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Prepare yourself for one of the strangest true crime stories ever uncovered. In this video, we dive deep into the most bizarre murder case you’ve probably never heard of — filled with twists, disturbing details, and shocking revelations.
Discover how this unsolved mystery still haunts investigators and why this case remains one of the most talked-about in true crime circles. If you love murder mysteries, unsolved cases, and shocking real stories, you won’t want to miss this.
🔍 What you’ll see:
How the murder happened
The key suspects and theories
Why it remains unsolved
Chilling facts you won’t believe
👉 Subscribe for more shocking true crime videos, serial killer deep dives, and unsolved mysteries.
⚠️ Viewer discretion is strongly advised
Discover how this unsolved mystery still haunts investigators and why this case remains one of the most talked-about in true crime circles. If you love murder mysteries, unsolved cases, and shocking real stories, you won’t want to miss this.
🔍 What you’ll see:
How the murder happened
The key suspects and theories
Why it remains unsolved
Chilling facts you won’t believe
👉 Subscribe for more shocking true crime videos, serial killer deep dives, and unsolved mysteries.
⚠️ Viewer discretion is strongly advised
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CreativityTranscript
00:00Crime, conspiracy, cults, cold cases, and murder.
00:04All things I love to consume.
00:06And you like to consume them as well.
00:08I don't want to consume you,
00:10even though you do look delicious.
00:12Anyway, today we are going to be talking about
00:15the unsolved murder of Jeanette De Palma,
00:17one of the most bizarre and controversial
00:19homicide cases on record.
00:21And I wanted to talk about this case today
00:23because it is widely unknown,
00:25outside of the state of New Jersey.
00:27New Joisy, where Jay is from.
00:29Now, whether that was by design or mere coincidence,
00:32we'll never really know for sure.
00:33But this case is full of theories and rumored cover-ups.
00:37It's gonna be a big one, so buckle up, all right?
00:40If you were to believe one side,
00:41Jeanette would have been one of the first victims
00:43of a ritual occult murder in suburban America.
00:46And if you were to believe the other side,
00:48this case could be the earliest example of satanic panic.
00:51And for those of you who don't know,
00:52satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of
00:55over 12,000 absubstantiated cases of satanic ritual abuse,
00:59starting in the United States in the 1980s,
01:02spreading throughout many parts of the world
01:04through the 1990s and persisting to today.
01:07So let's get into the case of Jeanette De Palma.
01:09Let's unbuckle our seat belts, go Mach 5 down the highway,
01:12slam on the brakes, and deep dive through this windshield
01:15into this bizarre, unsolved murder case together.
01:35So let's start at the beginning and get to know the teenager
01:38who would be come to known as the girl on the mountain.
01:41Jeanette De Palma was born August 3rd, 1956.
01:44In Jersey City, New Jersey by Florence and Salvador De Palma.
01:48Florence was a homemaker and Salvador owned and operated
01:51a D&D auto salvage in Newark, New Jersey.
01:54Jeanette was the seventh child born
01:55in a large Italian Catholic family.
01:58Damn, that's a lot of kids.
02:00And that wouldn't be all.
02:01She would have a younger sister
02:03who would make the eighth child born the year following.
02:05And they would settle in Springfield, New Jersey
02:07in a large house at 4 Clearview Drive.
02:10And they bought it at the price of $65,000,
02:14which in today's money would be $500,000.
02:16Wow, that's quite expensive.
02:18And this family was looking forward to settling down
02:20and growing roots within this community.
02:22Located in the heart of Union City,
02:24the township of Springfield was formed
02:25in the late 18th century with its roots heavily planted
02:28in the American Revolution, whatever that means.
02:31And several decades later,
02:32Springfield would go from being a small town
02:35to the very affluent hustle and bustle town it is to this day.
02:39So the De Palmas were known as a more well-off family,
02:42living in a new affluent suburban area of Springfield's
02:45called Springfield Top.
02:47But they were known around the community
02:48to have what they called strange behavior.
02:51I'm gonna describe that to you right now,
02:53and you could be the judge of that.
02:55Several residents recall the family never leaving their home,
02:58and when they did, they would not talk to their neighbors.
03:01That's me. Am I strange? Am I str-
03:03Yeah, probably.
03:04But Springfield was one of those really close-knit communities
03:07where all the neighbors talked to each other.
03:08They really liked to gossip through this whole thing.
03:11You're gonna see how much these people gossip.
03:12It's f***ing insane.
03:13So for a family not to communicate with the rest of the community,
03:16it started to draw suspicious eyes.
03:18The De Palmas were also known to get into fights constantly.
03:21Salvador and Florence, especially, the parents.
03:24And their neighbors, being nosy as hell, would always call the cops on them,
03:28and they would go to the De Palmas house.
03:30But every time the cops would show up to their house,
03:32Florence would just shoo them away and say nothing's wrong.
03:35Salvador De Palma, the father, was also rumored to be part of the mafia.
03:40Uh-oh.
03:41The mob, if you will.
03:42So were other residents of Springfield Top,
03:45but it was never confirmed, so we don't actually know that.
