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1:01

Hey everybody, I'm Dennis

1:03

Murphy and you have reached Talking Dateline.

1:06

And our guest today is Blaine Alexander,

1:08

my colleague. And she's going to be

1:10

talking about her most recent episode, which

1:12

was called The Pin at Apartment 210.

1:14

Hey Blaine, how are you? Dennis, I'm

1:16

so good. I'm so glad to join you, my

1:18

friend. How are you? Good. You know, you

1:21

had me all the way through right from the beginning.

1:23

I wanted to see what happened next. And boy,

1:25

once you set those horses running, this is a great

1:27

story. Thank you so much. And I want to

1:29

talk about it, but let's do a little recap first

1:31

for people who haven't seen it yet. It's

1:33

about 22 -year -old Jasmine

1:35

Jazzy Pace. She went missing

1:37

around Thanksgiving of 2022. And

1:40

her mom, Katrina, knew that something

1:42

was terribly wrong. When authorities weren't

1:44

giving her the answer she wanted,

1:46

she took matters into her own

1:48

hands, even against police recommendations. And

1:51

for this Talking Dateline, we have an extra clip

1:53

from an interview with a juror in this case, talking

1:55

about her experience coming to a verdict

1:57

back during that emotional trial, and it was.

2:00

Okay, so let's dive in and talk Dateline.

2:02

Blaine, the hardest thing I've always felt

2:04

in being a Dateline correspondent is sitting in

2:06

a chair, talking to a

2:08

family member who has lost someone who

2:10

was taken in such an ugly

2:13

fashion way too soon. Tell me about

2:15

cousin Jackie. Jackie was incredible.

2:17

Jackie is somebody that, I mean, she really was kind

2:19

of like the heart and soul of our story.

2:21

She's been a lot of time just kind of talking

2:23

to us about Jazzy. The two were very close.

2:25

I mean, they were very, very close. And from the

2:27

very beginning, you kind of noticed that, you know,

2:29

when they were together, when they were mourning granny, they

2:32

were the two that said, no, we got to

2:34

make sure our moms are okay. got to do this.

2:36

So they were kind of If you have that

2:38

person in the family that you're like, okay, we're going

2:40

to take care of things, that was Jackie and

2:42

Jazzy. That's kind of the feel I got from them.

2:44

But what a heaping plate full of

2:46

grief this family had put on them.

2:49

Here was their great -grandmother, very beloved figure

2:51

in the family, and all of a

2:53

sudden they're gathered at her hospital bed

2:55

saying goodbye. And then

2:57

a few days later, Jazzy goes missing. It

2:59

was, it was unthinkable, Dennis. I mean, I

3:01

think that, yes, Granny had had cancer. She

3:04

was in remission. They thought she was fine.

3:06

And then basically that morning, I mean, it

3:08

went from, hey, I'm not really feeling that

3:10

well. Let me go to the hospital to,

3:12

boom, she's gone. I mean, it's, it's, it's

3:14

jarring. It's, it's kind of whiplash for anybody.

3:16

And then, yes, that was the last time

3:19

that their family saw Jazzy. You know, they

3:21

kind of talk about the fact that. They're

3:23

grateful that they were able to gather for

3:26

Granny because all of the family got to

3:28

see Jazzy and then she was gone. But

3:30

later Jackie told me, you know, when we

3:32

were talking, she said later they realized we

3:34

never got a chance to mourn Granny because

3:36

immediately they were into finding and then mourning

3:38

Jazzy. So it really was just a hard

3:40

time for them. And still is. Who

3:42

did Jazzy turn out to be? Do you

3:45

blame them or you found out about her?

3:47

And you guys had remarkable photos that videos

3:49

were as good as any collection of gallery

3:51

of those kinds of things that I've seen. It

3:53

really evoked a sense of who she was. I

3:56

think so. And I'm glad you felt that too, Dennis,

3:58

because I think that that was one of the things

4:00

that really stood out about this. There were tons

4:02

of videos about her. I mean, it's 2022. She's

4:05

young. She's very online, if you will.

