What Happened To Jessica Masker?

Jessica Masker was 24 and had recently given birth to her second son when she went missing on the east side of Indianapolis on April 15, 2013.  It's a mystery that has haunted Jessica's parents and her seven brothers and sisters for a decade.  

Transcript

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People just want to know what it's like to be me. How does it feel to see a dead body? Tell a family their loved one has been murdered, talk to a rape victim, catch a killer and get them to confess hold on tight my friends. Get ready for the journey and welcome to murder with Mannina. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of murder with Mannina how's it going Colleen? It is raining here and in here too. I love it. As you know I love rain so much and especially when it rains in California, which is unusual until this year. Yeah, I love it. I took the I walked the dogs in the rain before we started recording. I did a fast one hour walk along the coast and it's just I love it. It's so gorgeous. So pretty when it rains here. Hey, you should let everyone know that you can come to San Diego and run out your Airbnb that you have going you know I'm fully I'm almost fully booked fantastic. Good. Yeah training here to timber even had rain and I bet you three weeks we need it really bad. Yeah. And it's been hot. So it's a little bit cooler today. But it's kind of a that's nice. The jury Sunday, Lazy Sunday, but we're gonna pack it's not for us for us. We're working against shit done work in the grind. So you know, it's funny because I heard somebody say it's the killing time. When it gets so hot. It's time to kill people. It's hot outside. So Crazy, right that people know about that. It's like, oh, it's the killer. And it's the Killing Season as well. But they say it's the Killing Season. Right now. We don't hear that out here because the weather is temperate. Well, yeah, it's not extreme. It's so nice out there. I remember remember when I was out there last time, but the weather wasn't fantastic. You were like it's never like this matter. It was kind of cloudy every day. You remember that cloudy here now every day to it's June gloom. Okay. Yeah. Talk about so I was out there in June. But they say June gloom, but I love it. Yeah. I think is beautiful. I know. I know that you liked the rain. I hate it. So I can't go outside and play. I just want to go outside and play. So yes, you can. I just did. I walked my dog. In the rain. I'm like, hurry up, hurry up and boop. He's like, didn't do let's just play. So anyways, okay, well, I'm going to talk today about a missing person case, which is probably a murder investigation. But we haven't been able to find the body. And this happened in 2013. So I had been out of homicide. Let's see, let's think about this for a second a couple of years, in 2013. So I was probably working the street. I went back to the street after I was in homicides. So I was probably back on the street when this occurred. But she went missing in 2013 from Indianapolis, Indiana. And she was last seen on Washington Street. So let me just explain to you a little bit about how Indianapolis is set up. So our major North and South Street is Meridian and our major East and West Street is Washington Street, which I think I can take Washington Street all the way to California, like us, or it's like us 40 or something and take me straight. So those are the two major Meridian run north and south Washington Street runs east and west. So where she went missing in the area, kind of where she lived I'm really familiar with because I had a lot of investigations over there. It's kind of known for it's kind of one of those neighborhoods that's known for drugs and prostitution. But it also has nice house has like kind of smaller single storey houses nestled in there. So and they're trying to refurbish it now but so older homes and then some abandoned homes, just kind of in a mixture of that. But when you say East Washington to anybody in Indianapolis, they automatically think not so good neighborhoods, so she was last seen in that area. She wasn't like five two itty bitty girl only 95 pounds, and she was 24 years old at the time. Um, she had several tattoos on her she had one that said in quotation marks li l, and then in quotation marks our OB and then was a flower on her back and then a vine on her leg. So she was tatted up pretty good. She was last seen wearing jeans and a gray and pink tennis shoes. Okay. So she's hazel eyes brown hair. And I think she was also kind of wearing a fur lined hood right in white jacket. Okay, so like I said, it's actually been assigned to a missing persons detective and it hasn't right now because I was doing my research on it, but a little bit of background on her She was 24 years old. She was a single mother of two really young children. She struggled throughout her whole life because she was deaf in one year. She ended up dropping out of high school. And then, of course, as it saw me Dansko she started using drugs. So her life was just kind of a struggle from the very beginning, but she's a really pretty girl. What? What kind of drugs, um, you know, what I wasn't able to figure out specifically, even if she had gone to rehab a couple times, so it very addictive drugs probably. And I hate to speculate, because you just never know. But meth and heroin are really big in that area. We could go there right now and buy some it would be pretty easy. But researching kind of this case a little bit before her just appearance, she began to pursue getting her GED. And she was really wanting to make her life better for her son. So you know, when you see that a lot, too, it's so sad when you start to kind of delve into these cases when you have stories like this, but you always hear the family say, oh, man, they were on the right track. They were trying, you know, which you assume