03:48It could just be gossip.
03:49But this town was just, just full of gossip.
03:52So it's hard to take anything that couldn't be proven very seriously.
03:55But it just adds to the mystery stew that we're brewing, man.
03:58And this is a big f***ing stew.
04:00Once Jeanette grew into adolescence,
04:02she found herself the topic of the local gossip.
04:05She was rumored to be a wild child.
04:07Margaret Bandrowski...
04:10That's a hard name.
04:11Margaret Bra...
04:12Bra...
04:13She's...
04:14Margaret Bandrowski...
04:16There we go.
04:17A former teacher at Jeanette's high school would recall, quote-on-quote,
04:21Judging by what I heard from the other students,
04:23she was a little on the wild side.
04:25I don't know the specifics on what wild meant necessarily for her,
04:28but in those days, it usually meant that she hung around boys,
04:31maybe did some drugs, or smoked.
04:33Stuff like that.
04:34This is in Jersey, so I'm gonna be doing, like,
04:37a poor Jersey accent for all of, for all of these quote-on-quotes,
04:40because there's a lot of quotes.
04:41But this, this just sounds like a regular-ass teenager to me,
04:44and probably to all of you as well.
04:46That's like mild rebellious teenage, teenage behavior.
04:49But in this time, you know, the drugs and, and that kind of stuff was looked down on,
04:53but she wasn't even consuming any hard drugs,
04:55but we'll get into that a little bit more.
04:56Hello.
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06:28And let's get back to the deep dive.
06:30Some other local residents who were children at the time
06:32recall hearing about Jeanette being very promiscuous around town.
06:36And officer Kish, somebody who worked on Jeanette's case,
06:39would recall all the other officers at the station calling her a party girl
06:43because of one time they caught her in the back of a guy's car
06:46at a park and pulled her out.
06:48Which like, who hasn't been pulled out of a back of a guy's car
06:51just partying in the park, you know?
06:53We've all been there, okay?
06:55Except for me, I'm abstinence.
06:56But Jeanette's best friend at the time would say that
06:58that wasn't even Jeanette at the back of that guy's car.
07:01She was actually with her at the time.
07:02So Kish's recollection was just false.
07:04So the police are already making up stuff.
07:08The pot's doing, it's doing.
07:09In later interviews with officer Donald Schwart,
07:12he said he wasn't able to recollect ever even hearing about Jeanette
07:16before she was murdered or anybody calling her a party girl in the precinct.
07:20So it was really just Kish.
07:21It's my understanding that Kish really just liked the limelight during this case.
07:25He found that he could say anything and be in the spotlight.
07:29So I feel like we're going to be hearing a lot of bullshit from him,
07:33but you could be the judge of that.
07:34But besides the allegations that were coming from that one officer,
07:37Jeanette's friends recall her not being perfect by any means.
07:41She would hang out with boys.
07:42She would smoke cigarettes.
07:43She would sneak out just like any other teenager would at the time.
07:47And it would be heavily implied that she barely ever drank maybe once or twice.
07:52And she never did hard drugs because she was very, very against that.
07:56She would from time to time smoke the devil's lettuce.
07:58But that was very, very popular at the time for teenagers to be doing.
08:02And her friend said that she would never sought it out.
08:04She would just do it if she happened to be at a party where they were doing it.
08:07Her friend Grace DeMuro would describe her as,
08:09When you would start to talk to her, she was so sweet and honest and funny.
08:14Some of the other girls in our grade weren't so friendly to her because of that.
08:17But these girls wouldn't make an effort to be friendly with her.
08:20If Jeanette tried to be friendly with them, they would just ignore her.
08:23She didn't say that last part, but she said the rest.
08:26And a couple of her other fellow students at Dayton High would say,
08:29She never talked much and you had to lead the conversation.
08:32And if she did talk, it was only about her respective classes.
08:36This is one of the students talking, by the way.
08:38So she was, she was a bit of a recluse.
08:40She was like an introvert.
08:41She kept to herself.
08:42She only talked if she needed to.
08:44So I feel like people really, there was a lot of mystery behind Jeanette.
08:47And it just put people off besides her friends, of course.
08:50But her friends' recollections of her just seemed to portray Jeanette De Palma
08:54as an average rebellious teenager.
08:56Certainly by today's standards.
08:58I mean, kids are doing
09:00nowadays.
09:01Freaking eating Tide Pods and saying you to their mom.
09:05All right, they're crazy nowadays.
09:07But it was also at this time where Jeanette began telling her peers and her superiors
09:12that she wanted to start devoting her life to Christ.
09:14And her family was very religious and she was religious,
09:17but she noticed she was starting to veer off of this Christian path
09:21and she wanted to get back to that.
09:22So she openly said that she wanted to turn a new leaf on her life.
09:27But sadly, it was at this time where her life would come to an end
09:30on the afternoon of Monday, August 7th, 1972.
09:34So let's talk about the day of her disappearance.
09:37Like many other facets of Jeanette's life,
09:39the details of her final day on earth are pretty vague
09:43with several differing accounts of what happened.
09:45So we're going to go through all of them.
