14x13 - Low Maintenance
Posted: 01/18/24 19:39
Up next, tragedy at
a Texas college.
She's cold.
She's cold to the touch?
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, my god.
It's very unusual for a
of natural causes.
Tiny drops of blood
could mean an accident... Or a
m*rder.
We had no idea what had
caused her death.
There were just more
questions than answers.
Eyewitnesses place
a man at the scene, but are
their descriptions accurate?
They had us really scratching
our heads.
Bryan, Texas, is a
college town that lies in the
shadow of Texas a&m.
It's home to blinn college,
where Jenna verhaalen and
Spencer hood were inseparable.
Jenna's parents say that he
was just the love of her life,
that they had dated for several
years, went to prom together in
high school... Jenna just
absolutely adored Spencer.
Jenna and Spencer
planned to pursue careers in
either law or government, and
they lived in separate
apartments at the same complex.
The Autumn woods apartment
complex is right next to
blinn college, and so there's
quite a few students that live
there.
It's easy for them, it's
close... easy access to the
college.
On April 9, 2008,
after attending his morning
classes, Spencer stopped by
Jenna's apartment to pick up a
book he'd left there.
When Spencer arrived at
Jenna's apartment, he found the
door unlocked, and he went
inside.
Spencer found
Jenna's lifeless body on the
bedroom floor, and asked a
neighbor to call 911.
Bedroom floor, and asked a
neighbor to call 911.
Police and
paramedics pronounce Jenna
dead at the scene.
The only injuries that we
could find on her were a small
bruise on her forehead.
She had also clenched down on
her tongue with her teeth.
It didn't appear to be any
kind of robbery.
Her purse was hanging on a hook
right next to the door.
Credit cards were there in her
purse.
There was cash in her purse.
Her keys were in the purse.
There were no pills, no
alcohol... there were no
indications that she had
committed su1c1de.
Spencer told police
he last saw Jenna the night
before, around midnight.
The two of them studied, and
then he left and went to his
apartment at 12:30 that morning,
and then made a phone call to
Jenna a few minutes later to
tell her goodnight.
I love you.
Goodnight.
Phone records showed that he
had placed a call at 12:47 A.M.
We know that she was discovered
about 11:30 the next morning, so
we've got, you know, probably
less than a 12-hour window when
Jenna was k*lled.
During the autopsy,
the medical examiner found no
evidence that Jenna had been
sexually assaulted, but he
couldn't rule it out, either.
It has been my experience, in
some 30 years of performing
autopsy examinations, that the
lack of genital injuries does
not rule out a sexual as*ault.
But he did find
small, broken blood vessels in
the whites of Jenna's eyes,
known as petechial hemorrhages.
Petechial hemorrhages are in
that constellation of findings
that we refer to as "stigmata of
asphyxiation."
It tells me that I need to look
for a cause of asphyxiation.
And he found it...
Jenna's larynx had been crushed.
The conclusion was inescapable.
This is a strangulation, and,
in great probability, manual
strangulation by hands.
A background check
revealed that, over the years,
Spencer and Jenna had broken up
several times, dated others, but
always made up and got back
together.
Knowing that there were no
signs of forced entry, I think
you immediately think, "this was
some kind of lovers' quarrel
gone bad."
We did ask Spencer if he had
k*lled Jenna, and his response
was, "absolutely no."
But would the
forensic evidence support his
claim?
As investigators
looked into Jenna verhaalen's
background, they learned she was
well-liked and respected by her
friends and classmates at
blinn college in Texas.
She didn't have any enemies.
She didn't have fights with
people.
She didn't have arguments or
disagreements.
Everybody had nothing but good
things to say about her.
Jenna was a
dedicated student who was
working her way through school
as a waitress at a local
restaurant.
She worked for everything
that she had, and did have, I
think, an almost full-time job
at "wings 'n more" while taking
classes.
On the night of her
m*rder, Jenna worked at the
restaurant until 9:00 P.M.
Surveillance tapes revealed
nothing suspicious.
All we found was Jenna just
walking to her vehicle.
We didn't find anybody following
her.
Jenna returned to
her apartment around 9:30.
Her boyfriend, Spencer hood,
said he stopped by and they
spent about three hours studying
together, and he left after
midnight.
