Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, you are right in the middle of all of this,
and for to sit here and lie to us to.
Speaker 4: Begin with, is not helping you at all.
Speaker 3: This is a friend of yours or was a friend
of yours, and somebody brutally marked I.
Speaker 1: Know, hello and welcome to season thirteen, episode three hundred
and fifty of Sword and Scale, the show that reveals
that the worst monsters are real. Simpsonville, South Carolina, is
a small southern town where life moves at an easy pace,
Families know their neighbors, church bells still mark the hour,
and the peaceful atmosphere feels almost rehearsed. But on the
afternoon of October twenty sixth, twenty sixteen, the calumn was broken.
Inside a cramped interview room at the Simpsonville Police departm
investigator spoke to a young man named Ricky Hargrove.
Speaker 5: I want to tell you once you've effectively done, Ricky,
is you've inserted yourself into a murder investigation.
Speaker 6: I mean, what do you think I think you would
do something like that?
Speaker 7: Take some kind of monster to do something like that
or someone.
Speaker 1: This interview with Ricky was one of the first threats
in an investigation that would spend nearly a decade. It
was a horrific homicide case that centered around a twenty
two year old woman named Katie Blavel. Katie believed she
could build a simple life for herself in Simpsonville and
was doing what she could do to make that happen.
Katie was an animal lover, and in twenty sixteen, she
was working full time at her local Pet Smart.
Speaker 8: I just want to confirm with you she was working
here on Monday, and do you remember what her hours work?
Speaker 9: You're on Monday was nine am to two pm, nine
to two.
Speaker 8: I don't know exactly what time she left, but I
mean it was no later.
Speaker 9: Than two fifteen, So you were working on Monday, did yes?
Speaker 4: How was Katie's demeanor? That na perfectly fine. She was talking.
Speaker 10: About picking up her someone named Cheyenne, I don't know
who that is to her, and they were going shopping together.
Speaker 1: On October twenty third, twenty sixteen, Katie worked a full
time shift at PetSmart. When she clocked out at around
two fifteen pm, she confirmed plants to meet up with
her younger sister, Cheyenne.
Speaker 4: But I said, what are you doing? And she said,
I'm driving around, Sir.
Speaker 11: I said, when you take me Kimany to get food
and Canny, we'll buy you food. And she said, yeah,
I'll be there in an hour. So if you don't
know what you're doing right now, is at hour, get
here you.
Speaker 6: And she said, I don't do.
Speaker 4: But I kind of just let it go because I
was like, you know, maybe she DoD something she don't
want to tell me about. She's grown, she can do that,
you know.
Speaker 11: And so I fell asleep and I caught her back
in like an hour and a half, and she.
Speaker 1: Didn't answy Katy never showed up to meet her sister
that day. When phone calls went unanswered, Cheyenne felt the
first wave of panic. She immediately knew that something was
very wrong.
Speaker 4: Her phone was off.
Speaker 11: And then that's why I kind of started to worry,
because I'm like, Katie never released her phone, you know,
Katy never blows me off.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 11: Like twelve thirty one o'clock, I called John. He answered,
it be someon like he's just woken up. And I said,
I can't find Katie. And I said, I mean to
know if she's at your house or.
Speaker 4: If you see your day. Hasn't just tell me, you know?
Speaker 11: He said, no, I don't talk to her anymore, as
what he said on the phone.
Speaker 1: Desperate to find her sister, Cheyenne did the only thing
she could think of. She reached out to Katie's a
strange husband, John, what's your wife?
Speaker 12: Full name Catherine and Wavelt?
Speaker 6: And are you you familved that she's missing? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight year old John Blovelt was an active duty
soldier in the United States Army when Katie went missing.
He was living and working in Simpsonville as a recruiters.
Speaker 13: Understand, you've been deployed twice, yes, iraq or yeah on
once the last time I got back.
Speaker 6: Two thousand and ten.
Speaker 12: Has recruiting the obviously a lot different than Yeah.
Speaker 6: That was probably the worst jot of the red Yeah,
because you know, I joined the army at eighteen to
fight and ira.
Speaker 13: Yeah, and then they had me sit behind the desk
and you couldn't get a different assignment. No, it's one
of it's like one of the armies, and like mandatory
assignments you to take it.
Speaker 6: Or you get out.
Speaker 1: John and Katie met by chance outside the Army recruiting
office where he worked. Her job was just a few
doors down, and one afternoon, during a smoke break, their
conversations began.
Speaker 6: So me and her just kind of met and started dating.
I was staying at her house most days during the week,
at her dad's house.
Speaker 13: And then we finally got an apartment in December, and
you got married, what year twenty fifteen?
Speaker 1: After they married, it didn't take long for John and
Katie to realize they weren't as compatible as they'd hoped.
They barely lived together for two months before the relationship
fell apart and Katie decided to walk away. She left
John and the two were officially separated.
Speaker 12: O Kay of stuff, a y'all.
Speaker 6: Arguing about.
Speaker 12: Everything just normal, just normal stuff, people's stuff.
Speaker 13: And then being a recruiter, I talked to a lot
of different people, So I had two phones, and I
talked to a lot of females. And she didn't my chest,
but was my job as a recruiter. I had to
talk to everybody. Yeah, and she would like that. So
then we argue about that.
Speaker 6: See, you guys weren't very long at all in two months.
Speaker 1: In October of twenty sixteen, Katie went missing, and naturally,
her husband was one of the first people police wanted
to talk to. For the most part, John was open
and cooperative. He admitted that their marriage had been difficult,
even horrible at times, but he insisted he'd never laid
a hand on her or caused her any physical harm.
Speaker 13: I mean we were the worst couple, you know, we argued,
but I think it was just bad timing, honestly, because
she was going through some shit.
Speaker 6: I was going through some shit and she's left one day.
It was the last time you actually saw her, I'd
say probably July, because she moved out in the April.
Speaker 12: I think have you ever gotten some mad at her?
That maybe he did something you didn't mean to do?
Speaker 6: Absolutely not, don't.
Speaker 1: So told investigators that he hadn't seen Katie for months,
and he provided a reasonable alibi for the day she
went missing.
Speaker 12: Did you work this Monday? What time did you get
off on Monday?
Speaker 6: Like two thirties too? I don't know where'd you go
it for home?
Speaker 12: Did you stop anywhere on the way home? Was anybody
home with you?
Speaker 6: Yeah? My roommates were there.
Speaker 1: John's roommates backed up his story. They told investigators they
saw him come home from work that day on the
day that Katie went missing, though they did lose track
of him later in the evening when he said he
was going out for a job. Investigators also spoke with
people who knew both John and Katie and were familiar
with their relationship. Many described John the same way, polite, disciplined,
the picture of an army soldier. For them, the idea
that he could hurt Katie didn't seem possible at all.
Speaker 14: Used to buy a lot, but like.
Speaker 15: He was never like.
Speaker 16: Violent with her when I lived there, and a lot
of the time it was like really her that like
started argument.
Speaker 17: What do you think the chances are of the John
lost his school and did something to her.
Speaker 14: I know he didn't know.
Speaker 18: I've been around hi when he's drunk, quite straight up
drunk in it, and he's not angry. You know, they've
gotten really upset and he just he just comes in
and just cries, like I mean, I've seen him mad.
Speaker 4: But you know, he just yells and that's the end
of it.
Speaker 1: After looking into John and finding no clear link to
Katie's disappearance, investigators began to consider other possibilities. They knew
that after the marriage ended, Katie had started dating again.
This opened the door to new questions and a different suspect.
Speaker 19: I don't know when her family stile you.
Speaker 6: Hopefully she's been up front with you. Machine in dating
around a lot.