09:46So according to Jeanette's cousin, Lisa Grulick,
09:49the morning of her disappearance started out pretty normal
09:52and then went downhill pretty quickly.
09:54Lisa recalled that she was told by her parents,
09:56Jeanette's aunt and uncle,
09:57that Jeanette came downstairs from her room for breakfast that morning.
10:00And that's when she was told by her parents and her auntie and uncle
10:04that her cousin had gone missing.
10:05Her cousin being Lisa, who is telling us about the recollection.
10:08Lisa had been missing for quite some time at this point.
10:11Lisa explains that she had run away for about a month.
10:14At this point, an extended family didn't know anything about it.
10:17Only her immediate family knew about it.
10:19So it was this morning where they chose to tell
10:22Jeanette and the rest of their family.
10:23Lisa obviously came back from running away
10:26because we're getting this recollection.
10:27But at the time, Jeanette was absolutely pissed in her own right
10:32that her aunt and uncle didn't tell her about this previously
10:34because it had already been a f***ing month.
10:36What the f***?
10:37I'd be f***ing pissed if my mom didn't tell me
10:39about like my sister or even my cousin going missing.
10:42Like, I don't even understand that.
10:44Anyway, so being mad, she would leave the kitchen and go up to her room.
10:47Gail, one of Jeanette's other friends, would recollect
10:50that Jeanette called her right after this.
10:52And Jeanette would say to her that she wouldn't be able to come over anymore
10:55because her mother has her scrubbing the bathrooms all day.
10:58And Gail would be pissed because she's like,
10:59are you bailing on me, man?
11:01They were supposed to meet up with two other guys.
11:03And Gail was able to guilt trip her into coming.
11:06So Jeanette felt bad and she said, fine, fine.
11:09I'll come. I'll just come up with an excuse and I'll hitchhike over to your house.
11:12But this would be the last time Gail would ever hear from her friend.
11:15So after her phone call with Gail,
11:17Jeanette's sister Cindy recalled Jeanette coming to ask her
11:20if she wanted to hang out with Gail and the two boys.
11:23But Cindy denied because she was waiting at home for a phone call from her boyfriend
11:27because she had recently got into a fight with him.
11:30And she regrets that decision to this day.
11:32But Gail would later contradict Cindy's claim
11:35because when Jeanette asked Cindy to come hang out with Gail and these two boys,
11:39Jeanette said that her boyfriend Tommy would be there
11:42and that she'd like Cindy to meet him because she hadn't met him yet.
11:45And Gail would say that Jeanette didn't know anybody named Tommy
11:49and the only Tommy that Jeanette did know was Gail's boyfriend.
11:52I don't know what to think about that.
11:53But other friends of Jeanette would say that she did have a boyfriend at the time,
11:56but since he lived in a different area, nobody knew his name.
11:59So maybe it was Tommy. We don't really know.
12:02So Jeanette would tell her parents that she had a shift at her job
12:06at Brooke's department store later that night.
12:08So she had to go.
12:09But police and press would find out later
12:11that Jeanette actually never had a job at this book department.
12:14So we have to assume that she made up the fact that she had a job here
12:18and she probably did just to use it as an excuse
12:21so she could go out and hang out with friends
12:23or do whatever she wanted without her parents even asking about it.
12:25And her friends would confirm also that she never had a job at this store.
12:29But before Jeanette would leave the house to hitchhike,
12:31she would call one more friend to ask to join her,
12:34but her friend's mother would say no.
12:36So Jeanette would hang up the phone and tell her mother
12:38she was going to go to Summit Station to catch a ride to her shift.
12:41And Jeanette's mother Florence would say goodbye,
12:43not knowing that Jeanette was actually planning on hitchhiking to Gail's house
12:47and not knowing she would never see her daughter ever again.
12:50Now after Jeanette left her home,
12:51we don't know much detail of what happened next.
12:54We only know she made a pit stop at another friend's house, Donna Blattis.
12:58Supposedly Donna constantly had parties at her house.
13:01She was the party house.
13:02But although not confirmed by literally anyone that there was a party happening that night,
13:07rumors already started to spread that Jeanette might have OD'd at that party
13:11and the people at the party might have hid her body where it ended up being found.
13:15But that was debunked because there was no drugs found in her system.
13:19We'll get into that later as well.
13:20But it's just the start of the stew of the gossip in the town.
13:24So this would be the last place that Jeanette was seen.
13:27Because Donna Blattis would say that she left and she never saw her again either.
13:31So sometime late in the evening,
13:32Florence and Salvador began to feel uneasy about Jeanette not coming home yet.
13:37Because it got late, she would always call to tell them.
13:40So it was not long after the De Palmas started calling everybody they knew
13:43to ask if they had seen Jeanette.
13:45And not a single person that they called said that they heard from Jeanette
13:48or had seen Jeanette that night.
13:50So naturally, fearing the worst for their daughter,
13:52they would call the Springfield Police Department.
13:55And boy, do I got a f***ing bone to pick with you.
13:59Springfield Police Department.
14:01Alright, we'll talk about it.
