and skin — the association of ridges and furrows — distinctive to each particular person.

Mark Ulrick: Friction ridge pores and skin is discovered on … your fingers, your palms, and the soles of your toes.  

Protection attorneys employed their very own forensic scientist, Alicia McCarthy, a professor at Thomas Faculty in Waterville, Maine to research the bloody footprints for them.

Erin Moriarty: You name this case a beast?

Alicia McCarthy: It was a beast. It was undoubtedly very difficult.

WHAT CONCLUSIONS WOULD THE EXPERTS REACH?  

Was Jerry Westrom only a buyer who had left his DNA in Jeanie Childs’ residence beforehand, or was he the one who stabbed her to demise greater than 60 instances? Investigators believed the bloody footprints present in her residence would supply the reply.

Mark Ulrick, on the Minneapolis Police lab, was tasked with evaluating the crime scene prints to Westrom. He decided that 4 of the seven prints have been appropriate for comparability.

One in every of them, he says, revealed the impression of a left foot; he labeled the heel E1 and an space beneath the large toe as E2. When Ulrick analyzed it, this was his conclusion.

Mark Ulrick: E1 and E2 have been recognized to Mr. Jerry Westrom.

And he says there was extra.

Erin Moriarty (pointing to picture of marked footprints): This one, B?

Mark Ulrick: That one was recognized. … to the precise foot of Mr. Jerry Westrom.

Ulrick believed that each one 4 prints — E1, E2, B and one other left footprint he labeled D1 — belonged to Westrom.

Because the trial date approached, forensic scientist Alicia McCarthy, who had been employed by the protection, was requested to confirm Ulrick’s work.

Alicia McCarthy: They wished me to come back in and look and double examine the work that was carried out by the Minneapolis lab.

McCarthy believed that solely the print labeled E2 — the realm beneath the left massive toe — was appropriate for comparability.

Throughout her evaluation she started evaluating E2 to the footprints of alternate suspects and didn’t get wherever.

Alicia McCarthy: I used to be form of in limbo for a couple of 12 months the place I used to be evaluating to different individuals. After which I stated, I’m inconclusive. I can’t say it’s these individuals … I can’t say it’s not these individuals.

McCarthy confirmed us what distinctive traits she was in search of.

Alicia McCarthy (taking a look at footprints on the pc) We’ve what we name a recurve.

Erin Moriarty (factors to picture): This?

Alicia McCarthy: Sure, it comes down and recurves again up and … for a friction ridge examiner that’s fairly thrilling.

When she in contrast E2 to Jerry’s Westrom’s footprints, she adopted the curves and eventually —

Erin Moriarty: And who do you consider left that footprint … on the crime scene.

Alicia McCarthy: That was Jerry Westrom’s left foot.

Erin Moriarty: And also you’re positive of that?

Alicia McCarthy: Optimistic.

McCarthy agreed with Mark Ulrick — E2, the small space beneath the left massive toe, had been positioned there by Jerry Westrom. However she disagreed with Ulrick on the opposite three footprints.

Alicia McCarthy: I went by and did the comparisons, um, that Mark had made identifications with, I didn’t agree with him.

She believed these three prints didn’t have sufficient element.

Alicia McCarthy: … there wasn’t sufficient for that very excessive threshold to say in identification and go to courtroom in entrance of a jury and inform them that this impression belongs to Jerry Westrom …

Mark Ulrick: That’s her resolution, I’ve no qualms about what she did. I simply know the standard of my work and I do know what I stand by.

When McCarthy decided E2 belonged to Westrom, she was instantly launched by his protection crew. Each consultants would then testify for the prosecution.

In August 2022, Jerry Westrom went on trial for Jeanie Childs’ homicide. He had been out on bond. The decide dominated there can be no cameras within the courtroom. “48 Hours” requested Westrom and his household for on digicam interviews, however they declined.

Jennifer Mayerle lined the trial for WCCO.

Jennifer Mayerle: Jerry’s spouse and three children have been there for a lot of the trial. … Jerry and his spouse would stroll into the Hennepin County Authorities Middle holding fingers

Within the courtroom, prosecutors painted a special image. They stated the proof factors to Jerry Westrom because the killer. The bloody footprints, mixed together with his DNA is proof, they stated, that he was in her residence when she was murdered.

Jennifer Mayerle: The bloody footprint put a timestamp of when the killer was there.

However the protection tried to poke holes within the footprint proof. In addition they known as that witness who had advised police she noticed Jeanie Childs with a blond man sporting a trench coat the day she was murdered. And, she stated she noticed the identical man later operating down the stairwell with out a coat.

Julie Rendelman: Jerry Westrom has darkish hair. There’s no proof he ever had blonde hair or something like that.

The protection additionally named Arthur Grey, who died in 2012, as an alternate suspect. Jeanie had accused him of home abuse.

Julie Rendelman: After which once you put the hair … of Arthur Grey in her hand … it begins to grow to be extra important.

The protection, who declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview, was dealt a blow when they couldn’t introduce James Luther Carlton and John Esswein as alternate suspects. The decide dominated there wasn’t sufficient proof towards both man and prosecutors cleared them each. So, the jury by no means heard that professional evaluation of their footprints had been inconclusive.

Julie Rendelman: I believe it was extremely damaging to the protection’s case.

Prosecutors declined our request for an interview. Jerry Westrom didn’t testify and after eight days the jury rapidly reached a verdict: responsible.

Julie Rendelman: The jury got here again fairly rapidly … and convicted Jerry Westrom of the highest depend which was homicide within the first diploma. In addition they discovered him responsible of homicide within the second diploma.

Prosecutors didn’t current a motive. Wayne Triplett says he nonetheless believes his lifelong good friend is harmless and says that each households have paid a horrible worth.

Wayne Triplett: The sufferer … didn’t deserve what they acquired … it’s horrible … and right here Jerry’s paying for that … nevertheless it’s not Jerry.

On Sept. 9, 2022,  Westrom was sentenced to life in jail for the homicide of Jeanie Childs.

STEVEN MESHBESHER (in courtroom): As we’ve stated to start with and we’re saying now, you’ve acquired the improper man. We’re sorry for the lack of Jeanie Childs’ life.

Jeanie’s mom Betty, believes justice has been served and that the precise man is behind bars, however her grief will at all times be there. She poured her coronary heart out in a letter — a love letter she by no means acquired to ship.

Betty Eakman (studying letter): My vacancy won’t ever go away because you have been taken that deadly day. … it wasn’t honest you needed to die. I by no means acquired to say goodbye. I really like you and miss you a lot. Love and peace, Mother

The Minnesota Supreme Court docket reversed Jerry Westrom’s second-degree homicide conviction however upheld the conviction for first-degree homicide.

Westrom filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court docket. It was denied.

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Produced by Marcelena Spencer and Jordan Kinsey. Rebecca Laflam is the affiliate producer. Stephen A. McCain is the event producer. Marlon Disla, Phil Tangel and Greg Kaplan are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the manager story editor. Judy Tygard is the manager producer.