Then Jenna's neighbors provided
a possible lead.
On the night of the m*rder, the
neighbors were playing sand
volleyball in the courtyard in
between the apartment buildings.
Around midnight, they saw a man
walking from the direction of
Jenna's apartment.
He was shirtless, and he was
acting very upset.
We learned that the suspicious
male had come out anywhere
between the hours of midnight
and 2:00 A.M.
In fact, some of the girls that
were playing said that he looked
scary.
Witnesses said the
man resembled 26-year-old
Sean Stevens, also a college
student, who lived in an
adjoining apartment building.
According to friends, he'd once
made a vulgar remark to Jenna in
the parking lot.
It was, more or less, just
some cat-calls and stuff from
Sean's balcony down to the
girls, and there were some words
exchanged between Jenna and
Sean.
Sean's apartment had a
direct line of sight to Jenna's
apartment.
We contacted him.
Sean was extremely nervous and
was, literally, shaking.
Sean denied any
involvement in Jenna's m*rder.
He also said he wasn't the
shirtless man walking from
Jenna's apartment on the night
of her m*rder.
But he couldn't provide
accurate information about where
he had been that night due to a
large consumption of alcohol.
Then police
uncovered a startling piece of
information.
Two months before her m*rder,
Jenna told her family about an
incident involving her
apartment's maintenance man.
It happened one morning after
she got out of the shower.
She found the
maintenance man standing in her
living room.
He was there when he wasn't
asked to be, and she didn't know
that he was there.
What are you doing?!
According to Jenna,
the man claimed he didn't hear
the water running, and,
believing the apartment was
empty, walked inside.
It's creepy.
It's creepy just to think about.
You don't stick around while
someone's in the shower, and
then, when they come out, leave.
Jenna became very upset and
contacted the supervisor of the
maintenance worker and explained
to him what had happened.
The worker's name
was Jeremy rosser.
He was 29 years old, divorced,
with two children.
He had never been in trouble
with the law.
He comes from a religious
background.
His father is a pastor in a
nearby town.
But police were
more than a little suspicious,
so they conducted an experiment
to see whether rosser's
explanation had been truthful.
When detectives fry and
mathews go back to the apartment
complex, they actually stand
right at the front door and have
someone go into Jenna's bathroom
and turn the shower on, close
the door to the bathroom, and
they say from the front
threshold of the door you can
clearly hear that the shower's
running inside that apartment.
Coincidentally,
rosser was fired one week after
Jenna's m*rder.
He had been terminated, or
fired, because he wasn't coming
to work anymore.
Police wanted to
question rosser, but he left
town after he lost his job, and
no one knew where he was.
They also discovered that
Jenna's boyfriend, Spencer hood,
was missing, too.
Certainly, our first area of
focus was on Spencer, as he was
the last one to see her and the
first one to find her.
It did not help his case any
that he had suddenly left town.
That left
Sean Stevens, and he was
nowhere to be found, either.
He's gone.
He's not at school anymore, he's
not at his apartment complex
anymore.
It made us a little bit
suspicious.
I started to realize they
just have no idea.
They have no idea who did this.
Police had three
persons of interest in the
m*rder of Jenna verhaalen... her
boyfriend, Spencer hood,
Sean Stevens, who matched the
description of the man seen
leaving Jenna's apartment
building the night of the
m*rder, and Jeremy rosser, a
maintenance man at Jenna's
apartment complex who had once
entered her apartment under
suspicious circumstances.
Investigators hoped scientists
could find forensic evidence
that would help narrow their
search.
We're looking for biologic
evidence.
Is there skin?
Is there hair?
There may be fibers, there may
be bits of material from a
scene, or from dirt or
something, on a person's
clothing.
First, scientists
discovered skin cells under
Jenna's fingernails, which is
not unusual when the victim is
involved in a struggle.
They extracted DNA and
discovered there were two
genetic profiles... both male.
One a minor contributor and
one a major contributor.
Investigators also
found a drop of blood on Jenna's
shirt collar, and two drops of
blood on the carpet near Jenna's
body.
One of those did come back to
be Jenna's DNA, and the other
one came back to be the same
unknown male contributor that
was detected in the nail samples
and on the neck of the shirt.
She was fighting for her life.