14:02Alright, we'll get to that.
14:03But they would be met with frustration after calling the department
14:06because they wouldn't be able to do anything until she was missing for over 24 hours.
14:11Which was common back then.
14:13It's not common now.
14:14They would actually look for somebody nowadays.
14:16But the police officer that took the original call
14:19said that the De Palmas just said that she ran away.
14:22So the police weren't taking it as seriously.
14:24But the De Palmas would deny that claim
14:26and said that they explicitly said that she did not come home from work
14:29and she did not run away.
14:31But soon the rumors would spread that she was just a runaway.
14:34So the De Palmas would be left worrying all night
14:37and for the days to come because Jeanette never returned home.
14:40So let's jump ahead to what we know now.
14:43What happened?
14:44So on September 19, 1972, a 44-year-old patrol officer and veteran by the name of Donald Schwart
14:51had just got back from a vacation with his family two days prior.
14:54But Donald was ready to get settled back into his routine
14:57because he loved his job at the Springfield Police Department.
15:00So Donald did what he did every morning before work.
15:02He would go downstairs, eat breakfast with his family, get dressed for work,
15:06and would take the three-minute walk down to the department with his seven children in tow on their way to school.
15:11Why does everybody have seven kids in this town? What the is going on?
15:14Oh, they're all Catholic. That's why.
15:16After Donald got into work that day, he was assigned to patrol the north side of the township,
15:20firing up his Plymouth Fury patrol car.
15:23Schwart prepared for what he thought was just going to be another regular day on the job.
15:26Little did he know.
15:28So Schwart was driving up and down the streets of sleepy Springfield
15:31as a dog, with something in its mouth, was weaving through the labyrinth of trees
15:35bordering the nearby Hoodale quarry.
15:37The dog would run back to his owner's home with his prize in his mouth
15:41and go to the Baltusrol Gardens apartment complex on Wilson Road.
15:45So he would get there, loosen his bite over by the grass by one of the rear entrances,
15:49and drop what he had in his mouth.
15:51And soon after, his owner would call him where they were out of sight.
15:54The dog would run over and go inside the apartment complex.
15:58And very shortly after, the superintendent of the apartment building
16:01would walk outside, look down, and to her horror, see what was at her feet.
16:07It was a human arm.
16:09So Schwart would get the call about the arm shortly after,
16:12thinking this woman was just a victim of a harmless prank, saying, quote unquote,
16:16I figured it was gonna be a mannequin's arm because this lady was being harassed
16:20by a few kids that lived in the apartment complex.
16:23They would do things like throw trash all over her lawn.
16:26They were just awful to her.
16:27So when I got the call, I figured it was just those kids again.
16:31And maybe they poured some ketchup on a mannequin or something.
16:33I don't know.
16:34That was a quote. That was a quote from, from Donald Schwart, which fair.
16:37But Schwart would be the first on the scene and walk up to the building
16:40where the arm was laying in the grass and would say to himself,
16:44This, this is human.
16:46No shit, Donald. No shit.
16:48He literally said that in the book I read.
16:50That's what he said.
16:50He said that he said that to himself.
16:52We like Donald. Donald's, Donald's okay.
16:54So Donald would get his camera and take pictures and call for backup.
16:57He would say, quote unquote,
16:58You better send detectives up.
17:00We got an arm here and it's no joke.
17:02After the discovery of the arm, all hands were on deck.
17:05And a search party was sent out immediately.
17:08Schwart's shift would end shortly after he would go home and change
17:11and go out to join the search party as well.
17:13And it was not long after that he himself would make the gruesome discovery
17:17in the quarry that was being laid out for the Interstate 78.
17:20It was the upper portion of the arm he had found earlier at the apartment complex.
17:25It was quickly assumed that it must have fallen off of the arm naturally
17:29while the dog was carrying it back home.
17:31So they assumed that the body probably wasn't that far away and they would be right.
17:35So all the officers began to sweep the entire surrounding area that was absolutely covered
17:40in brush and it was just a really difficult terrain to trek through.
17:43Some even had machetes and were chopping down at the forest to get through it.
17:46Schwart and his fellow officer Calabri noticed a lofty bluff overlooking the quarry floor,
17:51otherwise known as the Devil's Teeth.
17:54And being determined to find the body, they would ascend the extremely large, dense,
17:59and steep hill as fast as they could.
18:01Schwart would be the first one at the top of the mountain and would be met immediately
18:05with the horrendous display of Jeanette De Palma's decomposing body.
18:09Her body was lying face down on a flat at the very top of the hill.
18:12Her skin was a grayish brown, kind of like leather, and she was wearing a blue t-shirt and pants,
18:18the same outfit she left in when she disappeared. But the body had no socks and no shoes.
18:23There were flip-flops found though very close to the body and a pocketbook on the ground as well.
18:28She was difficult to identify at first because animals had eaten a lot of the flesh around her
18:34face and around her feet and ankles as well. And above her head was a wooden cross made of two sticks
18:41and a semicircle of stones made around her head, kind of in the shape of a halo.