Speaker 12: Okay, yeah, yeah, we're looking.
Speaker 6: Into some of that.
Speaker 1: Investigators learned that Katie had recently reconnected with an ex boyfriend,
twenty one year old Wayne Roper. This was a bizarre
relationship that quickly became the focus of their suspicions, and
through a series of strange, unsettling events, that relationship led
detectives to another name, the young man you heard at
the beginning of this episode, Ricky Hargrove.
Speaker 7: Yesterday, when I was finishing up some assignments in my
classes online, I got a call from Wayne at around
one and thirty. Wayne called says, hey, man, can you
can you come pick me up from work?
Speaker 1: On the night of October twenty fourth, twenty sixteen, Ricky
received an unexpected phone call. It was from Katie's ex boyfriend,
Wayne Roper, who asked for a ride home from the
Walmart art where he worked. Ricky hesitated, then agreed as
long as he got a little gas money.
Speaker 7: When he got out of the got into the car,
I say, hey, man, what's up with Katie being missing?
And he said they haven't been able to find her,
and they pinged her phone in West Virginia or something,
and then they pinged it again and it was in Simpsonville.
And he said, Uh, yeah, there was this house that
we used to hang out at and I've been wanting
to check that because I think they that.
Speaker 6: She might be there.
Speaker 1: When Wayne climbed into the passenger seat, his request pot
Ricky off guard. He wanted to go to a nearby
abandoned farmhouse, a place that was rumored to be haunted. Strangely,
Wayne said he thought Katie might be hiding there.
Speaker 7: I get out of the car with him, give him
my lamp, my head lamb, and we walk in there.
I'm talking about the house being haunted. I don't want
anything to do with his and I tell him about
you know, if we do find her. He says, we're
going to call the cops. And I say, I got
a bunch of wheat in there, and then I'm not
expected to find her at all in there. And I
was just kind of dismissive whenever we go in there.
We checked all the upstairs rooms, and then when we
get done checking those, we go downstairs.
Speaker 1: Reluctantly, Ricky drove Wayne to the abandoned farmhouse and together
they searched the dark, empty rooms for any sign of Katie.
After several minutes of searching, and after they made their
way into the basement, Wayne Roper pulled out his phone
and dialed nine one one.
Speaker 19: The pasion of your emergency.
Speaker 17: I was.
Speaker 5: In the woods.
Speaker 19: My friend.
Speaker 20: Uh, she's been missing for for I think thirty hours now,
and we went into the woods where we used to
all hang out at and there's a house there, and
we went looking for her there, just in case, like
she might be there staying or something. And we found
her in the in the bottom part in the basement, covered.
Speaker 19: Up with pieces of wood. Okay, like was she was?
She still alive?
Speaker 20: Mister nervous on She's pale.
Speaker 19: So she was pale and unresponsive. Yes, are you still
there with her? No, sir, I walked away. I couldn't.
Is anybody still there with her? Mister?
Speaker 1: That night, the body of twenty two year old Katie
Blavelt was found in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse.
She'd been covered with planks of rotting wood, and an
autopsy later revealed she'd been brutally stabbed to death. Simpsonville
wasn't the kind of place where people normally vanished or
where murder made the nightly news. When it did, everyone
knew about it, naturally. Solving Katie's murder became a top
priority for local investigators, but answers didn't come quickly. Nearly
a decade would pass before a jury would finally hear
the case, and even then the truth was anything but certain.
On October twenty third, twenty sixteen, twenty two year old
Katie Blavelt was supposed to meet her younger sister after work,
but by that evening she was missing. The following day,
investigators began piecing together what little they knew, a troubled
marriage with an army recruiter, a recent separation. At a
late night drive to an abandoned farmhouse, that's where two
young men, Wayne Roper and Ricky Hargrove claimed to have
made a discovery they'd never forget. It was Wayne, who
happened to be Katie's ex boyfriend, who reached for his
phone and dialed nine one one.
Speaker 20: I was worried about my friends Kady, and she would
have missed it. She's been missing for a while now.
And who came in this house that we used to
hanging all an elegance?
Speaker 10: And what's more, what's wrong with her?
Speaker 21: Sir?
Speaker 15: We fold her in himself?
Speaker 20: La, you found her what we fell? We found my
friend Katie border did in?
Speaker 11: Okay?
Speaker 20: Okay?
Speaker 1: In other words, she's dead in that?
Speaker 11: Are you saying she's dead in the house?
Speaker 17: Now?
Speaker 5: Now you're sure she's dead.
Speaker 17: She's not breathing, is she cold?
Speaker 6: She's very real?
Speaker 20: And there was no response.
Speaker 22: There's no response? Okay, sir?
Speaker 19: And what's your name?
Speaker 20: Wayne's profra.
Speaker 1: After Wayne made this call, officers quickly arrived at the scene,
and the search for Katie Blauvelt came to an end.
Her body was found in the basement of the abandoned farmhouse,
stuffed into a narrow cement opening and covered with planks
of rotting wood. An autopsy later revealed the cause of death.
She'd been stabbed multiple times, including twice in the neck.
A fragment of the knife used to kill her was
still lodged in her throat. Investigators later concluded that the
murder had taken place somewhere else, likely nearby, perhaps in
the driveway, and that Katie's body had been dragged into
the basement in a hurried attempt to hide the crime.
Now that Katie had been found and the case had
shifted from a missing person to a homicide investigation, detectives
turned their attention to the man who claimed to have
discovered her body, Katie's ex boyfriend, Wayne Roper.
Speaker 6: Jemmy, how did you meet Kate? I'm going to school
with her, Chris.
Speaker 2: Class.
Speaker 6: Y'all the same age. She's two twenty one.
Speaker 15: She's a few months older man, But y'all were inside.
Speaker 6: Gray she's a year buy okay, and the classes together.
Y'all mate the.
Speaker 15: Bus together, and we also had the same watch a
first met her of her friends at first.
Speaker 23: And then we dated for.
Speaker 6: Like a month or so.
Speaker 1: Wayne explained that his relationship with Katie had been a
brief high school Flint, and then after they broke up,
the two remained friends. Years later, after Katie married army
recruiter John Blauvelt, Wayne ended up moving into their home.
In a strange twist, he had become a housemate to
his ex girlfriend and her new husband.
Speaker 12: John offered me.
Speaker 6: To move in within a roommate, so you lived with
her and her husband.
Speaker 16: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 6: Did he know that when you moved in? Yeah?
Speaker 1: According to Wayne, John was aware of his past relationship
with Katie and never seemed to be bothered by it.
In fact, after a night of heavy drinking, Wayne claimed
he was invited into their bedroom.
Speaker 5: When you were living with John A kat how often
we all been intimate with each other?
Speaker 19: It was the long ones.
Speaker 6: And John was there or not there?
Speaker 1: It was and you know it.
Speaker 6: How did you not know it?
Speaker 12: I hate it was looking through something. And after that,
like he just changed.
Speaker 6: And how did that come about? I only drinking, he
was drunking. You know, that's the right idea.
Speaker 24: I can see where that might call some friction. But
you continued to live there. Yeah, I mean he didn't
say anything verbally to me, you know, and I just
thought everything was gonna be okay.
Speaker 15: Then they started having arguments because of me, because she
told me that he was jealous of me.
Speaker 12: Their arguments are eating worse.
Speaker 1: Wayne described how John and Katie's marriage had fallen apart,
marked by constant fighting and tension in the house. Eventually,
Katie moved out, and a few months later Wayne did
as well. Then, after Katie went missing, Wayne claimed he
had just decided on a whim to go look for
her at the old abandoned farmhouse where her body was found.