She is scratching him,
scratching him deeply, and hard
enough that he's actively
bleeding.
This DNA evidence was
extremely exciting to us,
because we knew if we could ever
get DNA from a suspect that
matched, we would have our
k*ller.
Armed with the
k*ller's DNA, investigators
wanted DNA samples from Jenna's
boyfriend, Spencer hood, her
neighbor Sean Stevens, and the
maintenance man, Jeremy rosser.
Mysteriously, all three left
town after Jenna's m*rder.
While police searched for them,
they also conducted a DNA
dragnet.
They asked other men who lived
in her apartment complex, as
well as male co-workers, for DNA
samples.
Nearly 50 people willingly
complied, but no one matched the
DNA from the crime scene.
If we're eliminating people
that are around her, that have
connection with her, if this
is a completely random act, then
how are we ever gonna locate
that person again to get their
Eventually, police
found Jenna's boyfriend,
Spencer hood, three hours away
at his parents' home.
We ended up driving to
wimberley to try to track him
down, because at that time we
believed that he may be our
k*ller.
I ask him the question about
why he left town.
What he'd explained was, he was
just upset, him and Jenna were
very close, and he wanted to be
with his family.
Spencer was
entirely cooperative.
He allowed police to photograph
him without his shirt, and
police found no scratch marks on
his body.
He also answered questions
without an attorney present, and
willingly provided a DNA sample.
Next, police tracked down
Sean Stevens at his parents'
home, 450 miles away in
Oklahoma.
Sean said he went home to see
his brother, who was on leave
from military service in Iraq.
So this gave us an
explanation of why Sean left
town.
When asked, Sean
willingly provided a DNA sample
without police having to resort
to a court order.
The only remaining suspect was
Jeremy rosser.
Police were finally able to
locate him through his ex-wife,
who provided an important clue.
She said Jeremy had shown signs
of v*olence at the time of their
divorce.
They got in an argument.
He shoved her to the ground,
and, while she was on the
ground, he kneeled over her and
put both hands around her neck.
Coincidentally,
this incident occurred right
around the time of Jenna's
m*rder, but for investigators,
there was still one problem.
A criminal check was done of
rosser's background, and we
found no instances where he had
been arrested in the past.
This made him somewhat of an
unlikely candidate for a crime
of this type.
When police
questioned rosser, he denied any
involvement and was happy to
cooperate.
He was very calm, very
cool... not someone that you
would pin a m*rder on.
But in rosser's
truck, investigators found a
laptop computer.
The serial number was traced to
a tenant living in Jenna's
apartment complex who'd reported
it stolen months earlier.
They also found rosser still had
keys to the apartments.
This indicated to us that
rosser had likely gone into many
apartments during his term there
as a maintenance worker.
But Jenna's
apartment key was not among
those found in Jeremy's
possession.
And, just like the others,
Jeremy willingly provided a DNA
sample.
My feelings with Jeremy was
that we might not have our
person, being how cooperative he
was, and his demeanor.
So investigators
had three possibilities.
Would a DNA match be among them,
or was the k*ller still at
large?
I have other cases where I
know who did it, I just can't
prove who did it.
This case is different, whereas
I can prove who did it... I just
don't know who did it.
With DNA samples
from three suspects, scientists
hoped to determine who k*lled
college student Jenna verhaalen.
And had it not been for science,
there's no telling what would
have happened.
Had we not had the DNA under
her nails or on the collar of
her shirt or on the carpet, we
may never have solved this
crime.
Without the forensic
evidence, I don't think there
would have been an arrest.
The DNA results left no doubt.
Jeremy rosser was in Jenna's
apartment on the night of the
m*rder.
What snapped?
What made him want to do this to
her?
It's just... It's weird.
When police
arrested rosser, he wasn't
surprised.
There's no screaming,
yelling, "I'm innocent.
What are you talking about?"
It's just, "oh, okay."
And so, that was a big
indication.
Prosecutors believe
that rosser's intrusion into
Jenna's apartment while she was
in the shower was no accident.
After that encounter,
prosecutors believe rosser used
his master key again, on the
night of the m*rder, to enter
Jenna's apartment while she was
at work.
This time, they believe he hid
in Jenna's second bedroom and
waited for her.