18:46Schwart would stare at her body in the odd arrangement above her head and would be
18:50broken from concentration from a fellow officer saying to him,
18:53Dawn, this looks like witchcraft.
18:55So the police would search the area more for any other evidence that would allude to foul play
19:00or slew or slide, but they would inevitably find nothing.
19:04Jeanette's body would have to be lifted and brought down by an 85-foot firetruck ladder
19:09from the cliffside because it was way too steep and dense to carry the body in any other direction
19:15on devil's teeth. So it just kind of makes you think how the body got up there to begin with
19:19or if it happened in that location or there's a lot of questions and not a whole lot of answers,
19:25but we'll get into all the theories. So once her body was taken down,
19:28she would be sent to the coroner where her family dentist would meet the coroner and the body there
19:33and make the determination that it was in fact Jeanette De Palma.
19:36The coroner on the other hand would end up with more questions than answers.
19:40He would discover that there was no initial markings indicating bullet wounds, stab wounds,
19:45or even blunt force trauma like broken bones or fractures.
19:49So he would end up sending Jeanette's body to the local hospital to get x-rays to make sure
19:54and they would come back with the same result.
19:56But the coroner, Dr. Edinburg at the Sullivan Funeral Home,
20:00had a reputation of botching autopsies. Oopsie.
20:04According to Ed Kish, the local officer that likes to make shit up a little bit.
20:08Maybe not all shit. I'm just, that's my own opinion, okay?
20:11I have to say that's my own opinion.
20:12The local officer at Springfield would exclaim quote on quote,
20:16Bernie Edinburg was not a trained pathologist, okay?
20:19The guy was a freaking physician.
20:22You know how Bernie Edinburg got his job?
20:24Political appointment.
20:26He was not competent enough, as far as I'm concerned,
20:30to have been conducting forensic autopsies, all right?
20:33I know for a fact that he botched the autopsy of another high-profile murder
20:38victim that was found in Springfield Top, all right?
20:40And he was referring to Beverly Manoff.
20:43These are all real quotes, by the way.
20:44These are, these are real quotes that are actually said by these people.
20:47I just need to iterate that because they're just kind of all hilarious.
20:51I'm gonna be honest.
20:52But yes, he was referring to another high-profile case,
20:55which was Beverly Manoff, the wife of Yale Manoff,
20:58a Union County lawyer who was found beaten to death in her bedroom after an assumed robbery.
21:04So after the x-rays, Edinburg would examine the body again and determine,
21:08while there was no official cause of death,
21:10it was possible that Jeanette died via strangulation.
21:15And this determination was eventually leaked to the press.
21:18And in the mind of the Springfield residents,
21:20Jeanette De Palma was now being considered a victim of homicide.
21:24Kish would go on to say again, quote unquote,
21:27Edinburg never came up with the specific cause of death.
21:30There are rumors as far as any of that is concerned.
21:34Edinburg could not positively determine that she was strangled or that she was beaten or shot.
21:40Those were things that I believe were not able to be proven by the pathological examination.
21:46So what we had was a suspicious death because of where the body was ultimately located.
21:52Which, you know, fair enough. Kish sometimes says things that make sense.
21:56So we have an incompetent coroner, some rightfully paranoid cops,
21:59and some suspicious happenings going on already.
22:02But wait, there's much, much, much, much, much more.
22:06So after the autopsy was done, Jeanette's dried and decaying clothing was packed up
22:11and sent off back to the Springfield Police Department.
22:13And for some bizarre, very unprofessional reason,
22:17they took the clothes and hung them up outside over a large AC unit on the side of the building.
22:24For four days, by the way.
22:26What the f**k?
22:28Like, I know this is the 70s, but that's like some 1800 s**t.
22:31The retired Springfield Lieutenant Peter Hammer recalled that incident with a laugh and said,
22:36quote unquote,
22:37You were lucky if half of us could read a write back then, to be honest.
22:41What? What? Again, this is the 1970s. This isn't the 1400s.
22:45Everyone can read and write. What are you talking about?
22:48What are you talking about?
22:50Can you imagine a cop coming up to you in 1970 after pulling you over and just being like,
22:55license and registration?
22:56Oh, yeah. Sorry. Okay.
22:58Do you know how fast you were going, Robert?
23:00It's Randy?
23:02No, I don't. How fast was I going?
23:03I was kind of hoping you would know because,
23:06because I can't read, Ronald. It's Randy.
23:08All right, you're under arrest for being a smart ass. Okay.
23:11Anyway, after the clothes were hung up and obviously contaminated,
23:15they were boxed up with the notebook as well and sent off to a crime lab for further forensic testing.
23:20But there would be nothing further discovered on the clothing.
23:24Shocking.
23:24So as the investigation was still going on, the press would get a hold of the information
23:29about the strange ritualistic-like arrangements around Jeanette's body when it was found.
23:35And this is when rumors and speculation about witchcraft and Satanism being involved in this case
23:41was spread. An article appeared on September 19, 1972 in the Elizabeth Daily Journal titled as
23:48GIRLS SACRIFICED IN WITCH RIGHTS.
23:49It's a bit aggressive.
23:50And would make the following claim.
