Temple University's film studies program junior Jenna Burleigh disappears after a night out with friends. Originally Aired: 02/22/24 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Jenna Burleigh?
Hi, I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of The Crime Scene Weekly, a new show from ABC Audio about the latest headlines in true crime. This week, I'm talking about the shocking allegations against the Alexander Brothers, once the golden boys of luxury real estate, now facing serious sex crime charges. Listen to The Crime Scene Weekly on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is Deborah Roberts, co-anchor of 2020. This week, we'll be starting season two of Death in the Dorms. It's a true crime series from ABC Studios that tells the stories of young people whose lives were cut tragically short during their time on campus and the subsequent investigations into their untimely deaths.
In our first episode, we'll hear the story of Jenna Burley, a passionate social justice advocate at Temple University, who vanished after spending a night out with her friends, leaving only questions in her wake. Take a listen.
Jenna, she really wanted to get into film.
Her trajectory was probably going to do great things.
She just wanted to give people a voice. She was able to go right over to Temple, and she was excited about that.
Temple University is, in my opinion, a safe place. The surrounding neighborhoods, you have a different story.
Temple University police need your help to track down a missing student.
I remember having a conversation with my friends like, whoa, we just got here. This is happening already.
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Chapter 2: Who was Jenna Burleigh and what was her background?
Temple University police need your help to track down a missing student.
Jenna Burley was reported missing after a night out.
The story of Jenna Burley, a Temple University student who went out for the evening near Temple's campus on Thursday.
The case continues to unfold, and there are still lingering questions
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Chapter 3: What were the events leading up to Jenna's disappearance?
The Wednesday night before classes start is a popular hangout night with all the students. And that's where Jenna found herself, was out in the city with some of her friends from Temple.
I did see her that Wednesday on August 30th. We went out with two different friend groups but ended up at the same place.
Jenna was with four or five of her friends at various times throughout the night.
I was not with Jenna. They were at PubWeb that evening. PubWeb is a local bar. College students work there. A lot of college students go there. It was familiar to everyone that was there.
And one by one, you know, the friends started leaving. There was a little mix-up of who Jenna was with, and she ended up being alone.
Temple University is, in my opinion, a safe place. The normal kind of crime you're talking about there from a prosecutor's perspective are, for the most part, petty crimes. The surrounding neighborhoods, you have a different story. Crime in Philadelphia is obviously a problem. The murder rate is very high. It's one of the highest in the country.
Temple University is kind of surrounded by more high crime neighborhoods. So there was a little bit of a concern just for the nature of where this was and where it happened.
Crime around campus. Safety has become the leading conversation. Crimes increase exponentially outside campus boundaries.
It's just natural to be concerned. You hear about the crime, it's just really bad. I knew in my heart it was not going to turn out good.
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Chapter 4: What actions did the police take after Jenna was reported missing?
After investigators see this footage, it became very clear that Jenna, at the end of the night, had left with the young man that she was having drinks with. The detectives were able to ask the people that worked at PubWeb whether or not they knew that individual at all, or if he had been there before. They did know him. He was a regular. His name was Joshua Hupnerts.
Who is Josh? Can we get a hold of him? Let's try to find out what he remembers. Let's see if he knows where Jenna is.
At this point, this is critical because the police now at least have a confirmed place where they were last and a confirmed person that they were with.
We did know that they had footage of her leaving the bar with someone. We didn't know all the details at that moment. They were doing their investigation, but we did know that they did share that with us. It was very hard to understand.
The people at PubWeb were able to give detectives Josh's cell phone number. The captain of the Temple Police Department called him. Josh didn't answer. It wasn't until 11 o'clock that Josh did reach back out to the Temple Police. He said he was wasted the night before. He did $200 worth of shots. He has no memory.
His recollection is that he did not know where she went, had no other information for investigators. They're certainly not done with Joshua Hubbard. They want to bring him down. They want to talk to him. They want to potentially see where he went after that. But at that point, they don't have any other reason to believe that he's not telling the truth.
The second day that she was missing, we did go back down to the police station at Temple because we didn't know what else to do. What do you do in that situation?
We just started putting posters up.
We went down to Temple. I remember passing out the flyers. Do I remember the drive getting there? No.
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Chapter 5: How did Jenna's friends and family react to her disappearance?
They asked whether or not he could get in touch with Joshua Huppertz. So somewhere in the afternoon, it was actually the roommate who put a call into Mr. Huppertort saying, the police are looking for you. You need to call them back. They have some questions about a girl that went missing.