Speaker 6: Tell me about the band in the house. I didn't
you know about it. We used to go there and
drink all the time. But I didn't get off of
work until eleven.
Speaker 15: Now called called Ricky and see if you give me
a ride, And yeah, I was almost home from work,
and I asked him if he would undertake me together
the band house to look. I used a flashlight to
go in there, and I was looking at the fire
flash flight. It was a headline, okay, And I was
looking on the ground for any footprints or trash or anything.
Speaker 1: Wayne said he went to the abandoned farmhouse in the
middle of the night to look for Katie, which was
something investigators immediately found unusual and highly suspicious.
Speaker 12: Then we went down to the basement.
Speaker 15: I looked at her in that conquered thing, and I
seen her jacket looks.
Speaker 6: At the I see her, Hey, you know it was her.
Speaker 15: She was missing, Like it's the first thing that thought
in my head. Am sure that we ran out of there,
and then once I got to the to the road.
Speaker 14: I called on.
Speaker 1: Investigators also spoke with the young man who had driven
Wayne to the farmhouse, Ricky Hargrove. His account of that
night largely matched Wayne's version of events.
Speaker 7: And then he looks down and he said that I
think he said there she is, Oh my god. And
then I looked playing stattered. I said, oh my god.
I turned around and hears him say Katie, like trying
to wake her up or something, and I'm like, dude,
I think she's dead. I'm kind of going up the
steps by then, and he comes up behind me when
they's pulling out his phone, calling IDEM.
Speaker 1: Naturally, investigators were puzzled by this story. Something about it
just didn't add up. It was strange enough that these
two guys had randomly decided to search for Katie in
the middle of the night, but even stranger was the
first place they looked they found her body. Detectives knew
something wasn't right. One of them, or maybe both, had
to be lying.
Speaker 6: Why didn't you call the place? They already put out
a report and I'm talking about all.
Speaker 5: This conversation about the abandoned house. I'm just curious, why
didn't you refer it and say, hey, look i'm.
Speaker 6: Holding over there, and look, I didn't think of it.
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 6: That's kind of odd.
Speaker 19: It's just like.
Speaker 6: I just didn't expect anything to be there.
Speaker 5: You did a call and said, hey, I don't know
if he's any truth to the is, but I've heard
people talking and there's.
Speaker 6: No man in the house down here, and you all
may want to check that.
Speaker 12: That makes sense to me.
Speaker 5: Putting on a headlamp while a miner ain't going to
bed there at midnight don't make no sense to me.
Speaker 1: Another detail that bothered investigators was that Katie's car wasn't
at the scene. It had actually been found the day before,
abandoned in a parking lot several miles from the farmhouse,
with its license plates removed. So when Wayne and Ricky
showed up at that old house, investigators had to wonder
why go inside at all? If Katie's car wasn't there,
what made them think she would be?
Speaker 6: Did you think she was dead?
Speaker 17: No?
Speaker 5: I didn't, okay, because there's no cars there, so one
of the odds if she's really there, that she would
be Okay, I just I.
Speaker 6: Mean, help me understand. I mean, I don't know. I'm trying.
I'm trying to get it.
Speaker 5: Because you drive up there because you're you're kind of
worried about her. When you get there, there's no cars, right,
So what's the probability that she's really there?
Speaker 6: How was she had gotten there? You know what I'm saying,
this is just you know she was dead.
Speaker 1: Detectives pressed Wayne with simple questions, one that should have
been easy to answer, but instead of explanations, they got
shoulder shrugs and a string of I don't know.
Speaker 6: It's really hard for me.
Speaker 5: To get through my brain that you got hundreds of
ball for phil officers looking for this little girl that.
Speaker 6: You said was a friend of yours.
Speaker 5: We're peening phone, we're subpoenaing records, we're trying to find
this squirrel because people that love her are trying to
find her, and yet you.
Speaker 6: And other guy in there, the first place they look,
they find her. What are the odds of that?
Speaker 21: What do you mean?
Speaker 6: I think they's a sail of men. You had a
bunch of options.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but if you really cared about her, why didn't
you tell somebody.
Speaker 6: Why didn't you get somebody else in it? Why would
you think the best idea is for you to walk
into what turns out today her final resting.
Speaker 5: Place where somebody murdered her and dumped her down there
like a piece of trash.
Speaker 6: Why do you think the best solution for you and
Richie is.
Speaker 5: To go up there and put your DNA all over
a murder crime, saying why.
Speaker 12: I just I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: Listening to this interview, it's not difficult to figure out
what investigators were thinking. They clearly believe that Wayne already
knew what had happened to Katie, He probably knew where
her body was, and this so called discovery had been
completely staged.
Speaker 5: And we need to decide whether we're going to continue
to risk being accessory before after the factual murder, helping
dispose of a body after it was already dead, or
play stupid and ended.
Speaker 6: Up getting charged with all of it.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I'll be good right now.
Speaker 5: We can't put your hand being the one that killed
that girl, but you finding her there, that's way too
big of a quiescence for me, Powell, So I'm not
opposed to him. For anybody has made him say, Wayne,
but I can't help you if you don't.
Speaker 6: Tell me the truth.
Speaker 14: You're telling me the truth.
Speaker 6: You're telling me part of the truth. I'm telling you
the full truth. I've told you of it.
Speaker 16: Then.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I told us everything in that Wayne, But it's
time for you to do that, okay.
Speaker 1: Investigators kept pressing Wayne for what they believed was the truth,
but no matter how hard they pushed, he stood by
his story that he'd simply found Kittie's body and he
had nothing to do with her death or how she
ended up in the farmhouse.
Speaker 25: No, you took that your poor unsuspecting friend right down
the crowd stay because you knew exactly where she was,
and you couldn't send that that she was gonna be
there and might not be found.
Speaker 6: That's what I think happened. You took that boy in
there so you could find her body.
Speaker 14: No one didn't.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you the full truth. I've told you everything
that I can think of.
Speaker 12: What kind of hand did you have in putting her
body there?
Speaker 6: None at all? None, whatever, none, whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Despite the investigator's efforts, Wayne stuck to his story and
to his claim of innocence. After several hours of questioning.
Both he and Ricky Hargrove were released and sent home.
From there, the focus shifted to the farmhouse itself. Detectives
began narrowing down their list of suspects by looking for
anyone who not only knew about Katie but was familiar
with the property. They soon learned the house had a reputation.
It was a popular hangout spot for local teenagers looking
to drink or get high.
Speaker 26: Because the abandoned house that she was found in, like
it was released in the news, was a high school
hangout for us. We'd go over there and chill sometimes.
But uh, the only people that really knew about the
house was the immediate group, which was me, Cameron, Wayne,
who found Katie, Cyane, Ali, Nick, and John.
Speaker 1: When detectives reviewed the names of people connected to the farmhouse,
one caught their attention. John Blavel, Katie's husband. He was
thirty and an army recruiter. So what was he doing
hanging around a known teenage party hotspot?
Speaker 12: Are you familiar with this abandoned house?
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, that's the spot.
Speaker 12: That's like, what's the stuf hangout spot? I've been there
a couple of times. So when was the last time
you were there, like a week ago, a month ago,
spend months.
Speaker 1: When asked, John admitted he was familiar with the farmhouse.
He'd partied there before with some local teenagers, but he
claimed he hadn't been there in months. Even if that
was true, investigators couldn't ignore how strange it was for
a nearly thirty year old army recruiter to be socializing
with high school students. As they dug deeper, they learned
that John's job often brought him into contact with juniors
and seniors, and that drinking with them had apparently become
part of his routine. Many of those students said they
admired him, and why wouldn't they. It was a good
looking soldier with a confident smile in a uniform that
commanded respect. On the surface, he looked like a man
who had his life in order, disciplined, trustworthy, the kind
of person parents might even encourage their kids to follow.