4:07

And so finding videos and pictures wasn't

4:09

a hard thing to come by. She

4:12

was vivacious. She was excited about life. I

4:14

mean, she was kind of in this place

4:16

where, hey, I'm going to school. I'm

4:18

getting, you know, my eyes into what I really

4:20

want to do with my life. She loved people.

4:22

She loved her family. And I think that's something

4:24

that stood out too. Because you can think about

4:26

going off to college, you get kind of absorbed

4:28

in your friends and your life. And maybe I'll

4:30

talk to my mom every three days or

4:32

whatever. No, she was very, very close to

4:34

her family. So that's why they knew immediately

4:36

when she wasn't answering and things like that,

4:38

that wasn't. Well, what happened,

4:41

Blaine? I mean, Granny suddenly dies,

4:43

the family is in grief, and it's

4:45

about to be Thanksgiving. When did

4:47

they start to become alarmed about Jazzy,

4:49

and where is Jazzy? Different

4:52

times. And so, for instance, this happened the

4:54

Tuesday before Thanksgiving. They were all expecting to

4:56

see her on Thanksgiving, and she didn't come.

4:58

So they get some messages from her phone

5:00

saying, hey, I'm going to go with my

5:02

friend Emma, you know, out

5:04

of town with her family. They said,

5:06

that's... like Jazzy. That's very weird. This

5:09

was an important family time and Jazzy needed

5:11

to be at that table. Exactly, exactly.

5:13

But also it was after they realized, okay,

5:15

no one's talked to her. She's only been

5:17

texting us. And so that's when, I mean,

5:19

to this family's immense credit, that's when their

5:21

antenna started going up and they said, okay,

5:23

let's look at her phone records, let's call

5:25

Emma, let's see what's going on. And the

5:27

more and more they started to dig, that's

5:30

when they realized now something's wrong. And, you

5:32

know, I think that this is one thing

5:34

that the family told us and

5:36

will tell us, they didn't believe that they were getting

5:38

the help from police, that they would

5:40

have liked to have in those early

5:42

hours, those early days. Was that a

5:44

fair, a fair assessment? The cops needed

5:46

a fire put under them and they weren't getting

5:48

it? You know, we asked the detective about that and we

5:50

asked him about that when we had him in the

5:52

chair. And basically he said that they did as they

5:54

should, that he didn't say that they

5:57

did anything wrong with their response, that they

5:59

were responsive. But of course, when it's

6:01

your loved one that's missing. you want

6:03

heaven and earth to be moved to

6:05

find them. I thought it was absolutely

6:07

fascinating to be witnessing this dialogue in

6:09

real time between the family members and

6:11

the police officers with their body cams

6:13

at the place with the condo parking

6:15

lot, I guess, where the vehicle had

6:17

been ditched. You see in real time, the

6:20

grief, their fight to understand

6:22

what's happening. They need help. They need somebody

6:24

on their side. And the cop

6:26

maybe, you know, justifiably at that point is saying,

6:28

look, it's the middle of the night, but Family

6:30

weirdly wasn't taking it. You

6:33

know I and I should say Jackie

6:35

was kind of the spokesperson Jackie Gabby They

6:37

spoke Katrina didn't want to speak with

6:39

us for this episode completely understandably but my

6:41

hats off to her and my heart

6:43

went out to her because When I saw

6:45

her in that parking lot and everything

6:47

that she was just kind of spinning through

6:49

her mind and let's do this Let's

6:51

do this. What can we do? I said

6:53

that's a mom, right? Like I immediately

6:55

identified with her because you're thinking through everything,

6:58

but especially when you think your child is

7:00

in danger. She said, okay, we can't do this.

7:02

Can we get security video? Can we go

7:04

to these gas stations and ask these people? Can

7:06

we, I mean, they were asking the security

7:08

of the apartment, like the way that her mind

7:10

was thinking under duress, under stress of what

7:12

can I do next was impressive. I'm

7:15

not doubt about how they took this whole thing and

7:17

became their own detectives. I'm thinking, how did they know

7:19

how to do that? How did they know how to

7:21

do this? But this is all about living in the

7:23

digital world and the footprints we leave around, isn't it?