is true, right? I mean, you know, you're hoping that it's true. But she really, from what I could tell really was trying to do better for her sons. Her family describes her as the life of the party. And she was very outgoing, and everyone loved being around her. And again, she was really, really a cute girl. But a few days before that she was taken to the emergency room because her boyfriend had beaten her up and had beaten her up pretty, pretty good. Okay, so not only do we do we have that she's deaf. She's not, you know, she's not greatly educated, she got herself hooked on some type of substance. You know, she her boyfriend beats her up, and I guess he beat her up pretty good. He was arrested. Okay, he was arrested that night, when he had been what do we know about what do we know about him? Or will you be? Well, it's kind of interesting, because law enforcement has not given his name. I could not find it anywhere. Because what I wanted to do was to go back and kind of, you know, get on Google and run how many times he's been arrested. And you know, his case is American. Sure, and wanted to see because of course, you know, that this isn't going to be the first time that he had assaulted her into you know, and it's really close to the time of when she was last seen missing. So now she's involved in a domestic situation. So, but it's interesting to me that law enforcement has not given his name. Okay, what he does do, they do interview him, of course. And he tells law enforcement that he did call her on the night of her disappearance, or I'm sorry, she called him on the night of her disappearance, from a gas station and the gas station. There's one I know right near where she lives. But evidently, she she walked or she got a ride 21 blocks north of where she lives. And that puts her at 21st and Emerson, I grew up at 56 and Emerson, but 21st. And Emerson, especially in 2013 is another really high crime area. It's got gas stations, it's got fast food, but it's got a lot of crime in that area, some abandoned and so abandoned, and then some just crappy apartment complexes in that area. So She evidently calls him the night of her disappearance, okay. But what that tells me because he's able, she's able to call him is that he got out of jail pretty quickly from beating her from what because from what I can tell, it had just been a few days before that literally, she was in the hospital, due to the building due to the be speeding. So again, and of course, that's just another delight. You can see kind of how the perfect storm is, you know, it's just evolving itself. But again, he got out so he's out because she called him. He tells police though, that he spent many hours going up and down Washington Street looking for her. So evidently he called she called him. He didn't go pick her up. But he says that he was looking for her. The following day, though, after evidently she was in this was before she went missing. But the following day after she was beaten supposedly, she goes over to her cousin's house to spend the day there. But something happened with her cousin and ended up getting into an argument with her cousin and leaving around 3am to go to a nearby gas station. So now we're at three o'clock in the morning in a crappy area of the city. She was in the 4800 block of East Washington Street and why I'm saying that is so that listeners that are from India, you'll know exactly and like I mentioned before drugs, prostitution. But she was seen. She was last seen approximately 21 blocks north, like I said of her cousin's house at a gas station. Jessica calls her brother and asks him to come pick her out because to paint two men came at her wrong. And that's evidently how she described it to her brother. She's obviously scared or upset and just asks her brother to come and pick her up because two men came at her role. Her brother, however, tells her no, because he is on his way to work. Now mind you, she left her cousin's house at three in the morning, if she walked up to this gas station, it would definitely take a couple hours to get there, I'm sure. And if he's on his way to work, I'm assuming that he's probably needs to be at work at 6am. And she may have called him around the 5am mark, or whatever. And he said, No, he couldn't pick her up. Because he was going to work. He tells her to call mom, but she's She decides not to call, and then that's when she calls her boyfriend for a ride. Instead, Detectives believe that Jessica had plans to meet her boyfriend after she left the gas station around 4:31am. So that's kind of weird, because law enforcement is saying that she actually is calling to meet him. I don't know what he said in the interview. But like I said, he makes that statement that he's going up and down Washington Street, looking for her around 430. The boyfriend says that when she called that night, she told her, she asked him to come pick her up. Evidently, he said, No. Or he said I'm on his way. And then she says, Okay, I'm going to start walking towards Washington Street. But as she's up at 21st, and Emerson and goes down to Washington Street, that's 21 blocks. Okay, so obviously, that's a long again, we're talking about 434 or 430 in the morning. That said, no one has seen or heard from her since that's it. Like, that's the last knowledge. There's some grainy footage from inside the gas station that shows that she was there and alone, but no one has seen or heard from her. Police have said that they do not believe foul play was involved. Okay. I have kind of a hard time. When you look at when you look at the information that we have, right now. We have two, you know, two or three possible suspects, right? Obviously, we have the boyfriend, right? We know he has a history of beating her. And then we have maybe the two men that came at her wrong, right, just based on the information that I found. So the family, of course, disagrees. And