But beneath that polished exterior, investigators were hearing something very different.
According to several of those same teenagers, it wasn't unusual
for John to invite potential recruits back to his house,
where he'd let them drink and get high.
Speaker 26: He was doing recruitment thing and I guess he wasn't
meeting his quota, so she had. He had told her
to invite some friends over to smoke and then he
would do the recruitment stuff then and then that's how
we met him.
Speaker 6: So it was a pretty such study.
Speaker 15: That's a hangout or if I had your rights back
then to hang out drugs, drink alcohol.
Speaker 1: As investigators spoke with these teenagers, they began to get
a clearer picture of John and Katie's relationship. What they
learned didn't quite match the simple and amicable separation story
John had been telling during the.
Speaker 23: Time that you were around when they were together, did
you ever see any violence between the two of the
many arguing.
Speaker 26: Yes, yes, there was frequent. They were always fighting about
something and then John would always be yelling and screaming
at her, and then they would go in their room
and locked the dole in this fight. And we wouldn't
see any of it like visually, but there was a
we could always hear it.
Speaker 1: Investigators eventually discovered that before her death, Katie had filed
a police report with a different department than the one
handling her murder case. In that report, she stated that
John had threatened to kill her and her entire family.
Speaker 27: Katie filed a criminal domestic violence report with Fountain In
Police in January, and in the report, she detailed a
fight that she had had with her husband a month earlier,
where he threatened her several times at home with a revolver,
threatening to kill her if she would not open or
unlock her phone. The report went on to say that
John Blofeld grabbed his shotgun, both sets of keys, and
left the house, saying he was going to kill everybody
she knows.
Speaker 1: Following this incident, Katie made up her mind to leave John.
She went to the police and reported what had happened.
Within days, officers were at the door to arrest him.
Speaker 13: She's left one day, it was like a Tuesday, and
then she came back Friday with the entire Fountain police barman,
and it was a pretty big scene.
Speaker 6: Were our thing.
Speaker 1: When police arrived at John's door, he was drinking and
getting high with high school students.
Speaker 26: And then the night that it happened, when the cops
showed up, he was I'm not sure what he was on,
but he was running around the house waving guns saying
that he wasn't gonna let the cops in and that
he would rather like use the gun before he let
them in.
Speaker 6: So is this the night he got arrested? Yes, Okay.
Speaker 1: Strangely, when officers arrested John, it wasn't for threatening Katie
with a gun, even though she'd file the report saying
he had. Instead, he was charged with contributing to the
delinquency of a minor for drinking and using drugs with teenagers.
After the arrest, the Army was notified and John's recruiting
duties were suspended pending investigation.
Speaker 13: Because of the civil investigation, online recruiting newies have been suspended.
Speaker 6: So I've literally been sitting here since about March.
Speaker 12: During the day, just off his touchstone, playing on the phone.
Speaker 1: John knew that the Army's investigation was mostly a formality.
He knew what the outcome would be. He'd be found
guilty and discharged, ending a ten year military career with
a dishonorable record after a decade of service, He'd essentially
destroyed everything he'd built. But instead of any self reflection,
instead of admitting that giving alcohol and drugs to teenagers
might have been a bad idea. John looked for someone
to blame. All of his anger landed squarely on as
soon to be ex wife Katie Blovel, And I.
Speaker 4: Do you think kind of went back for a little while.
He looks like that he's losing his job. He just
blames it all. And I don't know if this matters.
Speaker 11: Or not, but I know he hasn't gone a fifty
thousand dollars life insurance policy aren't here.
Speaker 1: As John waited for the army to discharge him, his
behavior didn't change. He continued drinking with the high school students,
and according to several of them, he often talked about
Katie's life insurance policy and his desire to see her dead.
Speaker 2: I was over there one day with a bunch of
friends and, like John, like he plotted out ways to
like kill her, but it was joking.
Speaker 1: Incredibly, John also offered a sixteen year old girl fifty
thousand dollars to help him build a false alibi. He
planned to have this teenager drive his car and take
his phone to Charleston so it would appear he'd left town,
when in reality he'd still be in Simpsonville killing Katie.
Speaker 4: And he was like, do you want to go to Charleston,
and I was like, he doesn't longer tells me?
Speaker 28: Yeah, me to what?
Speaker 12: And he's as long as he.
Speaker 4: Was take my car on the phone. And I was
like me, you and cy in and he was like no, no,
just dude.
Speaker 9: I realized a why and he was like, I can't
really tell you and he was like no, I didn't
want to tell me.
Speaker 4: And I was like, well, why, I know, why do you?
He like, hit my car, I'm going my credit card,
that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 11: And he was drunk and he was like, I'm getting
feel okay, he was gonna get I left the tanking
his credit card in his phone to Charleston.
Speaker 4: Well, he asked why and he said so it look
like I was in ust. And he asked him what
he was gonna do what she wasn't Charleston.
Speaker 21: He said he was.
Speaker 10: Gonna kill Katie and he would give her fifteen thousand dollars,
which is the exact amount of life and transposing naturally.
Speaker 1: After hearing these things about John, investigators confronted him with
the act accusations. John denied it all.
Speaker 12: Have you ever and probably jokingly, I would assume, made
a statement.
Speaker 17: To any of your friends about wanting.
Speaker 6: To kill Katie.
Speaker 12: Ever said you know, well if Katie dies, you know
we'll get some money or want money to do anything with.
Speaker 23: Have you ever gone up to any friends and said, hey,
would you do me a favor and take my car,
take my keys, my debit card, my phone, go away
for the weekend to Charleston, say, and that'll make it
look like I'm out of town so I can kill Katie.
Speaker 12: No, so, somebody who told us that they're making that up?
Speaker 6: I believe so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After being confronted with the accusations, John pointed the finger
at Katie's family, claiming they were spreading lies about him.
In his version of events, he was the real victim
and just as hurt as everyone else who loved Katie.
Speaker 13: That's the same type of shit that from out her
found now for the last fucking two weeks, and I'm
getting kind of sick of it because I don't feel
safe in my house anymore. Fucking dirt bag ass family,
Well you gotta understand right now, they're going through a
lot too, trying to understand. But I'm going through the
same fucking shit.
Speaker 6: I lost a friend. Maybe not the best life, but
I lost the fucking friend.
Speaker 1: There was another crucial element in this investigation, one that
would eventually give investigators their best shot at justice for Katie.
It's entered around a teenage girl named Hannah Thompsons.
Speaker 17: A sort of hand I tell me about her, hear
and John like a couple.
Speaker 4: And John I've been.
Speaker 12: Sorting together, I guess for like.
Speaker 4: Seven eight months.
Speaker 6: Seven months so pretty much since he and Katie stood up.
Speaker 1: While John and Katie were still living together, John began
sleeping with seventeen year old Hannah Thompson, and after Katie
moved out, Hannah became John's living girlfriend. Once investigators learned
about Hannah and her connection to John, they were of
course eager to speak with her.
Speaker 12: When was the last time you saw Katie, like a
few months ago, what was her feelings shorts for?
Speaker 8: I mean, I always like, I've always seen her as
like a friend, because like you know, she always told
me that she's like here for me if.
Speaker 4: I are need day thing.
Speaker 17: So it's a very saying you were good turns slither.
Speaker 12: Once she was killed.
Speaker 9: We had a good relationship, like we were a little
kind of close.
Speaker 17: John never make any mention of life insurance policy.
Speaker 19: In her I don't know.
Speaker 12: He never talked to me about it, has ever joked
around about things to be better.