7:25

That's exactly it. The first thing that really impressed me

7:27

was when they had this phone number, right? And they

7:29

said, OK, who could it be? And Jackie immediately said,

7:31

well, I'm going to type it into my cash app,

7:33

right? Everyone who uses cash app knows. You know, I

7:35

wonder about that, Blake. What is cash app? And why

7:38

would you think to do that first? So

7:40

cash app, if I were to send you

7:42

$50 because you're amazing, I would send it to

7:44

you. Absolutely. You deserve more than 50, by

7:46

the way. But I would send you $50 and

7:48

I'd send it. via cash app, right? I'd

7:50

say, what's your cash app? You would probably give

7:52

me your phone number and I'd put it

7:55

in and then Dennis Murphy would pop up if

7:57

you're registered with cash app. So I could

7:59

take theoretically any phone number and most people, I

8:01

think it's safe to say, are on Cash

8:03

App at this point. So you can type in

8:05

their phone number and up pops their Cash

8:07

App ID. So that's kind of a very quick

8:09

way to identify someone. I mean, in the

8:11

old days, you would have to, like, look through

8:13

a phone book, I guess. I don't know.

8:15

Google a phone number, maybe. Get a goose quill

8:17

pen out. Yeah, it was a different era. Send

8:20

a carrier pigeon up to the heavens

8:22

to figure out where it is. But

8:24

I think that this, you know, Cash App and

8:27

also Zell, you could type it into Zell. That's, you

8:29

know, tied to a phone number. So how did

8:31

that app answer back? What would she learn? So once

8:33

you put it in, the name

8:35

Jason Chen popped up. And that was enough to

8:37

give them really a thread to start pulling on.

8:39

And that's kind of what came down to it.

8:41

So Jazzy had been hanging out with him, you

8:43

know, kind of on and off, dating loosely, if

8:45

you will. They took a trip to Chicago, but

8:47

her mom knew the name. And so her mom

8:49

immediately said, yep, I know who that is. And,

8:51

you know, was off to the races. So

8:54

Jazzy is missing. Her car is missing.

8:56

And they went looking for the vehicle, didn't

8:58

they? They went looking for the vehicle

9:00

and they found it. You know, there's one

9:02

piece that didn't make it into the

9:04

story, Dennis, that I thought was interesting when

9:06

I was talking to Gabby, uh, Jazzy's

9:08

half -sister, who was there for the parking

9:10

lot and the going into the apartment and

9:12

all of that. She told me that

9:14

when they found the SUV, she looked in

9:17

the window and she said she noticed

9:19

that the seat was pushed all the way

9:21

back. So that indicates that a tall

9:23

person was driving it. And she said, Jazzy's

9:25

short, Jazzy's tiny. There's no reason that

9:27

the seat would need to be pushed all

9:29

the way back. So she said, that

9:31

was her first indication of, okay, my sister

9:33

wasn't driving this. How sharp and how

9:35

observant is Gabby, huh? Very, absolutely. And so

9:37

I think that all of them had

9:39

their different moments where they realized something's wrong,

9:41

something's off. That was Gabby's moment for

9:43

sure. But then when Katrina, Jazzy's

9:45

mom found that pin that she

9:47

had sent her, I can't

9:50

imagine anything. more heartbreaking than

9:52

to discover that several days after. On

9:54

the timeline of her disappearance, Blaine,

9:56

when does that happen? This pin drop

9:58

message. It was at 2 .18 in

10:00

the morning on the Wednesday, early

10:02

Wednesday morning. So the last time our

10:04

family saw her was that Tuesday.

