Dateline: True Crime Weekly
A "no body" murder trial in Mississippi. A Wisconsin dad fakes his death. Plus, keeping your home safe during the holidays.
Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000
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The body of missing Ole Miss student and gay activist Jay Lee has never been found, but prosecutors charged his secret lover with his murder. The man pleaded not guilty and last week at his trial, the jury weighed in. In August, a dad took his kayak out to go fishing on Wisconsin's deepest lake. He didn't come home until December. Plus a new charge for alleged Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann, and Vicky Nguyen is back with tips on how to keep your house safe while you're traveling for the holidays. Find out more about the cases covered each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.com
Chapter 1: What happened in the Mississippi murder trial?
Could they make out a face on the jogger?
Could not make out a face, no. But as they were looking at the video footage, they see the same jogger come out into a gas station and get into a car and drive away. So now they have a car that, you know, they try to find the car's owner. Right. And the car's owner comes in and his name is Kazaya Carter. And he says, yeah, yeah, a friend of my girlfriend's just flagged me down.
Well, what's the name of your friend? I says, Tim Harrington. Five minutes after he picks him up, he gets stopped by police for speeding. So we actually have body cam camera of Tim Harrington being in that car with him. If he had just not flagged down a ride, right, they would have probably not known who that person was.
They had some other evidence that didn't look so good for Tim Harrington. He goes over to his parents' house. He's wearing rubber boots. He's carrying a shovel and getting a wheelbarrow. That doesn't make him a killer. But when you add it all together, it doesn't look good.
The defense was trying to say one of his jobs was manage some of the rental properties that his grandfather had. There was no schedule to it. And so this may have been one of those days, although they didn't present any evidence that he actually did that. But remember, there is no physical evidence. They didn't find anything in his apartment. They didn't find anything in Jay's car.
They didn't find anything in Tim Harrington's car. There is no sign of a struggle.
Was there anything else, Isar, that really stuck out to you from the defense?
Yes. I mean, the defense did try to imply some alternate suspects. They always said, oh, we're not saying that they did it and we know they were eliminated, but the police should have investigated further than that. Things moved very quickly after closing arguments. Two hours after they started deliberation, there was a note. What if we can't agree on the verdict?
Judge sent them back and said, try it. So another two hours there, they said, I think we're deadlocked. He brought them out. And he said, without telling me whether it's guilty or not guilty, just tell me what's the split. And the jury format says 11 to 1. I confirmed later on 11 guilty and 1 not guilty. The judge sent them back. They were inside for another five hours.
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Chapter 2: Who was Jay Lee and what happened to him?
When we come back, it's time for Dateline Roundup. New charges for Rex Heuermann, the man accused of being the Gilgo Beach serial killer. And a verdict in the case of the tech executive stabbed to death on a San Francisco street. Plus, for anyone planning to travel this holiday season, we'll have some tips for how to keep your home safe. Welcome back.
Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline Digital producer Veronica Maseko. Hey, Veronica. Hey, how are you? Okay. For our first story, we are off to Suffolk County, New York, home of alleged serial killer Rex Huerman and the notorious Gilgo Beach murders.
Good morning. As we all know by now, today my office filed a superseding indictment charging the defendant Huerman with a seventh charged murder in the second degree. We have a seventh murder charge now.
Yeah, so this week, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office announced that the latest victim is a woman named Valerie Mack, and this happened in 2000. Previously, Heuermann, who was an architectural consultant, he had been accused of six murders in the Gilgo Beach, Long Island area.
And over the years, they've found that there are other unidentified human remains that they've not linked to him until this one. How were they able to finally charge him with this additional murder? This is over two decades, you know, since the first of Valerie Mack's remains were found.
Really what it came down to was there was a hair found on Valerie Mack's left wrist that was linked to Heuermann's wife or daughter. And neither of them are suspected in this case, but that is definitely a big tie. Also, they found a planning document on Heuermann's computer, which in that document, it lists alleged dump sites.
And one of the things listed was a place called Mill Road, which is actually where Valerie Mack's remains were found.
Fascinating. Heuermann has denied all the allegations against him and has pleaded not guilty to this charge and the six other charges. So we will keep an eye out on this one. Next, we're off to Minnesota, where there was an emotional sentencing this week in the case of Adam Fravel, the man convicted of the 2023 murder of Madeline Kingsbury, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his children.
What happened, Veronica, with this sentencing? Yeah, so he was found guilty in November of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder after the prosecution laid out the argument that he strangled Maddie and dumped her body near his parents' home. And this week at sentencing, her sister Megan gave a really powerful victim impact statement.
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