Jenna came around home around
Spencer hood, also stopped by...
Something rosser probably didn't
anticipate.
This forced rosser to wait
another three hours.
Think I'm gonna get going.
All right.
I hope I do well on this test.
Oh, you're gonna be fine.
Don't worry.
Thank you.
I love you.
I love you, too.
Spencer left
shortly after midnight...
Love you.
Bye, sweetie.
I love you, too.
But he called
Jenna at 12:47 to say goodnight.
After that call, Jenna went to
bed, and at some point, rosser
att*cked.
Jenna fought for
her life, scratching him,
collecting his skin cells.
He strangled her to death.
Tiny drops of rosser's blood
landed on Jenna's shirt and on
the rug next to her body.
I would like to say that
Jenna, in her last moments, I
guess, fought like she always
fights, and she's been a
fighter, and that was enough to
help us identify who this person
was so that we could try and
achieve some small sense of
justice for her and her family.
When charged with
Jenna's m*rder, rosser admitted
he was guilty, in order to spare
his family the ordeals of a
trial.
Rosser never revealed his
motive.
It's possible that Jeremy
entered Jenna's apartment to
burglarize it, and then, once
Spencer left, Jeremy may have
exited the bedroom, hoping to
get whatever he was there to
steal, and was caught by Jenna,
and then subsequently had to end
up murdering her, being that she
knew his identity.
It's also possible
the as*ault had something to do
with his marital problems at the
time.
Jenna looked very similar in
build to rosser's ex-wife.
He may have assaulted Jenna
based on the fact that he was
angry with his ex-wife.
The forensic evidence was
crucial to this case because we
don't have a motive.
Without his DNA, we don't really
have a motive for him going into
that apartment.
Regardless of his
motive, Jeremy rosser was
convicted of Jenna verhaalen's
m*rder and was sentenced to 55
years in prison.
He has two children.
They're gonna grow up with a
dad in prison, so... There's a
lot of people affected by the
decisions that rosser made.
This case stands out to me,
and I consider it to be one of
the most important cases that
I've worked in my career, based
on the type of person that Jenna
was.
She was a young person that had
her life ahead of her, and it's
just a tragic event that it has
to happen to someone like her.
a Texas college.
She's cold.
She's cold to the touch?
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, my god.
It's very unusual for a
of natural causes.
Tiny drops of blood
could mean an accident... Or a
m*rder.
We had no idea what had
caused her death.
There were just more
questions than answers.
Eyewitnesses place
a man at the scene, but are
their descriptions accurate?
They had us really scratching
our heads.
Bryan, Texas, is a
college town that lies in the
shadow of Texas a&m.
It's home to blinn college,
where Jenna verhaalen and
Spencer hood were inseparable.
Jenna's parents say that he
was just the love of her life,
that they had dated for several
years, went to prom together in
high school... Jenna just
absolutely adored Spencer.
Jenna and Spencer
planned to pursue careers in
either law or government, and
they lived in separate
apartments at the same complex.
The Autumn woods apartment
complex is right next to
blinn college, and so there's
quite a few students that live
there.
It's easy for them, it's
close... easy access to the
college.
On April 9, 2008,
after attending his morning
classes, Spencer stopped by
Jenna's apartment to pick up a
book he'd left there.
When Spencer arrived at
Jenna's apartment, he found the
door unlocked, and he went
inside.
Spencer found
Jenna's lifeless body on the
bedroom floor, and asked a
neighbor to call 911.
Bedroom floor, and asked a
neighbor to call 911.
Police and
paramedics pronounce Jenna
dead at the scene.
The only injuries that we
could find on her were a small
bruise on her forehead.
She had also clenched down on
her tongue with her teeth.
It didn't appear to be any
kind of robbery.
Her purse was hanging on a hook
right next to the door.
Credit cards were there in her
purse.
There was cash in her purse.
Her keys were in the purse.
There were no pills, no
alcohol... there were no
indications that she had
committed su1c1de.
Spencer told police
he last saw Jenna the night
before, around midnight.
The two of them studied, and
then he left and went to his
apartment at 12:30 that morning,
and then made a phone call to
Jenna a few minutes later to
tell her goodnight.
I love you.
Goodnight.
Phone records showed that he
had placed a call at 12:47 A.M.