10:06

night at the hospital. And

10:08

what prosecutors pieced together is that after that,

10:10

she had her long phone call with Jason Chin,

10:12

eventually goes over to his apartment. And

10:15

then in the overnight hours, like

10:17

around the 2 a .m .ish hour, that's

10:19

when she sent that pin. And

10:21

that was also within three minutes of

10:23

when Jason Chin's neighbors told the

10:25

family that they heard a scream come

10:27

from the apartment. And so you

10:29

know that something happened in that time frame

10:31

that that jazzy realized one she's in trouble i

10:34

need to call for help she obviously couldn't

10:36

do much but the best she could do was

10:38

send a pen and it's something you can

10:40

do on an apple watch to even if you

10:42

don't have your phone beside you so somehow

10:44

she was able to send off a pen i

10:46

want to say something about the pen to

10:48

because i think some viewers may wonder like how

10:50

did you. not see that. How did

10:52

you not see this text from your daughter? One,

10:55

it came in the wee morning hours. But

10:57

two, remember, this happened after Granny

10:59

died, the person who raised her. So Katrina

11:01

was getting this kind of deluge of all

11:03

of these. sympathetic texts, oh my god,

11:05

I'm so sorry. You know, what can I

11:07

do for you? All these texts are coming through.

11:09

And so Jazzy's texts got lost in there.

11:11

That's kind of how Jackie explained it to me.

11:14

Terrible for Katrina to realize later that she

11:16

missed it. But that's kind of what

11:18

happened there. So the pin, she sees the

11:20

pin, they're like, oh my gosh, let's

11:22

follow this pin. It takes them to the

11:24

apartment and specifically in front of apartment

11:26

210. Blaine, we're going to pause for a

11:28

moment. But when we come back, we're

11:30

going to hear an extra bit of sound

11:32

from that juror. who will tell us

11:34

about what was going through their minds with

11:36

this decision they had to make about

11:38

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questionable skills may be. And what if

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all booming together with the Xfinity Gateway. Yes,

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friends and neighbors, with Xfinity, the

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Wi -Fi is booming! Restrictions apply. So

13:11

now the family is armed with this

13:13

pin that takes them right to the

13:15

front of the door to... ten and

13:17

the neighbors that say they heard something.

13:19

So who lives in 210, Blaine? Jason

13:21

Chen. That's what they find out. Jason

13:23

Chen lives inside that apartment. Somebody gets

13:25

the bright idea to go back out

13:27

to the car, find their credit card,

13:30

and do a break -in and get

13:32

into apartment 210. And I have

13:34

to say, Dennis, if I ever needed to get

13:36

into an apartment or a locked door, I wouldn't

13:38

know what to do. Would you naturally know to

13:40

just get a credit card and pop the lock?

13:42

I'm one who doesn't know what cash app is,

13:44

so no. I

13:46

mean, I've seen it, you know, that you're supposed

13:48

to be able to burgle a door with

13:50

a credit card, but that they had the knowledge

13:52

and the foresight and the guts to go

13:54

ahead and charge into this thing. skill. It's just...