23:52Investigation into the death of 16-year-old Jeanette De Palma is focusing on elements of
23:56black witchcraft and Satan worship. A review of death scene photos, according to reports,
24:01is leading authorities to believe the girl's death may have been in the nature of a sacrifice.
24:05Pieces of wood, at first thought to be at the scene by chance, are now seen as symbols.
24:10Detectives throughout Union County have been alerted to the possibility that a cult or cult
24:14member played a part in the death.
24:16This article would be the first publication to link Jeanette's death with witchcraft or Satanism,
24:21and would immediately cause panic and an overwhelming sense of dread throughout the
24:26entire community. Some believed it was just media sensationalism, but a lot believed that it was
24:32Bible truth and began locking their doors for the first time.
24:36I love that that was just like not a thing back then, like locking your doors.
24:39Like I can't even imagine that like nowadays or even back then.
24:42Can you imagine you're just in bed with your husband and you hear a noise and you're just like
24:46Tony, did you hear that?
24:49Tony, wake up!
24:50What? What?
24:51There's somebody downstairs. I heard somebody.
24:53What do you mean? The door was closed. Who could get in?
24:56Yeah, but maybe, just maybe, we should start using those doohickeys by the door handle that make it stay
25:01closed no matter what, even if somebody tries to open it.
25:04That is f***ing insane, Maria. What a stupid f***ing idea.
25:07Oh, there was a man in our doorway who's about to kill us. See? This is what I'm talking about.
25:12So while it was obvious that no two people agreed on what was and was not found by Jeanette's body,
25:17numerous occult historians happened to agree on one matter. The items reported to be arranged
25:23around the corpse, while certainly very strange, were not satanic or related to Wicca or witchcraft in any way.
25:30Dr. Coy, a professor of history at the College of Charleston and renowned expert in the field of
25:35witchcraft, how do you become that? That sounds kind of badass, to be honest, said this, quote unquote,
25:40This seems like media sensationalism to me. The early 1970s was a time of media concern with the
25:46satanic hippie cults. I think this is a case of media jumping to conclusions to sell papers amid the
25:51concern with satanic cults that marked the era. Which, fair enough, you know? But we have more to talk
25:57about on this subject. But what he said had a lot of merit at the time, because this was a time when
26:03satanic panic was very prevalent. Whether it was the Manson family getting convicted for their crimes
26:10a year previous, or books like The Satanic Cellar, a memoir of a former satanic cult member coming out
26:16with his book, or movies like The Exorcist coming out. People and the media were very paranoid and saw
26:23the potential in sensationalizing crimes in this manner back then, even if there was little to no
26:29evidence proving it. One of the main reasons why the ritualistic witch sacrifice allegations really
26:35came to head was because of a tragic event that happened only nine months earlier. John List made
26:41national headlines after murdering his entire family and completely vanishing into the ether. He was
26:46a 46 year old accountant who lived nearby Westfield in a Victorian mansion with 19 rooms. Holy shit,
26:54that's a lot of room. What do you even need those rooms for? He didn't have that big of a family. There
26:57was three kids and one wife and one mother. Sorry, I just... Anyway, this mansion was dubbed the Breeze Knoll
27:03and sat only three miles away from the De Palma residence. And the List family from the outside looked
27:09very well off and affluent, but they had a ton of troubles in the home. John, for example, had become
27:16jobless for months but would put on his work clothes and pretend to go to work for months and convince
27:22his family that he still had a job, but he would just go to the bus station and read and then come
27:27home later to act like he was at work all day. But he was he was embarrassed of this fact so he didn't
27:32want to tell his family that. On top of that, John's wife was extremely sick. She was afflicted with
27:38syphilis from a previous marriage and had lost sight in one eye and was just basically bedridden. And on top
27:45of that, John was growing concern about his eldest daughter Patricia. 16 year old Patricia was becoming
27:51obsessed with the occult and with the theater, which is less of the problem. But John didn't like
27:58either. John was a very stern Christian man and with his daughter Patricia now identifying herself
28:03as a witch was simply too much for him. He would catch her using Ouija boards regularly with her friends
28:09and then he found out that she was telling her peers and her teachers that she was a witch
28:14and part of a local coven of witches who practice Satanism. Fun! I just skipped school
28:20once in a while and went to Domino's, but you know. But joining a coven and becoming a witch sounds
28:25pretty cool. I'm kidding by the way. Friends recall Patricia mentioning a secret altar located somewhere
28:31in Westfield. And besides her constant ramblings about witchcraft and the devil, she also spoke to
28:37her drama coach specifically how she thought her father was planning on murdering her entire family.