Speaker 17: If she's dead, I should kill her he joked about that. Yes.
Speaker 1: Within moments of speaking with Hannah, investigators were fairly certain
of one thing. She was trying to cover for John.
In other words, she was lying to protect him, which
was an extremely dumb thing to do.
Speaker 17: We've been working the space steady since she disappeared, so
there's a lot of these things that we know the answers.
I can tell you already you're lying to me. Okay,
you do not want to get wrapped up and catch
the murder charge. You're seventeen years old. You know your
entire life, and you may love John, and you may
think you two him to get married and walk down
yellow brick Road.
Speaker 6: Okay, but no man and.
Speaker 17: No woman is worth going to prison.
Speaker 1: Investigators gave Hannah the typical pep talk about honesty, consequences,
and the importance of coming clean, but none of it
seemed to sink in.
Speaker 6: When you told me earlier that you and John aren't
an item, that was a lot right.
Speaker 21: No, they're not.
Speaker 4: Really a leagal loss.
Speaker 6: So who are you doing.
Speaker 9: I'm not dating anybody.
Speaker 6: But if you look at your.
Speaker 13: Facebook, sass, you just posted on Sunday that we're currently
in the most amazing relationship ever something along those lines.
Speaker 6: So who was that relationship with on Sunday it was, I.
Speaker 9: Mean, it was with John, But we're not like in
a relationship.
Speaker 14: We're not dating.
Speaker 4: I just have a good relationship with him.
Speaker 1: Well, Hannah denied being in a romantic relationship with John.
Investigators only turned up the pressure. They were clearly convinced
that she knew a lot more than she was saying.
Speaker 10: Well, after me and John started like getting together, Katy
started not liking me.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to say it right now, I'm like,
she was not nice sometimes, but she did.
Speaker 9: Not deserve that.
Speaker 8: What she deserves right now is for us to figure
out who did this. Oh I know, I know, And
at this point nobody needs to cover for anybody. If
you know something and you're trying to cover up for it,
you're going to go down with the rest of them.
You're going to go down with the person.
Speaker 9: Who did this to her.
Speaker 10: I don't know anything about you, do.
Speaker 6: We will do you do? We know more than anything
which is evident.
Speaker 12: I don't.
Speaker 3: Got it because you know who else can't talk right now?
Speaker 4: It is Katie.
Speaker 6: She's ever talk again.
Speaker 1: Investigators kept pressing Hannah, but they went too far. The
moment they showed her the photos of Katie's body, the
interview fell apart.
Speaker 6: What do you think about.
Speaker 17: Somebody that would sad girl in the neck to the
point where the knife went all the way through to
the other side, and then stick her body like a
piece of trash in the basement of an A band
has to sit there for a day and a half
before somebody finds her.
Speaker 12: Let's go right here.
Speaker 11: I want to look at her.
Speaker 4: I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 17: I don't want to do what.
Speaker 3: I don't want to us find out who Kilbert.
Speaker 6: I'll go w Is tell the truth.
Speaker 17: It will be.
Speaker 6: You gotta tell you something To tell the truth.
Speaker 17: You don't have to try.
Speaker 6: It just flows. It just comes out.
Speaker 4: Please leave, Hannah. This is a friend of yours and
I'm trying to do I don't listening. You listen to
me for just a second.
Speaker 3: This is a friend of yours, or was a friend
of verse, and somebody brutally marked Okay, Unfortunately you are
right in the middle of all of this, and for
to sit here and lie to us to.
Speaker 4: Begin with, is not helping you at all.
Speaker 1: Before long had abruptly stood up walked out of the room,
and the investigators had no choice but to let or go.
Around the same time, their interview with John ended as well,
after he refused a light detector test and said he'd
be contacting a lawyer.
Speaker 12: I'm just gonna ask you to be a point blank.
Did you cop Kate?
Speaker 29: No?
Speaker 12: Do you have it killed her?
Speaker 17: No?
Speaker 12: Would you be willing to take pographs? So we can
go ahead and do that with you and eliminate you and.
Speaker 4: Start looking about that first.
Speaker 6: Okay, see what he says, because I don't know about
that at all.
Speaker 1: By this point, investigators had gathered a good amount of
evidence against John. Several interviews with friends and acquaintances painted
the disturbing picture of John repeatedly talking about killing Katie
and hiding your body. One witness said that John even
offered them money to help him create a false alibi.
Investigators also knew John had a documented history of domestic
violence towards Katie and that he was the sole beneficiary
of her life insurance policy. Also, cell phone records placed
John's phone near the park a lot where Katie's car
was abandoned at the exact time it was left there.
Despite all of this, investigators decided to hold off on
arresting John, wanting more time to strengthen their case. They
let John walk out of the interview room. This was
a decision that would turn out to be a very
big mistake.
Speaker 27: Hannah Thompson's mother reported her missing yesterday to the fountain
In Police department. The report states that the teen was
last seen on October thirtieth. Hannah's mother told police that
her daughter is believed to be with John Blofeld, the
known homicide suspect. Investigators told Hannah's mom that Hannah's bank
account has been left untouched since her last paycheck.
Speaker 1: In November of twenty sixteen, When investigators went looking for
John and Hannah again, both of them were gone, no note,
no warning, no trace. They had simply vanished. Their phones
were dead, their car missing, and every lead hit a
dead end. Overnight, the prime suspect of his teenage girlfriend
had disappeared into the wind, leaving behind a grieving family
in an open murder case. For the next six long years,
the investigation into Katie's death would remain frozen in place,
just waiting for the day that John Blauvelt finally resurfaced.
In November of twenty sixteen, the investigation into Katie Blovelt's
murder took a shocking turn. Her estranged husband, the prime suspect,
army recruiter John Blovelt, had disappeared. It fled town with
his teenage girlfriend, Hannah Thompson, and nobody seemed to know
where they might have gone well.
Speaker 27: Twenty eight year old John Blofeld is charged with murder
in the death of his wife, Catherine, who went by Katie.
Katie's body was found in an abandoned house in Simpsonville
back on October twenty sixth. Investigators say she was killed
with a knife two days earlier. Her husband was last
seen on November fifteenth in New Mexico and remains on
the run Simpsonville police. The investigators believe that he's with
his seventeen year old girlfriend.
Speaker 1: After John and Hannah fled, police spent weeks chasing scattered
tips across state lines, but nothing brought them any closer
to finding the couple or even knowing where they might
be hiding. For Katie's mom and the rest of her family,
this was a crushing setback because.
Speaker 30: Losing your child, I mean, losing a member of the
family's hard, but losing your child is just unbearable. And
then in the beginning, we had hopes that we knew
John did it. We just you know, hearts you knew
John did it, but police have to go through their
steps before they can serve once and get him. And
waiting was hard.
Speaker 1: But we thought, you know, we know where they got
him to get him.
Speaker 30: But then when he ran our hearts sunk.
Speaker 11: Like now what.
Speaker 1: Weeks turned into months and there were still no credible
signs of John or Hannah. Then, just when it seemed
like all hope was lost, Hannah Thompson walked into a
police station and turned herself in.
Speaker 22: Obviously, we brought you in here today because we wanted
to talk to you about the trade of about everything
that's been going on with you. That let me tell
you that we are very glad that you're back and
that you're safe, and that's nothing bad.
Speaker 14: Happened to you.
Speaker 1: After Hannah returned to Simpsonville, investigators wasted no time to
find John. They needed to know what they'd been doing
while they were gone.
Speaker 14: Well, where did you go first?
Speaker 31: When you guys first left from the Simpsonville Fountain area?
Speaker 14: Where'd you guys go? We went to Startenberg first because John.