13:56

Yeah. I mean, even if I'd seen it

13:58

on like a TV show, I wouldn't have known

14:00

how to take the credit card and actually

14:02

jimmy the lock open. Blaine, what did they find

14:05

inside? The first thing that the family saw

14:07

was Jazzy's overnight bag. And so that was to

14:09

them saying, OK, she's been here. I know

14:11

my daughter's bag. That's her bag. That was number

14:13

one. They found a driver's license. They found

14:15

several credit cards. And then they said they found

14:17

a series of other cell phones, just a

14:19

bunch of cell phones. All of that made them

14:21

say there's something going on here. And they

14:23

called police. The police take that. They

14:25

obviously turn it over to the detectives, but they

14:27

also say to the family, don't do

14:29

this again. can't go inside

14:31

this apartment, don't go back inside. Now,

14:33

once police got involved and they ended

14:36

up going into the apartment, that's where

14:38

they really did the real police work,

14:40

right? I mean, they obviously were going

14:42

around seeing, I talked to the detective

14:44

and he saw that heel print where

14:46

it looked like someone was wearing socks,

14:49

stepped in blood and then left kind of like

14:51

a transfer from the sock print just a little

14:53

bit. But it was enough for him to say,

14:55

okay, we need to get crime scene in here. And

14:58

maybe we should say, Blaine, well, there

15:00

is criticism that they were slow in getting

15:02

up to speed once they had reason

15:04

for their authority. They did very, very well

15:06

at this thing. They did. That's when

15:08

they bring in the crime scene investigators to

15:10

come in and they spray. They basically

15:12

have a chemical that reacts when there's the

15:15

presence of blood. And so they sprayed

15:17

it on the floor just to see, is

15:19

there any more blood? And that's

15:21

when they said about a third

15:23

of the floor lit up, which is

15:25

which is stunning. There was blood

15:27

in almost every corner of the apartment

15:29

as the detective said to me.

15:31

He said that there was blood on

15:33

the bathroom floors, blood on the

15:35

main area floors, but also there was

15:38

blood splatter kind of on the

15:40

wall. So he said that indicates obviously

15:42

something very violent, right? And there's

15:44

an unforgettable sound bite from your your

15:46

officer, which is we have now

15:48

gone past a missing persons investigation. This

15:50

is a homicide. How chilling is that?

15:53

This is a homicide. They

15:55

said that when they saw that, they

15:57

said that whatever happened, there's no way

15:59

that whoever was the victim could have

16:01

survived that because of just how much

16:03

blood there was. And so, yes, it's

16:05

a very unusual place for detectives to

16:07

be in. There was nobody. There

16:09

was no suspect there. No one had confessed, but

16:12

they knew just from the sheer amount of blood

16:14

that had been lost that they were dealing with

16:16

a death, a homicide. So the

16:18

question then, I guess, is Jason, where

16:20

is he? That's exactly it. Give

16:22

me a quick thumbnail of who Jason

16:24

is. What's the little biography? So

16:26

Jason Chen is son of Chinese immigrants.

16:29

He was somebody who was at University of

16:31

Tennessee, Chattanooga, student there, been there for

16:33

a couple of years, and he was a

16:35

CompSci major, computer science. And so this

16:37

is somebody who obviously knows their way around.

16:40

phones, technology. He, meanwhile, has ended up back at

16:42

his parents where the cops do a knock,

16:44

knock, knock and there's Jason. They knock and then

16:46

it's, you know, it's just outside of Nashville.

16:48

Parents come down first, according to the detective. And

16:51

essentially, you know, they kind of talk

16:53

to him and finally Jason comes down and,

16:55

you know, says, hey, here I am.

16:57

And the other thing is they took him

16:59

back. They had some warrants to, you

17:01

know, get like DNA, just different things that

17:03

they could get from him and then

17:05

ultimately issue the arrest warrants. At that point,

17:08

is he giving anything up? No. police

17:10

never did an interview with him because he

17:12

didn't, you know, he refused to talk

17:14

and refused to give any sort of information.

17:16

But the phone told the story, didn't

17:18

it? The phone told the story and I

17:20

think that it's, again, without... these kind

17:22

of digital pieces, he very likely wouldn't have

17:24

been arrested. And it takes a while

17:26

for a case to get to court. I

17:28

think people maybe don't understand that it's

17:30

often two years from the time that a

17:32

story is in the newspapers to when

17:35

it's actually before a judge and a jury.

17:37

Yes. And it took fully that long to

17:39

get this case into court. It

17:41

did. I'm wondering, Blaine, about this

17:43

whole notion of pre -child rulings

17:46

about what the jury can hear

17:48

about the evidence. And this is

17:50

this whole thing of, You know,

17:52

that maybe the family jumped the gun by

17:54

going into that apartment before the authorities and is

17:56

everything going to get thrown out? you have

17:58

any insight on how that all went? Well, it

18:00

was kind of a double -edged sword because that's

18:02

the first thing that Jason Chen's attorney went

18:04

after. He doesn't believe that should be admitted. From

18:07

the prosecution side, you know, I

18:09

asked District Attorney General Cody Wamp. She

18:12

said, listen, there is no question that

18:14

that was crucial, what the family found.