Around 4 o'clock, Josh called the captain back. He said he was in South Philadelphia, which is about 25 minutes from Temple University's campus. Josh agreed to come to Temple University to the police department. The captain waited for about an hour. Josh never came.
The next thing that investigators start to do is because Joshua Hupperturts has not met with them and refuses to basically be questioned at this point, they started asking people at the address whether or not they knew who Joshua Hupperturts was.
Investigators learned that Joshua Hupperturts had gone to Temple University. He is a 29-year-old living a couple steps away from Temple University's campus. And he told people on campus that he was going to Temple and that he played soccer or was on the soccer team at points. There's just different stories that he tells to different people on campus.
But at this point in his life, he was not enrolled in Temple University.
They start to get up on his phone to see where he might be physically.
Police are tracking his phone and they're pinging it up in the Poconos.
So once investigators realize that Joshua Hubbard is nowhere near Philadelphia, they decide they're going to involve other law enforcement agencies. Specifically, they call it up to the state police.
So they end up calling state police and saying, hey, we have a phone pinging up here in the Poconos. Do you guys mind going to basically check it out? And they find out that it's Joshua Huppertz's grandmother who lives very nearby where that phone is pinging from.
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Chapter 6: What role did the bar PubWeb play in Jenna's last night?
The apartment itself was messy, so it looked like a typical college kid's messy apartment. But there were certain things that looked a little suspicious to the trained eye. There was a knife in the kitchen that looked like it maybe had a little blood on it. There was some blood on those sandals. Pieces of a broken bowl.
On that bowl, there clearly appeared to be what was human blood.
And so they wanted to preserve all that. They took photographs. They swapped them for DNA. There was no obvious crime scene. There was no big pool of blood. There was no murder weapon. Nothing. But something was off.
On September 2nd, 2017, there was basically a break in the case.
Josh's grandfather called the police. He'd been doing yard work out back, up at that same house that the state troopers had found Josh at. When he opened up this little storage shed, he saw a blue plastic container that he didn't recognize.
This was the sort of bin that college students routinely used to put in their stuff, their books, a lot of their worldly possessions as they were moving around. And then he opened it up. He opens up the bin. He finds a young woman, obviously deceased. The state troopers once again respond. This time they have a search warrant. They searched the whole property.
And it's obvious to investigators almost immediately that they found Jenna Burleigh's body.
This wasn't a missing person anymore. We found Jenna. It's now a homicide. Investigators from the Dunmore Barracks as well as the Philadelphia Police Crime Scene Unit searched the property. They took photographs. They did DNA swabs.
They searched the house. And they found a bag. And inside that bag, they found basic clothing items. a few pairs of underwear, some socks, T-shirts, and $3,000 of cash. Josh Hubbard was not sticking around. He was gonna dump that body in the lake, and we were never gonna see him again.
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Chapter 7: What evidence was found during the investigation?
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The investigation continues tonight after a Temple University student was found dead at a home in northeast Pennsylvania. Tonight, police are still trying to piece together why and if the suspect had help.
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Chapter 8: What are the ongoing questions surrounding Jenna's case?
There was no question about it. And once one of us made the decision to go, we kind of, all the friend group, decided that we were all gonna go together.
When I got to the courthouse the first day, it was definitely like a, oh, this is real. You saw Jenna's mom, you saw her dad. And it became really clear that this was a story that was hitting very close to home. I've never been at a case before that felt like that could have been me.
One of the first things that happened at trial was that Joshua Hobbiters actually did plead guilty to abuse of course and tampering with evidence. So that's the first day that this happens. He says, yes, I did. I moved the body and I tampered with evidence, but I did not kill this girl.
The defense attorney said in his opening statement that Josh and Jenna were involved in some sexual encounter that got out of hand. and Jenna started to scream. And at that point, Josh's roommate came upstairs from his bedroom, struck Jenna, pushed her down the steps, and then stomped on her at the bottom of the steps.
We had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Joshua Huffington has committed this crime, but we also had to make sure we let the jury know there wasn't a shred of truth that the roommate was involved whatsoever.
The roommate testified at trial. so the jury could hear what he had to say. I questioned him. The defense attorney cross-examined him. And it was extensive.
The prosecutors, the attorneys, they talked Ed and I through kind of what things would look like. If there was anything that they were going to show or that they were going to talk about that they might think I might not want to hear or see, they would let me know so I could gracefully leave the courtroom.
The only thing the family left for, and not all of the family, just I think Jackie, was the pictures of Jenna's body in the container.
The photograph of her when they first discovered her out in the shed was horrific. And it's something I'm never going to forget.
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