28:43She would even ask her drama coach to come by that evening when she did tell him to maybe talk to
28:48her father and just get to know more about the situation and talk him down because she didn't
28:53know who else to go to. But the drama coach would end up having something come up and he wouldn't be
28:57able to make it that night and that just happened to be the night where John List would murder his entire
29:03family. So on November 9th 1972, John would shoot all of his family members in the back of the head
29:09and drag them all into the ballroom in his mansion besides his mother who he said was too heavy to drag
29:17to the ballroom. And we know this because he claimed it in letters he left for the police after he
29:23vanished. And the letters are crazy and very long so I won't read the whole thing. But if you would
29:29like to read them I'll put them up on screen and you can read them yourself. But if you want the cliff
29:33nose version I'll give that to you right now. So basically the letter said that he couldn't make
29:37enough money to support his family anymore and he was worried that Patricia was becoming increasingly
29:43involved in the occult and with acting and was worried she would walk away from her Christian
29:48values. And his wife was becoming too sick to attend church so he thought that would affect his other
29:53children and would make them not want to attend church either, then affecting their Christianity and
29:58their ability to get into heaven. And then he rambles on about how to deal with all of their possessions
30:04and how to deal with the bodies that he left for the police to find as well, where to bury them,
30:10whether to cremate them or not, etc. It's it's some crazy shit. And John would just vanish from thin air
30:16and he would soon become one of the most wanted men in America. And he was gone for a long time but
30:22was found in 1989 in Colorado and he would be tried and sentenced to life in prison and die in prison in 2008.
30:31Good. That's crazy. That's crazy. Because essentially he wanted his whole family to be able to make it to
30:39heaven because he thought that they wouldn't make it to heaven if he continued on the route that he
30:43was on with his life. Which is, I mean, he's a terrible human being but it's also just just incredibly sad,
30:50you know? So it's just terrible, terrible crime that happened. So how did all this connect with Jeanette's
30:56murder? Well, while Patricia's father, John, would disappear into thin air at the time, the ghost of
31:01the occult loving Patricia would loom over the Union County for years to come. Memories of the
31:07self-proclaimed witches' supposed involvement with a teenage coven of devil worshippers would lead
31:13many to wonder if the same group of kids maybe murdered Jeanette as well as a sacrifice. It's believed
31:19that the Westfield police and the media tapped into this theory and kind of just ran with it and
31:25exploited it with articles claiming that there were connections within both murders saying the bodies
31:29in the List home were laid out the exact same as Jeanette's body was found and that symbols at Jeanette's
31:35crime scene were similar to symbols that were found at the List family crime scene but not all of
31:41them were really vague. But it didn't really matter because what the press had done had already done
31:45damage to the community and everyone just assumed now that it was the work of the occult and that
31:51witches had murdered Jeanette. And their local Reverend James Tate was no help, no help at all with
31:57easing their minds. He grabbed this case and he put it on his back and he ran with it, man. Freaking
32:02pastors and cult, they're basically cult leaders. I'm, they're not, they're not, but some of them are,
32:06some of them are. Okay, examples. He would basically bask in this limelight adding on to the theories that
32:12the police were giving and that the press were giving. And he would just completely lean into
32:16the fact that this was the work of Satan. And his assembly would fully give in to everything that
32:21he was saying. And by doing this, he gained popularity and a lot more people joined his
32:26assembly as well. And he became kind of like a local celebrity. It sounds a bit culty to me,
32:31just saying. And on September 30th, 1972, police would bring a real witch that they thought to the
32:39top of devil's teeth. This bitch was just a local school teacher was, that was just like,
32:44hey, yeah, I'm, I'm a witch. I want to be involved. I want spotlight. That's my interpretation because
32:50this chick just came out of nowhere and it's like, I'm a witch. Let me solve this case. So they took her
32:56to the top of the mountain to basically examine the area around the occult symbols. Shockingly enough,
33:02nothing came of this, but it would freak people out. Specifically, it would freak out Florence
33:07to Palma, which was Jeanette's mother because she fully believed in this whole occult theory,
33:13given the fact that James Tate was her reverend. So she literally thought that this witch was going
33:19to go to the top of devil's teeth and bring back her daughter in a demon form like that. That's
33:25genuinely what Florence thought, which is just sad. So as time went on, the police would get multiple
33:32calls in that people knew of animal sacrifices that were happening near and around the area as
33:38well. Whether it was cats, dogs, squirrels, there was a goat found sacrifice somewhere around that
33:43area as well, or just killed. We don't really know. And of course, Reverend Tate came up and confirmed
33:48that there was absolutely definitely a cult there that was definitely sacrificing animals and everyone
33:54should be scared and run to church. Rumors would spread throughout Dayton High School that there was,
33:58in fact, a cult and the name of that cult was The Witches. That is the worst name for a cult I've ever
34:04heard in my life. This is all speculation, by the way. None of it is ever confirmed. This is all just
34:08rumors essentially, but it just kind of added to the occult theory. So the witch rumors are flying and
34:14the community is panicking. Nothing is being solved at all with Jeanette's case, but in October 1972,
34:21a lanky 21-year-old Terry Rickle would walk into the Springfield Police Department
34:26and tell them he knew who killed Jeanette. He said it was a strange figure who lived in the woods
34:31bordering Hoodale Quarry and his name was Red. Yeah. Terry would describe him as such, quote unquote,
34:38He was probably in his 30s then, maybe late 30s. He was tall and thin with wildish red hair and a full
34:46beard. He was a weird looking guy. He looked like an old hippie. According to Terry, Red was a vagrant,
34:52who often worked at the Baltusarol Golf Club as a caddy. Supposedly, Red lived in the woods during
34:58the golf season, right by where Jeanette's body was found. And since it was still golfing season
35:04during the time that Jeanette's body was found and Red lived right near the body, Red became a suspect.
