a violent pornographic film with a plot eerily similar to how jessie was killed. prosecutors claim daniel used it as an instructional video. at some point in the movie he finds out a binding and places it around her neck and then strangled her. searches on serial killers and searches on bondage. did dan who was big into the theater, a straight a student, was he also a serial killer in training? i think that is the potential. prosecutors showed the jury all the physical evidence. the dna, the tape, the wipes, the likely murder weapons that tie daniel to jessie s death. through it all, daniel sat quietly at the defense table looking at no one and showing little emotion. even when the d.a. presented evidence the public had never
looking at me saying this. i m thinking, kid, do you honestly believe i believe you with this. i think dan s a sociopath. he doesn t seem to have the conscious or if he does, he doesn t care. buck and joy have accepted they may never hear the truth from daniel or know why he turned so violent. daniel was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. for the attacker on melissa richards, he was sentenced to five more years. melissa s our hero. if it wasn t for her, they wouldn t have caught him. we are forever indebted and grateful to her for that. the police and the blodgetts commend you and feel like other women could have been murdered if it wasn t for you. i tried to help out as much as i could. i just wanted to help them out. i don t know. i tried.
heard before. performed a dna analysis. dna that the state argued that showed he not only killed jessie, but also raped her. daniel s dna was found under jessie s fingernails and inside her which was one of the toughest pieces of evidence to combat in front of the jury. difficult, difficult. didn t have really an alternate explanation for that. and don t have one as i sit here right now. in any case, daniel was never charged with rape. and for the murder, the defense rested without calling a single witness to the stand. the jury deliberated just three hours. we the jury find the defendant daniel bartelt guilty of first degree homicide as charged in the information. ladies and gentlemen, was this your verdict? it s not a good day for anybody. nobody won. jessie s father, buck
arrest, but were far from finished. the reason. remember what he told detectives when they reached him by phone. a house in hartford. jessie blodgett. the confessed attacker was also a friend of jessie s. is that the girl that just passed? yeah. we were visiting his parents. his name was daniel bartelt. dan to his friends and he was the same dan jessie had been writing this music with this summer. detective clasking called police right away. they had a suspect in custody. jessie s parents refused to believe the news. no, not this kid. he s a friend of ours. he s a little screwed up, he
tv show. you re in the same room as the person who murdered your friend. it s crazy. it was the strangest mix of emotions. when he walked in from the back room of the courtroom, i wanted to hug him and make him feel better. i felt his humiliation and shame. i wanted to punch him. prosecutors said from the start, there was no easy explanation why daniel did what he did. why did he pick jessie? was he mad at jessie? no. he wasn t mad at jessie. he picked jessie because she was convenient. there was evidence that showed this young man was obsessed with murder. on his computer, police found disturbing internet searches. what is he doing in the days leading up to this? serial killer by number of victims. their most alarming find was