Speaker 16: Had a friend that he worked with that said that
we could park.
Speaker 14: The car in his yard to sleep there, and so
we did that for a few days, and then.
Speaker 16: He drove like for two days straight, like not sleeping
or anything like, through Georgia and then oh, then he drew.
Speaker 14: He basically drove all the way to Texas, where we're
going to sleep.
Speaker 1: According to Hannah, she and John hit the road and
never looked back. They drove through several states, living like fugitives,
mostly sleeping in their car, always on the move, and
always looking over their shoulder.
Speaker 14: What was the game plan when you guys left? I
don't think we really had one, Like I guess both
of us just kind of panicked, and he decided that
he wanted to leave, like the stay and.
Speaker 4: He told me that we were going to leave, and
I was like, Okay, what.
Speaker 14: Was the reason for panicking? I think that was like
around the time that like you and like the other
investors had been like texting me and he wouldn't let
me reply or anything.
Speaker 1: Hannah told investigators that John had simply panicked. He knew
it was only a matter of time before he was arrested,
so he ran. As for Hannah, she claimed she'd only
left with John because he'd convinced her that she had
no other options.
Speaker 32: He just kept telling me that if I talked to anybody,
that I was going to jail. When I went back home,
I was going to jail. I left him, I was
going to jail. Like he just kept saying that, like
pretty much every day. He made me believe that, like
he knew what was best for me, and he.
Speaker 1: Like keeping me saved, like and I explained that. After
several weeks on the run, the couple made it all
the way to Oregon. That's where John's paranoia began to
take over. It was unraveling more and more each day
and panicking over the smallest things. Then one afternoon at McDonald's,
his anxiety finally got the better of him.
Speaker 14: He stopped doing in McDonald's. And he's gonna use like
Wi Fi.
Speaker 32: Because that's usually when we would go, like start with
to McDonald's to get the whig fire.
Speaker 14: And he like went to go finding tables, and I
went to the bathroom, and then when I came out,
he was like he like packed everything up like really
fast and like go like right now. And I'm like
asking him why, and he just wasn't like talking to me.
Speaker 19: He was just like we just got to go.
Speaker 14: And we got in the car and he like he
just kind of like threw the lapstop like on my
lap and like basically for it out of McDonald's. And
I had asked him, like what's going on, Like what's wrong.
He's like I can't talk right now, and he's like
I'm trying to focus.
Speaker 1: Don had seemingly snapped. It began driving like a madman,
weaving through the winding roads of Eugene, Oregon, pushing deeper
into the mountains as his paranoia took over me like
you can drove up into.
Speaker 14: The mountains and he like.
Speaker 16: Freaking out, like just being really like heaptic and like
in his own hand and you know, just panicking.
Speaker 14: I kept asking him one he just kept telling me
to be quiet and not talk to him and stuff
like that, and then he just got the car like
stuck in and like intrigues like in the mountains, and.
Speaker 11: I was like why did you do that?
Speaker 14: Like what are you doing with how are we going
to get it back out? And he was like, well
figure it out, and he said that we would hike.
He had to hike more off the mountain.
Speaker 1: Basically, John's paranoia had made a very bad situation even worse.
The couple was already on the run for murder, and
now John and managed to get their car stuck deep
in the wilderness. There was no way to get it
out without drawing attention, which meant they just lost their
only means of transportation. Hanna said this was the moment
it finally hit her. Something inside her seventeen year old
brain finally clicked. She was trapped in the middle of
nowhere with a man who was losing his grip, and
for the first time she realized that her life was
in real danger.
Speaker 10: I feel like when he got the car, he was
trying to kill new or both huge, just driving like
into trees, like full of speed, just like so fast.
Speaker 9: And we were hitting stuff that I really I got scared,
like at that.
Speaker 12: Point that like I was going to die.
Speaker 1: That night, John and Hannah spent what would be their
final night in the car. John talked about ending at
all a double suicide, he said might be their only
way out. The next morning, as they made their way
off the mountain, he confessed something that was just as terrifying.
Speaker 29: That night, I remember if I went to bed, he
told me he was like, I'm thinking about letting.
Speaker 9: The car run all night so that we both die
in our sleep.
Speaker 4: And then the next morning he had taken a gun.
Speaker 29: With him, like when we left, and he the next
morning he said he really thought about shooting me in
my sleeping and shooting himself.
Speaker 1: After weeks of living on the road and dealing with
John's spiraling, unpredictable behavior, Hannah finally broke. She wanted out,
she wanted to live, and she wanted to go home.
Speaker 14: And I was just at that point, I was kind.
Speaker 5: Of like.
Speaker 14: Not really having it, and I was crying, and I
was like I can't do this anymore, Like I need
to go home, like.
Speaker 16: And he and he just started crying and he was
like saying, I don't worry to fix Andaly fixed it.
He I'll find it somewhere. He started like yelling.
Speaker 28: At me and calling me names and saying that if
I left, he was gonna kill himself.
Speaker 14: He like ran on me from me, like he ran
away from me, just like screaming, and then he came.
Speaker 32: Back and he was just like and was panicking against
like he was like saying that he did all that
stuff for me, like and all.
Speaker 28: This stuff kill king, Like he was like, I did
that for you, and like all that kind of stuff,
like trying to make me feel like it was my fault.
Speaker 33: Like.
Speaker 4: And he kept telling me that like.
Speaker 14: If I went home, like I wanted to get to
see my parents, because I would just go straight to jail.
Speaker 9: He was just trying to make me feel really guilty,
and like he told me that like he was the only.
Speaker 14: Person that I could ever trust in the world. He
basically told me I didn't have anybody else with him.
Speaker 1: And I told investigators that John had manipulated her into
staying with him, convinced her she didn't have a choice.
But then one day John was simply gone.
Speaker 14: Then like one morning, like.
Speaker 16: He had gotten up, he was like, I'll be right back,
like I'm going to get into the bathroom. I was like, okay,
I'd come half sleep. She just cried up in love
and then I went back to sleep, and one had
woken up. He used a moment back, and I was
just like, I'm not just gonna like sit here.
Speaker 14: Like and by then I was having to use the
bap and choo, So I got up.
Speaker 16: I went to.
Speaker 12: Try and find the.
Speaker 1: Library, and I said. She made her way to a
nearby library, logged into a public computer, and sent a
few messages through her social media. A friend responded, offering
to come get her and take her home to Simpsonville.
She accepted and said that from that moment on, John
Blauvelt was gone from her life.
Speaker 14: By the time I had.
Speaker 16: Gotten back on a computer, everybody like responded to me.
And that's when like Angie came to hit me up
like they had like a range, shit can pick me up?
Speaker 4: Did you ever see Johnian?
Speaker 1: During this interview, it became clear that Hannah had switched sides.
She now recognized that John was dangerous and manipulative, and
investigators appeared to believe her story. At least that's the
impression that gave her.
Speaker 14: Do you understand now what he was trying to do?
Is ability trying to like man just think he would
be alot so that I wouldn't tell anybody anything.
Speaker 31: Nail like he was looking out for his best interest
the whole time, and it really.
Speaker 34: Had nothing to do with the visions, because like, I've
never trusted somebody that much before.
Speaker 1: With Hannah now seemingly on their side, investigators shifted focus.
They pressed for details about Katie's murder. They wanted to
know what Hannah knew, how she ben and anything John
might have told her.
Speaker 14: The last time you want to work with him was
that that Monday. That was the last time you would
to work with him.
Speaker 31: So he was driving you in, passing her seat with joy, Yeah,
and you want up to work with him at I.
Speaker 11: Did you sit in the car?
Speaker 14: Did he go walk around?
Speaker 9: What did you do?