18:16

But on the other side of that,

18:18

yes, that did kind of make things

18:20

more I don't know, vulnerable

18:22

if it wasn't admitted. So there were a

18:24

lot of hearings back and forth on that.

18:26

Ultimately the judge did decide to admit it

18:28

and the prosecution was off to the races

18:30

after that. And of course the defense attorney

18:33

surprised everyone in the courtroom right in his

18:35

very opening. He gave it up.

18:37

What did he say? He is guilty, but

18:39

he's not guilty of specifically what you're

18:41

saying. And so I think the question

18:43

was never did Jason Chen end the

18:45

life of Jasmine Pace, right? The defense

18:47

attorney said that from jump. More

18:49

so, what were the circumstances that

18:52

led to that? Was it premeditated as

18:54

the prosecution was the defense strategy,

18:56

I guess, is let's go for a

18:58

lesser here. We do not want

19:00

a conviction on murder one premeditated. Maybe

19:02

we can argue it all the

19:04

way down to manslaughter. That's exactly it.

19:07

That's what he was trying to

19:09

do. The story that the defense wove

19:11

was that there was an argument

19:13

that was sparked because Jazzy heard the

19:15

phone ding, and it

19:17

was tinder, basically, him talking to other

19:19

women, according to the defense, that she

19:21

got upset, that they fought, there was

19:23

broken glass, and she came at him

19:25

with broken glass, and that he had

19:27

no choice but to defend himself. And

19:29

Blaine, this is very often a difficult

19:31

concept for jurors to get their heads

19:34

around. What is premeditation? How

19:36

long do you need to plan your action

19:38

to realize, I know what I'm going to do

19:40

is wrong, I'm going to go ahead and

19:42

do it anyway. Is that

19:44

in an instant? Does it take minutes? Jurors

19:47

seem to want to put premeditation

19:49

on a timeline and it's not an

19:51

easy concept. It's not. And I

19:54

think the prosecution kind of had this

19:56

burden of saying, here's what this

19:58

is. It doesn't necessarily mean that you

20:00

sat and thought for weeks and

20:02

planned this out and wrote out every

20:04

detail. But it more so means

20:06

that in some way you had foresight,

20:09

right? That you thought about this

20:11

and before committing this crime. And

20:13

so that was the argument that they were

20:15

trying to make. Blaine, you had

20:17

a chance to talk to at least one

20:19

juror after the trial. And the issue was,

20:21

what were you guys going through? Take me

20:23

into the room. And it was

20:25

juror number 11, a woman named Sarah.

20:27

Let's listen to a little of that

20:29

and see what she has to say.

20:32

It came down to premeditation, which that

20:34

all the way up to the very

20:36

end, the very ending closing statement from

20:38

DA Moyle or General Moyle. And I

20:40

think, I know for sure that red

20:42

light analogy that that

20:44

Moyle gave is what really helped me understand

20:46

the premeditation side of it and it's

20:48

that essentially we've all been faced with this

20:50

choice when we're driving a car and

20:53

you come to a yellow light you can

20:55

either step on the gas and go

20:57

through it or step on the brake and

20:59

stop and that there's so many factors

21:01

that go into that you're taking on other

21:03

traffic coming by they're considering other people

21:05

walking is there are you late we have

21:07

all of these things that go through

21:09

our mind in a split second to decide

21:12

to go through it or hit the

21:14

break. And that's all it takes is

21:16

a split second to decide. And just,

21:18

you know, just like making that quick decision

21:20

to stop at a yellow light, it's,

21:22

you know, that really was

21:24

what helped me solidify. Like there

21:26

was so many opportunities to

21:29

stop. I always struck that jurors don't get

21:31

a manual on how to be a jury. Especially,

21:33

Dennis, when you're kind of

21:35

confronted with legal terms, right?