their theory is that she was abducted by someone she knew after leaving the gas station in the early morning hours of April 15 2013. Evidently, the boyfriend was interviewed. But net, he was never named a suspect. And I don't know why he would not be named as a suspect. I mean, I just don't get that he denies any knowledge of what has happened to her. The family continues to do vigils. And so I found an interesting article from our local paper. And I've reached out I've reached out to Jessica sister, we've had a little bit of communication. She said she absolutely wants to come on the podcast and talk about it. And then it's been crickets ever since because I was trying to nail her down for a time and a day to come on and be a guest. But it's weird because it's like she was really into wanting to talk to me and getting it back out. Because the families really they've got a Facebook page, but it's not a huge Facebook page, but they keep holding vigils. And they really are trying to keep this in the public's eye. So hopefully she will come you know, circle back around and we can interview her because I'd really like to hear but in this article, she talks about how she said that sometimes she will look up in the sky and think about her sister who went missing 10 years ago because we are at the 10 year mark. April of 2013. And so we're getting we're getting close. Are we in 20? Yeah, we're in 23 Oh my god. Okay. What if Jessica can see them in? Her sister's asked, I know that's crazy. If Jessica reads this, I just want her to be strong because we're not giving up until she is home safe. She had just like I said just recently given birth when she went missing. Even decades later, the missing woman still feels close to her parents and seven brothers and sisters. They're still really really close and they're really trying to you know, figure out what happened and they you know, it's just it's kind of crazy because here's another quote for sometimes I start to cry but Sometimes I smile from ear to ear because it makes me so happy that we have these memories. It's so hard. She used to be here for me every day. The Missing woman's family knows Jessica made mistakes and suspects her history of drug abuse played a role in how seriously investigators took the case initially. And I want to talk about that a little bit because that, you know, it's one of those things where, obviously as investigators, especially when it's a missing person, right, like when we know that there's drug history, we have to we have to believe okay, it's possible that maybe she over she overdosed you know, we have to look at that right but to not have a body yet. I just don't think that she overdosed because where's the body you know what I mean? Like that doesn't make sense to me in the in the in the in the family agrees. At first though, the police said that there was no foul play because Jesse was on drugs. That's how they said it. So the woman's mother. She was trying to get help. She had been in rehab three times. Evidently, our paper tried to interview IPD and they didn't. Mom says people will say she You mean they they would they wouldn't console the detective wouldn't interview. Yeah. People will say she overdosed, overdosed. If that's the case, and somebody can wear it. And that's the exact quote, If that's the case, then somebody would have found her by now. Where's she going to overdose on drugs that nobody's ever going to find her? I liked the family because they're asking those difficult questions. Before she went missing, she was working with family to find a program to enroll in to finish school and get her high school diploma. The second oldest of her siblings, Jessica, marker has already missed 21st birthday celebrations, family weddings and birth of nieces and nephews. And that's what happens. They go and they read, you know, you go and talk to the family. And they're like they miss this and they miss this. Again, the family holds vigil for her almost every single year. Her mother still lives in the family's home near Garfield Park on the south side of Indianapolis. And that park is close to where she went missing. This is the only house left that she would know people she would know people at since everyone else moved her passed away. My parents stay here for Jessica. So they literally haven't moved out of the house because Jessica live there. And they literally won't move out of her house because they feel like because she hasn't been found that there's a chance, you know that she may be also I'm sure that's their connection, or absolutely still. They don't want to break that last little thread. Yep. And then of course, the family was say we knew something was wrong. We kept trying to call her and call everyone to see if they have heard from her or seen her before the disappearance, it was never difficult to get in touch with Jessica or find her family was saying she just vanished. Faulty camera gives only clues to where she was before she disappeared. A little bit. Background again. After giving birth to her second son, who was premature. She visited the baby at the hospital almost every day. She shares music videos on Facebook page, often she would spend so much time making phone calls. She ran out of minutes each month. So what that tells us right is she's very invested. Even if she's got some substances. She's obviously invested in her family. She's invested in her kids. And so it's kind of like one of those things where it's like, okay, I don't think that she overdose but what happened to her like, I don't know that she went missing on her own. You know, it doesn't sound like from what I can tell that she just decided that she wanted to leave her family you know and leave her children. Mom says I knew something wasn't right. You know how parents just have a feeling I got a feeling inside that something was not right. The day before she went