Speaker 14: I sat in the car, and I remember him telling
me he needed me to drop.
Speaker 16: Him off on wood He throw and so I turned
and you were in a parking lot and she got
out of the car.
Speaker 14: He started walking, and I didn't think to ask him
what you been doing, like because at this point we've.
Speaker 16: Been dating for kind of like a while, and it
was just not something that I usually do, like ask
him what he's doing, or like why did.
Speaker 14: He seeing something?
Speaker 15: Had?
Speaker 1: I told investigators she had nothing to do with planning
Katie's murder, and claimed shouldn't even know what John was
up to. According to her, on the day of the murder,
she simply gave John a ride to a remote parking
lot and dropped him off without asking any questions. Investigators
later concluded that John had likely lured Katie to the
abandoned house where she was killed. Phone records showed that
despite their separation and despite the restraining order, the two
were still in contact. It seemed that Katie, ever hopeful,
wanted to believe their marriage could still be saved. John
used that hope to his advantage and ultimately to lure
her to her death.
Speaker 14: What was his relationship with Katie?
Speaker 34: Did he still communicate with her to your knowledge? Or
every time they talked, she'd call from a private number
and they would only use like texting apps to talk.
Speaker 16: To each other because they hadn't her straining order, I guess,
and so they were like kind of thing around talking
to each other.
Speaker 1: And I also claimed that John later described the murder
to her. He told her that when he stabbed Katie,
the knife broke off in her neck, and as she
bled to death, Katie begged him to let her go.
Speaker 9: At some point they were like on the trail leading
up to the abandoned house. He told me that's where
they went. He took her there.
Speaker 4: He says that they were talking for a little bit.
Speaker 29: He doesn't say like exactly the conversation they were talking,
and then he just did it.
Speaker 9: And he said that he stabbed her in her neck
and that there was a lot of blood, and she
told him that if she lets her go, she won't say.
Speaker 4: Anything to anybody.
Speaker 1: Investigators believe that after Katie bled to death, John dragged
her body into the basement of the abandoned house and
covered her with planks of wood. Then he went home,
met back up with Hannah, and once again asked for
her help.
Speaker 4: So I went back home.
Speaker 14: John was outside, like, I didn't even go inside the house.
He was outside and he was like and he used
to follow me in spout car somewhere, and I was like, okay,
And he had this bag.
Speaker 1: John loaded what investigators believed was a trash bag full
of his bloody clothes in Hannah's car. Then he told
her to follow him as he drove Katie's vehicle to
an empty parking lot.
Speaker 16: And I followed him and he.
Speaker 5: Just throve like.
Speaker 14: For a long time because he didn't get on the
highway at all.
Speaker 1: John parked Katie's car, removed the license plates, and climbed
into Hannah's vehicle. The two then headed back home, but
not before stopping at a couple of dumpsters, where John
disposed of the place, the bag of bloody clothes, and
anything else that might tie him to the crime.
Speaker 8: When he threw the clothes away or at the bags away,
did you know at that point in time what was
in the bagh?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 14: Then what happened?
Speaker 9: Did you go home?
Speaker 1: Hannah claimed that as she drove John around that day,
she had no idea she was essentially acting as his accomplice.
She said she didn't even know Katie was dead until
days later, after the body was found and after the
story hit the media.
Speaker 14: When I woke up in the morning, my mom had
like sent me like the news story that like a
body was found in the mint house, and I was
just like I immediately got like home chilled, and.
Speaker 16: I was like, oh my gosh, what is going on?
Speaker 14: Like I used to do that all the time.
Speaker 4: It was really scary.
Speaker 14: And I immediately moved him up and I showed him.
Speaker 1: Hannah said that once she learned about Katie's murder, the
truth slowly began to sink in. At first, John denied
having anything to do with it, but deep down she
knew he was lying. Eventually, he admitted to what he'd done,
though he rarely talked about the details, and whenever Hannah
tried to ask him, he'd turned it back on her,
making her feel guilty for even bringing it up.
Speaker 35: It was just so crazy because like I didn't know
what to think, and he had told me, like the
poo' even want to talk to you, like you to
lie in the road.
Speaker 14: You're gonna go to jail, like you know, you get
to see him, mom, Like like the way that I felt,
it felt like I did it. You knew, Like why
didn't he fell about it?
Speaker 11: He killed her?
Speaker 14: She never like came out and said I killed her,
but like.
Speaker 4: But he knew when you're good that he did it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, did you Jim?
Speaker 31: Hey, John's joking, he said, he's just he would just
brushing off like he like you.
Speaker 14: Want to talk about that right now? Like kind of
you show them the one to know for asking it.
Speaker 1: Considering Hannah's relationship with John, that she was sleeping with him,
running with him, and protecting him. It would be easy
to doubt her story, but honestly I don't. John completely
played her for his own benefit, and I do believe
that he turned her into an accomplice without her even
realizing it. Doesn't even by the way the investigators treated Hannah,
I don't think they doubted her story either.
Speaker 14: I'm not saying that you knew what he was about
to do, Annah, Okay, And.
Speaker 31: Quite honestly, I don't think that you had a hand
in it at all.
Speaker 35: Anybody who thinks that like I would do there.
Speaker 14: Here's what I think.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 14: One, I know he took advantage of you.
Speaker 17: He trusted you.
Speaker 31: And he lured you in, promised you whatever, told you whatever,
and then made you do stuff that in the long.
Speaker 1: Run was good to save him and his return to
Simpsonville was a good thing for several reasons. For one,
she was safe and no longer on the run with
a killer, and it also gave investigators another potential witness
that could testify against John when his case went to
try But that would only matter if they could actually
find him and catch him.
Speaker 9: We're still nothing for John while he's out there.
Speaker 32: There's no telling him what.
Speaker 14: He's going to do.
Speaker 31: Did he ever talk about going in my Togo or
Canada or flying anywhere?
Speaker 14: Loo first where she talked about going to Mexico.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, when it came to John's whereabouts, Hannah didn't have
much to offer. As far as anyone knew, John might
not have even been in the country anymore, and the
investigation into Katie Blauvelt's murder remained open and unresolved for years.
Speaker 36: This week marks three years since twenty two year old
Katie Blauvelt was.
Speaker 6: Brutally murdered in Simpsonville.
Speaker 36: Police say her estranged husband, John is a suspect in
her murder, but Simpsonville Police say he's been on the
run since they found her body in a cellar of
an abandoned home.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 36: He was last seen on the West Coast back in
twenty sixteen and not been seen since.
Speaker 1: By twenty twenty one, investigators had renewed their efforts to
find John. Part of that effort meant bringing Hannah Thompson,
now twenty two years old, back into the interview room.
Speaker 4: John is not a good.
Speaker 9: Person, obviously, and we were trying desperately to find him, Okay,
but we're still looking for and he needs to be
responsible for what he's done.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: During this follow up interview, hadn't made a disturbing admission.
She told investigators that she'd remained in regular contact with
John for years after returning to Simpsonville in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9: And how are you guys communicating?
Speaker 29: But to began communicating on Facebook Messenger, and then after
that we were talking on Snapchat. Like at first we
were talking every single day, multiple time, like for hours
a day. I was the one that stopped communication with him,
and I had just decided to do it.
Speaker 21: I didn't tell him like I'm not going to talk
to you anymore, I don't think, And so I think
the conversation was pretty like no substance to really just
maybe like hey, how are you? Where was he?
Speaker 19: Then?
Speaker 9: I know that he was living with somebody who you
girl that he said that they were dating. She had
her own house.
Speaker 4: I think I think it was an apartment. But he
also did like meet her parents and like they had
gone to her.