We know that she was discovered
about 11:30 the next morning, so
we've got, you know, probably
less than a 12-hour window when
Jenna was k*lled.
During the autopsy,
the medical examiner found no
evidence that Jenna had been
sexually assaulted, but he
couldn't rule it out, either.
It has been my experience, in
some 30 years of performing
autopsy examinations, that the
lack of genital injuries does
not rule out a sexual as*ault.
But he did find
small, broken blood vessels in
the whites of Jenna's eyes,
known as petechial hemorrhages.
Petechial hemorrhages are in
that constellation of findings
that we refer to as "stigmata of
asphyxiation."
It tells me that I need to look
for a cause of asphyxiation.
And he found it...
Jenna's larynx had been crushed.
The conclusion was inescapable.
This is a strangulation, and,
in great probability, manual
strangulation by hands.
A background check
revealed that, over the years,
Spencer and Jenna had broken up
several times, dated others, but
always made up and got back
together.
Knowing that there were no
signs of forced entry, I think
you immediately think, "this was
some kind of lovers' quarrel
gone bad."
We did ask Spencer if he had
k*lled Jenna, and his response
was, "absolutely no."
But would the
forensic evidence support his
claim?
As investigators
looked into Jenna verhaalen's
background, they learned she was
well-liked and respected by her
friends and classmates at
blinn college in Texas.
She didn't have any enemies.
She didn't have fights with
people.
She didn't have arguments or
disagreements.
Everybody had nothing but good
things to say about her.
Jenna was a
dedicated student who was
working her way through school
as a waitress at a local
restaurant.
She worked for everything
that she had, and did have, I
think, an almost full-time job
at "wings 'n more" while taking
classes.
On the night of her
m*rder, Jenna worked at the
restaurant until 9:00 P.M.
Surveillance tapes revealed
nothing suspicious.
All we found was Jenna just
walking to her vehicle.
We didn't find anybody following
her.
Jenna returned to
her apartment around 9:30.
Her boyfriend, Spencer hood,
said he stopped by and they
spent about three hours studying
together, and he left after
midnight.
Then Jenna's neighbors provided
a possible lead.
On the night of the m*rder, the
neighbors were playing sand
volleyball in the courtyard in
between the apartment buildings.
Around midnight, they saw a man
walking from the direction of
Jenna's apartment.
He was shirtless, and he was
acting very upset.
We learned that the suspicious
male had come out anywhere
between the hours of midnight
and 2:00 A.M.
In fact, some of the girls that
were playing said that he looked
scary.
Witnesses said the
man resembled 26-year-old
Sean Stevens, also a college
student, who lived in an
adjoining apartment building.
According to friends, he'd once
made a vulgar remark to Jenna in
the parking lot.
It was, more or less, just
some cat-calls and stuff from
Sean's balcony down to the
girls, and there were some words
exchanged between Jenna and
Sean.
Sean's apartment had a
direct line of sight to Jenna's
apartment.
We contacted him.
Sean was extremely nervous and
was, literally, shaking.
Sean denied any
involvement in Jenna's m*rder.
He also said he wasn't the
shirtless man walking from
Jenna's apartment on the night
of her m*rder.
But he couldn't provide
accurate information about where
he had been that night due to a
large consumption of alcohol.
Then police
uncovered a startling piece of
information.
Two months before her m*rder,
Jenna told her family about an
incident involving her
apartment's maintenance man.
It happened one morning after
she got out of the shower.
She found the
maintenance man standing in her
living room.
He was there when he wasn't
asked to be, and she didn't know
that he was there.
What are you doing?!
According to Jenna,
the man claimed he didn't hear
the water running, and,
believing the apartment was
empty, walked inside.
It's creepy.
It's creepy just to think about.
You don't stick around while
someone's in the shower, and
then, when they come out, leave.
Jenna became very upset and
contacted the supervisor of the
maintenance worker and explained
to him what had happened.
The worker's name
was Jeremy rosser.
He was 29 years old, divorced,
with two children.
He had never been in trouble
with the law.
He comes from a religious
background.
His father is a pastor in a
nearby town.
But police were
more than a little suspicious,
so they conducted an experiment
to see whether rosser's
explanation had been truthful.