missing. However, though, the day before she went missing, she was hast hospitalized because of a prescription drug overdose. So we will talk about that that's the day before she went missing. She tried to overdose or didn't try to maybe she tried to but she almost overdosed and was in the hospital. And that and a couple days before that she was beaten pretty badly by her boyfriend. When you look at the timeline, right dad's life this she was picked up like I mentioned from the hospital by her aunt that brought her to her concert, her cousin street or cousin's home near to Quincy and East Washington Street right in that area. Again, she left on foot, they'd gotten into something and another interesting thing that I found that she had, she was over her cousins. Something happened she had gotten upset after men in the home, looked at her funny, then began arguing with her cousin before she left according to the family, so then you're throwing a couple more people she had The two people in the gas station but you kind of wonder, too, was she? Was she on something again? Because kind of the same language, right? That the two men in the apartment with her cousin and then the two men at the gas station. So that's kind of where we're at the mystery. It's a definite mystery, because when you look at it, you know, you've got you've got some possibilities with, with the people that she was in contact with. I still like the boyfriend a lot. I don't know why they have not. But what's interesting too, though, is they're saying that he's not a suspect, but they haven't released his name. Exactly. That's no, that's suspicious. So then, of course, with that, her being missing and him being arrested a few days before she goes missing. There's no There's no court case he was arrested, right? But there's no victim. The family is talks about that a little bit of evidence in the case against the boyfriend from a paramedic and forensic nurse was strong enough to convict him without testimony from Jessica, she was missing when the bench trial took place in December court records show. This is how the family describes him. So again, I've talked about this before, you don't necessarily have to have the victim present during a domestic violence situation. That's why you interview and they did a good job, they interviewed the paramedic who was coming in willing to testify probably to the nature of her injuries, and maybe to what some of the stuff that she was saying, and then you had a forensic nurse that was willing, really to credible people that would we like to say would fill in, because the victim, one doesn't show up, or in this case, she's she doesn't have a chance to show up. But they decided not to go forward with court. And which is just so it's just so disturbing. And it's just when I was in domestic violence man, you you, you knew that the chances of the victim showing up for court were really, really low. You knew that. So when you got to the scene, and you did these interviews, you tried to do them so precisely, to get as much evidence and as much testimony or recount of what happened from the victim, because you were going to have to sit in the victims place when you got on the stand as the detective and say, Well, when I interviewed her, you know, and that's how you're supposed to investigate those cases and investigate it, like you know, that the victim is not going to show up. That's how you need to investigate our juries and formed of that fact that the victim rarely will say, Well, what and the reasons why well, you hope that they are but they're not informed during the trial. mean, you can't sit there. And so that's what I mean with during the trial, you would you would hope that they would be like the percentage of time that victims show up to cases is this. These are the reasons why. Yeah, now proceed. Right. You can't do that, though. I mean, it seems only fair that well remember, there should be some context for jurors who may not know that it will remember in the one case that I had where my victim who dialed 911. And then she later ended up getting killed. They wouldn't let the 911 tape in because she was dead. She couldn't testify that she was the one that caught my eye. It just makes no sense that makes no system and it's not even, that's not even a fair trial. Because that's it that's eliminating crucial evidence. And it's the system in my opinion is is set to protect the perpetrator way more than the victim. It just is seems like it's always been that way. When someone's raped. It's usually the victim that's on trial, or often it used to be more so Right? Or is it still the same? It's usually the victim. Yeah, it's still the same. So the sister kind of describes the boyfriend again, and this is textbook. He was controlling and obsessive. He wasn't a good guy. The family believes her boyfriend may have been involved in her disappearance or have knowledge of what happened. Now think about the second he just beat her up a few days before he could have I think he's probably involved. The the height of their argument would be done right? The emotions of that night would probably be done right. So if he was trying to kill her and beat her really bad, he doesn't have that rage if you fast forward three or four days, but then he starts to get worried about court. Right? So here's a motive of why to try to get rid of her because he may have been afraid that he was coming to court. So it just changes from the emotions of beating someone that you say that you love, you know that goes away and then you just get worried you get worried oh my god, I beat her up pretty good. She's gonna go to court I'm gonna go to jail and like I said, because they haven't released his name. I don't know what kind of history he has, but it won't it wouldn't I We guarantee my paycheck that that's not the first time he beat her, you know, so there would be priors, probably, hopefully