21:37

Like premeditation and things like that, that you have

21:39

to sort through. I thought that that was a

21:41

fascinating way to look at it of, yes, everyone

21:44

has been in a car where you get to

21:46

a yellow light and it's like, do I got

21:48

it and keep going? Do I slam on the

21:50

brakes? What do I do? And so that's really

21:52

kind of a way to think about it there.

21:54

And again, I think the sheer number of wounds

21:56

really also kind of helped to nudge it into

21:58

the premeditation column because, yes, you

22:01

can get to 25 stabs. Let me stop.

22:03

Like, you know what I mean? There are many

22:05

chances to kind of to to make a

22:07

different decision. How long was that you're out playing?

22:09

Not long, I don't think. Less than an

22:11

hour. Wow. 40 something minutes.

22:13

I mean really very quickly.

22:15

It was a very quick Conviction

22:17

there. Any reaction from him?

22:20

No, none. He was Everybody that

22:22

I've spoken to says that

22:24

he was very kind of stone

22:26

faced. He would look down according to

22:28

the prosecution. It looked like he was

22:30

looking down, but there was a monitor

22:32

that showed some of the evidence. So

22:34

he was looking at that. The only

22:36

reaction from my understanding of talking to

22:38

people who were there that he showed

22:40

was when his family or his mother

22:42

was mentioned. His mother took the stand

22:44

during the sentencing phase and basically kind

22:46

of pleaded for leniency for her son.

22:49

Didn't happen but he did show

22:51

some reaction when she spoke and

22:53

then also when cousin Jackie said

22:55

another victim here is your mom,

22:57

Emily. Jackie's statement, victim

22:59

impact statement was very moving. She

23:02

took a glass jar and we kind

23:04

of showed it in the episode

23:06

but you don't get the full effect.

23:08

She took a glass jar and

23:10

she took 60 stones and one by

23:12

one put them in the jar. And

23:15

that represented each one of the

23:17

stab wounds that Jazzy had, just to

23:19

show the sheer amount of times

23:21

that he stabbed her, right? And then

23:23

she began her statement. So to

23:25

do that silently and then kind of

23:28

begin her statement was really powerful. Up

23:30

next, we're going to take some of your questions

23:32

to us from social media. A

23:39

true crime story never really

23:41

ends. Even when a case

23:43

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23:45

those left behind is just beginning. Since

23:48

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23:59

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25:20

Settings. Blaine

25:24

Goodall, analog Murphy here, thinks about the letters

25:26

we get from our viewers. Of course, they're

25:28

not letters. People are commenting very often when

25:30

your story runs about what they thought. We've

25:32

called out a few reactions to your

25:34

story. Do you want to go through

25:37

them and tell me what your take

25:39

is on it? I would love it.

25:41

We heard from Dateline viewer Valerie Lynn

25:43

Smith -Bowen. She wrote us, I

25:45

would have done exactly what her mama and

25:47

family did. Yes. I don't think that there's a

25:49

parent in the world that would disagree with

25:51

that. that, you know, hey, my child is missing.

25:53

What do I need to do? Doesn't matter

25:55

what I'm doing. I'm going to do it to

25:57

find them. Absolutely. And then

25:59

there was Jude -Marie Goudreau. I hope

26:01

I'm getting the pronunciation right. She says,

26:03

I bet her mom thinks about

26:05

that pin every single day. My

26:07

heart goes out to her. That's what's

26:09

so sad. that they missed it or

26:12

the implication that they missed it. That

26:14

she missed it, right? And you have

26:16

to think, even as a parent going

26:18

through something like this, or anyone loses

26:20

a love when you think a billion

26:22

what -ifs, but when you have something

26:24

that that is that strong of a

26:26

what -if, of a possibility, that has to

26:28

be just devastating for her, truly. Another

26:30

viewer, two more perfect, went back to

26:32

that apartment building when the screen was

26:34

heard. Why would you write down

26:37

the scream time but you don't call

26:39

the police? That's exactly what

26:41

Cousin Jackie said to me. If it was

26:43

startling enough to you to make you

26:45

write down the time but not call for

26:47

help, you wonder where that decision was

26:49

made, why that decision was made. We weren't

26:51

able to speak to them, but that

26:54

is certainly a good question that the family

26:56

has and that I had as well.