When detectives fry and
mathews go back to the apartment
complex, they actually stand
right at the front door and have
someone go into Jenna's bathroom
and turn the shower on, close
the door to the bathroom, and
they say from the front
threshold of the door you can
clearly hear that the shower's
running inside that apartment.
Coincidentally,
rosser was fired one week after
Jenna's m*rder.
He had been terminated, or
fired, because he wasn't coming
to work anymore.
Police wanted to
question rosser, but he left
town after he lost his job, and
no one knew where he was.
They also discovered that
Jenna's boyfriend, Spencer hood,
was missing, too.
Certainly, our first area of
focus was on Spencer, as he was
the last one to see her and the
first one to find her.
It did not help his case any
that he had suddenly left town.
That left
Sean Stevens, and he was
nowhere to be found, either.
He's gone.
He's not at school anymore, he's
not at his apartment complex
anymore.
It made us a little bit
suspicious.
I started to realize they
just have no idea.
They have no idea who did this.
Police had three
persons of interest in the
m*rder of Jenna verhaalen... her
boyfriend, Spencer hood,
Sean Stevens, who matched the
description of the man seen
leaving Jenna's apartment
building the night of the
m*rder, and Jeremy rosser, a
maintenance man at Jenna's
apartment complex who had once
entered her apartment under
suspicious circumstances.
Investigators hoped scientists
could find forensic evidence
that would help narrow their
search.
We're looking for biologic
evidence.
Is there skin?
Is there hair?
There may be fibers, there may
be bits of material from a
scene, or from dirt or
something, on a person's
clothing.
First, scientists
discovered skin cells under
Jenna's fingernails, which is
not unusual when the victim is
involved in a struggle.
They extracted DNA and
discovered there were two
genetic profiles... both male.
One a minor contributor and
one a major contributor.
Investigators also
found a drop of blood on Jenna's
shirt collar, and two drops of
blood on the carpet near Jenna's
body.
One of those did come back to
be Jenna's DNA, and the other
one came back to be the same
unknown male contributor that
was detected in the nail samples
and on the neck of the shirt.
She was fighting for her life.
She is scratching him,
scratching him deeply, and hard
enough that he's actively
bleeding.
This DNA evidence was
extremely exciting to us,
because we knew if we could ever
get DNA from a suspect that
matched, we would have our
k*ller.
Armed with the
k*ller's DNA, investigators
wanted DNA samples from Jenna's
boyfriend, Spencer hood, her
neighbor Sean Stevens, and the
maintenance man, Jeremy rosser.
Mysteriously, all three left
town after Jenna's m*rder.
While police searched for them,
they also conducted a DNA
dragnet.
They asked other men who lived
in her apartment complex, as
well as male co-workers, for DNA
samples.
Nearly 50 people willingly
complied, but no one matched the
DNA from the crime scene.
If we're eliminating people
that are around her, that have
connection with her, if this
is a completely random act, then
how are we ever gonna locate
that person again to get their
Eventually, police
found Jenna's boyfriend,
Spencer hood, three hours away
at his parents' home.
We ended up driving to
wimberley to try to track him
down, because at that time we
believed that he may be our
k*ller.
I ask him the question about
why he left town.
What he'd explained was, he was
just upset, him and Jenna were
very close, and he wanted to be
with his family.
Spencer was
entirely cooperative.
He allowed police to photograph
him without his shirt, and
police found no scratch marks on
his body.
He also answered questions
without an attorney present, and
willingly provided a DNA sample.
Next, police tracked down
Sean Stevens at his parents'
home, 450 miles away in
Oklahoma.
Sean said he went home to see
his brother, who was on leave
from military service in Iraq.
So this gave us an
explanation of why Sean left
town.
When asked, Sean
willingly provided a DNA sample
without police having to resort
to a court order.
The only remaining suspect was
Jeremy rosser.
Police were finally able to
locate him through his ex-wife,
who provided an important clue.
She said Jeremy had shown signs
of v*olence at the time of their
divorce.
They got in an argument.
He shoved her to the ground,
and, while she was on the
ground, he kneeled over her and
put both hands around her neck.
Coincidentally,
this incident occurred right
around the time of Jenna's
m*rder, but for investigators,
there was still one problem.
A criminal check was done of
rosser's background, and we
found no instances where he had
been arrested in the past.