35:09And it would end up adding up to the police because police were getting reports of a transient that
35:15lived in the woods and that was working on this golf course as well. So he became a viable suspect.
35:21So they would make their way to Mountain View Road to see where Red was. And they would find his
35:25makeshift shack only about 50 yards away from where Jeanette's body was found. They would find blankets,
35:32cans of food, and some cooking pots as well with food still in them that was rotting. So they would
35:37actually put in some effort now for once and try to go find Red. And they would actually find him later
35:42that fall in 1972. And after finding him, they would take Red in for some aggressive questioning,
35:48but he would soon be cleared and set free and vanish into thin air, never to be seen again.
35:54Sounds like something a guilty person would do, but that's just me. It was said that the police assumed
36:00that since Jeanette and Red's ages were so different and that their lifestyles didn't meld in any way,
36:06that that was the reason that he was cleared. It just didn't add up or make sense why Red would have
36:12killed her, which I think there's more reasons what from what I've read, I couldn't find anything else,
36:18but it's a bit suspicious. So Red was cleared and he disappeared and Jeanette's case was slowly going
36:26cold. But the conspiracies continued with another murder that happened close by within eight days of
36:33Jeanette's murder. And that murder victim was Joan Kramer. On August 15th, 1972, Joan Kramer and her
36:39boyfriend went to a party that they were invited to with a bunch of friends and family in Union
36:44County. The night was going well, but unbeknownst to the other party goers, there was some tension
36:48brewing between Joan and her boyfriend. Joan would leave the party in frustration and walk a mile and a
36:55half into the downtown area. She would find a phone booth and call her friend that was in New York and
37:00talk about the fight that she just had with her boyfriend. And then after that, she would call her
37:05parents and tell her she would head home soon and catch a ride with a taxi. After the calls, she would
37:10hang up and for some unknown reason, she would end up hitchhiking rather than getting a taxi. So she
37:16would hitch a ride with a stranger on the corner of South Orange Avenue and Sloan Street. And this would
37:21be the last time anyone saw Joan Kramer alive. On August 28th, 1972, 13 days after her disappearance,
37:29Joan would be found only six miles from where Jeanette's body was found and only eight days later
37:35as well. And Joan's cause of death would be strangulation, which was one of the determinations
37:41of how Jeanette might have died as well. But it wasn't 100% confirmed as we know. But not only
37:46that, but they were also both found lying face down only six miles apart. Again, both were attracted
37:53brunettes with a middle part and both had vanished eight days apart while also both hitchhiking. It's
37:59matching. It's matching up. It's screaming serial killer to me. But what do I know? I'm just a
38:05YouTuber and I'm being sarcastic and an asshole because the police didn't put that together somehow.
38:11Anyway, later on a disgraced and drunken accountant and former Sunday school teacher and a father of five,
38:18Otto Nilsson was eventually identified as the person that picked up Joan Kramer that night on August 15th,
38:241972. He was arrested and tried for her murder, but the jury failed to determine that Mr. Nilsson was
38:31beyond a shadow of a doubt the person who killed Miss Kramer and he was inevitably released. But a
38:37short time later, Nilsson would go insane and be committed to a psychiatric hospital and eventually
38:43take his own life in 1992. And Jeanette, despite being an obvious possible victim of Nilsson, given
38:51the obvious similarities to Joan's death, was never connected or really given the time of day during
38:57the investigation of Joan's death or Nilsson's trial. And Jeanette's case would eventually fade into the
39:03background given the little progress in figuring out what actually happened to her. And to top it off,
39:08in 1995, the Springfield Police Department claimed that all the records prior to 1995 were destroyed
39:15due to flooding during Hurricane Floyd. This had a lot of people saying that it had cover-up written
39:21all over it, which kinda, yeah. And some of those people being the De Palmas themselves and rightfully so.
39:28Fast forwarding to today, the Springfield Police Department and the Union County Prosecutor's Office
39:33continued to remain silent after over four decades of perceived indifference and deception. And we may
39:39never truly know what happened to Jeanette De Palma. What I hope to accomplish with this video is to bring
39:44light to Jeanette's case and bring light to the other victims' cases that didn't get solved as well
39:50that I talked about and hope that they and their families receive the closure and justice that they
39:55deserve. So thank you guys so much for watching this cold case episode. I very much enjoyed
40:01uh, reading about it. It was extremely interesting and I'm really hoping that this case gets reopened
40:07and, um, and, and looked at more because Jeanette's family deserves that closure. But I, I, you know,
40:13I, I find this stuff very interesting. So if you have any other cases that you want me to deep dive into,
40:18let me know below. Uh, whether that's cults, serial killers, uh, cold cases, I'm open to it all. I appreciate
40:25you guys for watching until the end and I will see your beautiful face in the next video. Okay? Bye!
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