26:58

Paulette Haywood asked something I always ask when

27:00

we finish these stories. It's not so,

27:02

it's not that difficult to answer the who

27:04

question, the why question is much more

27:06

difficult. And Paulette says, what on earth was

27:08

the motive? Blaine, what do you think?

27:11

That is the biggest piece of all of

27:13

this, Dennis. I mean, there wasn't one.

27:15

I think that when we do stories and

27:17

it's like, oh, husband catches wife cheating

27:19

on him and he goes crazy and kills

27:21

her. Oh, someone wanted insurance money. And

27:23

so they do it for that or whatever

27:26

it may be. at least you

27:28

can kind of wrap your head around it. This, I

27:30

mean, for all intents and purposes,

27:32

the prosecution said the same thing. It

27:35

seemed that he just wanted to

27:37

kill her. That's all that it was.

27:39

Which is not a satisfying answer,

27:41

is it? It's a terrifying answer because

27:43

there's not a You think about

27:45

people that you meet just in general,

27:47

right? You meet tons of new

27:49

people every day, and you don't know what's going

27:51

on in their mind. You don't know what's going

27:54

on behind their kind of normal facade of being

27:56

a student and a comp sign major, whatever it

27:58

may be. And this is one of those terrifying

28:00

examples. We didn't talk about it, but

28:02

apparently in the in the apartment or at

28:04

his parents' home, found a bunch of post -its,

28:06

notes to self about his timeline and keeping his

28:08

story straight. Yes. It seemed like he was,

28:10

according to detectives, it seemed like he was trying

28:12

to work out his alibi. And

28:14

so would write, OK, last talked to

28:16

her this day, or just different things, or if

28:18

police come, what to say to parents, or

28:20

those types of things, that he was kind of

28:22

jotting down notes of how to keep an

28:25

alibi straight. And he did everything wrong if the

28:27

subject was how to get away with murder. That's

28:29

exactly it, because he did not. Finally, Blaine,

28:31

we heard from Stephen with a pH. I like

28:33

that. Tonight's date line 10

28:35

is a case that happened right here. He's

28:37

shocked that he's watching this TV set

28:40

and there's streets that he knows and people

28:42

he knows and institutions and it's on

28:44

his TV set. It brings it home in

28:46

a way that's kind of shocking for

28:48

him. That's really interesting when we have viewers

28:50

who are very familiar with either the

28:52

story, the crime itself, or certainly the place

28:54

where it happened, right? Because for most

28:56

of our viewers, it's someplace that, you know,

28:58

Maybe they know they've traveled to, but

29:00

yes, when it's your city, when it's your

29:02

street, you can kind of see these

29:04

things on local news, perhaps. I know that

29:06

this was a case that was covered

29:08

locally, but I know that in the way

29:10

that we do this, trying to really

29:12

humanize the victim and tell more about the

29:14

person who was taken away, I

29:16

think that's our stories apart. So hopefully, even

29:18

if he had seen kind of like different coverage,

29:20

hopefully he learned more about who Jasmine Pace

29:22

was through our story. Well, Blaine,

29:24

congratulations. You and your team did

29:26

a remarkable job in pulling this whole thing

29:29

together and telling us who the victim was,

29:31

which is so important, the person that we

29:33

lost here. Thank you so much, Dennis. It

29:35

was truly an honor to get to know

29:37

her and know her through her family and

29:39

friends and learn more about her. And with

29:41

that, Blaine will put a button on this

29:43

edition of Talking Dateline. If you have any

29:45

questions for us about stories you've seen on

29:47

Dateline, you can reach us 24 -7 on social

29:49

media at Dateline NBC. So

29:51

that's it for right now. We'll see you again

29:53

on Friday, of course, as always on Dateline. And

29:56

thanks for joining us. Blaine, good to have

29:58

you. I'll see you all along the way. Thank

30:00

you, Dennis.