This made him somewhat of an
unlikely candidate for a crime
of this type.
When police
questioned rosser, he denied any
involvement and was happy to
cooperate.
He was very calm, very
cool... not someone that you
would pin a m*rder on.
But in rosser's
truck, investigators found a
laptop computer.
The serial number was traced to
a tenant living in Jenna's
apartment complex who'd reported
it stolen months earlier.
They also found rosser still had
keys to the apartments.
This indicated to us that
rosser had likely gone into many
apartments during his term there
as a maintenance worker.
But Jenna's
apartment key was not among
those found in Jeremy's
possession.
And, just like the others,
Jeremy willingly provided a DNA
sample.
My feelings with Jeremy was
that we might not have our
person, being how cooperative he
was, and his demeanor.
So investigators
had three possibilities.
Would a DNA match be among them,
or was the k*ller still at
large?
I have other cases where I
know who did it, I just can't
prove who did it.
This case is different, whereas
I can prove who did it... I just
don't know who did it.
With DNA samples
from three suspects, scientists
hoped to determine who k*lled
college student Jenna verhaalen.
And had it not been for science,
there's no telling what would
have happened.
Had we not had the DNA under
her nails or on the collar of
her shirt or on the carpet, we
may never have solved this
crime.
Without the forensic
evidence, I don't think there
would have been an arrest.
The DNA results left no doubt.
Jeremy rosser was in Jenna's
apartment on the night of the
m*rder.
What snapped?
What made him want to do this to
her?
It's just... It's weird.
When police
arrested rosser, he wasn't
surprised.
There's no screaming,
yelling, "I'm innocent.
What are you talking about?"
It's just, "oh, okay."
And so, that was a big
indication.
Prosecutors believe
that rosser's intrusion into
Jenna's apartment while she was
in the shower was no accident.
After that encounter,
prosecutors believe rosser used
his master key again, on the
night of the m*rder, to enter
Jenna's apartment while she was
at work.
This time, they believe he hid
in Jenna's second bedroom and
waited for her.
Jenna came around home around
Spencer hood, also stopped by...
Something rosser probably didn't
anticipate.
This forced rosser to wait
another three hours.
Think I'm gonna get going.
All right.
I hope I do well on this test.
Oh, you're gonna be fine.
Don't worry.
Thank you.
I love you.
I love you, too.
Spencer left
shortly after midnight...
Love you.
Bye, sweetie.
I love you, too.
But he called
Jenna at 12:47 to say goodnight.
After that call, Jenna went to
bed, and at some point, rosser
att*cked.
Jenna fought for
her life, scratching him,
collecting his skin cells.
He strangled her to death.
Tiny drops of rosser's blood
landed on Jenna's shirt and on
the rug next to her body.
I would like to say that
Jenna, in her last moments, I
guess, fought like she always
fights, and she's been a
fighter, and that was enough to
help us identify who this person
was so that we could try and
achieve some small sense of
justice for her and her family.
When charged with
Jenna's m*rder, rosser admitted
he was guilty, in order to spare
his family the ordeals of a
trial.
Rosser never revealed his
motive.
It's possible that Jeremy
entered Jenna's apartment to
burglarize it, and then, once
Spencer left, Jeremy may have
exited the bedroom, hoping to
get whatever he was there to
steal, and was caught by Jenna,
and then subsequently had to end
up murdering her, being that she
knew his identity.
It's also possible
the as*ault had something to do
with his marital problems at the
time.
Jenna looked very similar in
build to rosser's ex-wife.
He may have assaulted Jenna
based on the fact that he was
angry with his ex-wife.
The forensic evidence was
crucial to this case because we
don't have a motive.
Without his DNA, we don't really
have a motive for him going into
that apartment.
Regardless of his
motive, Jeremy rosser was
convicted of Jenna verhaalen's
m*rder and was sentenced to 55
years in prison.
He has two children.
They're gonna grow up with a
dad in prison, so... There's a
lot of people affected by the
decisions that rosser made.
This case stands out to me,
and I consider it to be one of
the most important cases that
I've worked in my career, based
on the type of person that Jenna
was.
She was a young person that had
her life ahead of her, and it's
just a tragic event that it has
to happen to someone like her.