so. So he called the family and said that he couldn't find her, of course, the family is calling. And he's trying to say that he went up and down Washington Street, he ends up calling mom and says that I can't find her. That's the last phone call that he ever made to the family of the victim. Never, ever called. For a man who was obsessively calling for my daughter, it was unusual. There were efforts to make to the man by this publication to try to interview him. But he didn't respond. And as of right now, he is not charged. With a crime in connection with Jessica's disappearance, he obviously wasn't charged in the crime of her of him beating her. So that's where we're at on this case. And I was really hoping, you know, not just to have the family come on, but you know, because even this article, even they even though they did quotations of the family, saying, Yeah, she did have prior drug, you know, you're, you're still kind of casting kind of a dark cloud. And so I really wanted the family to come on and, and talk a little bit about what she was, you know, what she was like, they spread it out a little bit, they gave a little pieces that she was, you know, trying to get her life turned around, but just to kind of get a little bit more information, what she was really like, but to figure out the only one that has motive at this point, is the boyfriend but then she's she over almost overdoses, or, you know, overdoses enough to go to the hospital was that when she tried to commit suicide because of beating where she just took too much drug because she couldn't handle the domestic violence in her life. That those two guys at the gas station today abductor because that's the last time anyone saw her was there. You know, you have all of the obviously she was in a vulnerable state. And she obviously state obviously she was so this case is intriguing, in a lot of ways, but in like I said at the beginning that's assigned to a missing persons detective homicide isn't looking for it. I mean, statistically, you know, is there a chance that I would love to interview mom and interview is there? Is there a chance that she would run away from her life? What I can see from right now is, you know, it doesn't doesn't appear that way. She has to connect No, because she stayed connected, in spite of all the other circumstances. And all of her her addiction and etc. But also, she two small kids, she was a mom of two small kids, I really don't. I can't imagine that. Well, you have to think at this point. Like, just, you know, thinking about it, like she was, you know, like, I kind of agree with the family, she was probably abducted, you know, and taken somewhere because she didn't overdose anywhere close to the area, because she would have been found, you know, she just wouldn't. It's, you know, so just abductions are just so rare to like, just abducting somebody, and then you know, and maybe she was abducted and, and taken somewhere and killed and she's buried somewhere. I mean, that's, that is what I would think right now, right? But that's why you gotta go back. And especially now we're 10 years into this, there's got to be new information, there's got to be things that they've heard and, and they're, you know, they're disappointed in law enforcement. Because we this, this seems to be a common thread. It's, this is the thing I know, it's, I don't know, everything that the detective has, right? You know, and it's when it's a missing person, and then it's an adult, it makes things difficult, right? Because adults have the right to leave and how many man hours and things are you going to, you know, put on hopefully they did their due diligence, but then you start to learn the history of the drugs and I don't know if that just makes the case. You know, it puts it to the back of the pile or what but, man, I just can't believe she hasn't been found like that. That really floors me, I just, you know, I just haven't had a case where it's like, you can't find the victim. You know, it may take a little bit they may be shot and burned up or buried but man just to not have wrenchy you know, it doesn't sound like she had a lot of resources. If she's walking everywhere. It sounded like she didn't have a car. You know, so anyways, it's a sad case. I you know, I wanted to get it out there. I wanted to talk about it. If anybody has any information 3173 to seven tips, Crimestoppers, you can be anonymous. There's a reward. Somebody knows something. I would be on the boyfriend like flies on shit man because She's the one with the motive. Absolutely. And you don't know too I mean if there's drugs connection she owes people money. I mean, you have to look into all that but it doesn't. Her past doesn't diminish the importance of trying to find her. That's the whole point. Right? That's the whole point. And if she owed people money, what good is she dead? Which is that but I know that happens you know, gangsters if they don't get paid, they kill. But it doesn't make any like, then what me? Well, I don't even think gangsters, this type of neighborhood this is you know, it's just no no, I'm just saying as an example, I know people kill other people when they don't pay their bills. I know that it's something that happens in those cultures. However, what is the point of it if you kill somebody, they're definitely never gonna pay you. Yeah. So anyways, if anybody has any information, please reach out to imp reach out to me. We are trying to answer the question of what happened to Jessica massacre. I appreciate everybody listening and please rate and review and we will see you next time on murder with Mannina. If you have a cold case you'd like Chris to review, submitted through our website at murder with mannina.com and follow us on Instagram and Facebook at murder with mannina and Twitter at murder W mannina. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of murder with mannina