Speaker 9: Parents' house stuff like that too.
Speaker 14: So what's the girls?
Speaker 4: I don't know where was that at?
Speaker 9: I don't really know. Whenever I would ask him like
where he was, he would not tell me. He'd say like,
I'm not telling you that, or.
Speaker 12: I can't tell you that.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, by the time Hannah made this admission, it had
been nearly a year since she'd last heard from John.
Even so, the information helped investigators narrow their search. In
twenty twenty two, about six years after Katie's murder, John
Blavelt was finally.
Speaker 37: Found tonight, an Upstain man on the run since twenty
sixteen who investigators say killed his estranged wife, is now
in custody. The victims family just confirmed to us John
Blovelt was arrested in Jackson County, Oregon. Online record show
he's been booked into that local detention center today.
Speaker 1: After his arrest, John made several jail house calls to
friends and family. The recordings gave investigators a glimpse into
his state of mind, as well as the events that
led him to go on the run.
Speaker 33: Oh you're not even in prison yet.
Speaker 19: No, I still got to go to trial and everything.
I'm going to be in his jail for two to
three years.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I think you are in prison.
Speaker 19: Oh okay, that's why I need a lawyer. I got.
I signed up for public defender. But you know they're
like fresh out of college. They don't give a shit
what happens. They just need to do their car. So
but I could get a real attorney, but we'll see,
I'm going to be in this jail for years. You know,
they're not going to give me a pond because they
know I'll run, because I just ran for six years.
The day I ran, I wasn't staying at my house anymore,
and I was on my way home from work or
something from somewhere because I just like to stop buying
and check on my dog. And I saw the police
at my house knocking on my door, so I said, okay,
I'm leaving, and then I left, and you know, almost
almost for a while. And then I was working for
a while and I met a girl and I lived
with her for like four years, and then one morning
the US Marshals came. I was out in front tending
to my vegetable garden and the US Marshalls just pulled
up in the driveway. But that night I got the
best sleep that I've had in six years. So I
guess as a positives too, yeah, I.
Speaker 9: Was.
Speaker 19: I've been anxious, you know, I've had that anxiety depression
the whole time. But I'm actually feeling really good now,
I'm at peace.
Speaker 1: During these calls, John said more than once that he
was relieved to be caught, happy even that he no
longer had to live his life constantly looking over his shoulder.
Speaker 19: I was on the run for six years, man, I was,
and I was used to the pace. Every night. I
would pace in the living room until like three thirty
four o'clock in the morning, fully dressed like ready to run,
you know what I mean. It was like when I
seen the Marshals like pull into the driveway, like ten dudes,
guns out and I just swear, dude, I smiled. I
was like, I was like, I can't believe it's over.
I got in the I got in the truck and
the Marshal was like six years a long run, man,
and I was like, oh, I'm glad you finally found me.
I was like, it was a nightmare.
Speaker 1: What's most disturbing about these calls is what John didn't say.
Not once did he mention Katie, her family or show
a single hint of remorse. Like a textbook narcissist, every
word was about himself and the supposed peace he'd finally found.
Speaker 9: Even after the.
Speaker 14: Fact, Why do you say that she never cried about her.
Speaker 4: I feel like.
Speaker 14: I'm not get at me I crying about it.
Speaker 1: In later phone calls, John shared more about the six
years he'd spent on the run. He described how he'd
managed to weasel his way into another woman's life, lying
about his name, his past, and who he really was.
Speaker 19: Then I met that girl, been real good. I maintain
her budget on diet, turned her life around. We bought
a house together in September. I said three years to say.
Speaker 21: Look poor.
Speaker 19: We bought a house all in her name. And then
I got arrested. The US marshals tracked me down and
I called her like a week later from jail, and
she was like, fuck you, you ruin my life. I'm like, okay,
you didn't know about anything. I guess no, hell no,
I didn't. I had a fake name. I was going
by Ben. I like that name too. We had a
good time. We had a good life. Man. We had
a house, We had a dog, do three cats. I
didn't work for two years. I worked for the first
two years we were together. I was a landscaper, small
and lawns, building fences and stuff like that. Right, and
then that guy retired. He retired, so and I was
out of a job. And she was like, well, you
can just stay at home, just piece the house clean,
take care of the dog. And I was like all right.
Speaker 1: Once again, this narcis seemed either blissfully unaware or simply
incapable of understanding that by dating this woman, living with
her for years, and hiding his past, he'd made her
a victim as well. So he's being arrested on charges
out of South Carolina for murder?
Speaker 4: Are you serious? Year? He would do random on jobs.
He was basically here watching my.
Speaker 33: Cat, so my dog all the time.
Speaker 1: When John's girlfriend learned the truth, she was devastated, And
who wouldn't be imagine living with someone for nearly six years,
loving them, trusting them, only to find out they were
wanted in another state for murder, that the name and
the backstory they'd given you were complete lies. The man
she thought she knew had been living a double life.
But this woman wasn't the only one to face the
fallout with John Bars. It was finally time for Hannah
Thompson to face justice as well.
Speaker 38: There is also a second suspect in Katie's death. Hannah
Thompson was John Blauvelt's teenage girlfriend who fled the state
with him. She is now twenty five in charge with
obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact.
Speaker 1: Despite the charges against her, Hannah agreed to testify against
John at his trial without any promise of leniency from prosecutors.
Unlike John, Hannah's remorse seemed genuine, and as the star
witness for the state, she helped ensure that John Blauvelt
received the prison sentence that he deserved.
Speaker 33: On Friday, a jury found John Tufton Blavelt guilty of
murdering his estranged wife in twenty sixteen. Blavelt, the former
US Army recruiter out of Greenville, now a convicted killer,
was sentenced by the judge to life without the possibility
of parole.
Speaker 1: As for Hannah, she pleaded guilty to her charges and
received probation for helping John flee after the murder. Her
reduced sentence reflected both her cooperation with investigators and the
fact she was only seventeen when she ran away with them.
There's no question that Hannah was also a victim in
this case. John clearly manipulated her, but one thing about
her lenient punishment still feels hard to accept. After returning
to Simpsonville in twenty sixteen, Hannah stayed in contact with
John for years, and she didn't tell investigators about this
until twenty twenty one. She said nothing knowing that Katie's
family was still suffering. She said nothing knowing that a
killder was still out there. It could strike again at
any time. Maybe a more fitting punishment would have been
a prison sentence that matched the years she kept this secret.
But that's just my opinion. What do I know, I'm
a podcaster. In the end, what matters most is that
Katie's family finally got some measure of justice and hopefully
a bit of peace. And knowing that John Blovelt will
spend the rest of his life behind bars, that's one
thing that we should know about Katie.
Speaker 30: One of the things I had was something about her
laugh and her big eyes and her smile, and she
just had a true heart. And her name is Katie,
but her name is Catherine, and it meant innocent.
Speaker 19: And pure, and that's what she was.
Speaker 1: And we lost that the murder of Katie Blovelt wasn't
a crime of passion or a moment of rage. It
was the calculated act of a man who understood appearances,
how to weaponize them, and how to hide behind them.
As a soldier, a recruiter, and a husband, John Blovelt
knew exactly how to make people believe he was something
worth trusting. But beneath that uniform an easy smile, was
a manipulator who saw others as tools to use, to control,
to discard. He fold his wife, his girlfriend, his community,
and for a time, even the system meant to hold
him accountable. In the end, John's greatest deception wasn't how
he escaped justice. It was how long he convinced everyone
that he was one of the good guys. If nothing else,
Katie's murder is a reminder that trust should never be automatic,
because anyone can wear a uniform that hides their deception,
and sometimes that person wearing it is a monster. We
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