In homicide investigations involving poisoning, digital forensics and forensic toxicology are essential tools that can reveal critical evidence even when initial autopsies are inconclusive; investigators must carefully analyze computer search histories, toxicology reports, and behavioral patterns to build cases against perpetrators, as demonstrated in the Julie Jensen case where ethylene glycol poisoning was confirmed through toxicological analysis of bodily fluids despite initial uncertainty about the cause of death.
Julie Jensen: The Letter Part 2 | Antifreeze Poisoning Murder Case
Added:The basics of chemical toxicology, specifically how ethylene glycol (antifreeze) metabolizes in the human body and causes systemic organ failure.
The legal concept of hearsay and the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, which governs the admissibility of out-of-court statements in a trial.
The distinction between forensic pathology (determining the physical cause of death) and criminal investigation (proving intent and culpability).
An understanding of 'dying declarations' and their historical exceptions in common law evidentiary rules.
The landmark Supreme Court precedent 'Crawford v. Washington' (2004) and its specific impact on the 'forfeiture by wrongdoing' doctrine in criminal trials.
Advanced analytical chemistry techniques in forensics, such as Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), used to detect trace levels of poisons in biological tissue.
The psychology of coercive control and intimate partner violence, exploring why victims may document their fears of harm rather than seeking immediate flight.
A comparative study of other high-profile antifreeze homicides (such as the cases of Lynn Turner or Stacy Castor) to analyze criminal behavioral patterns and forensic detection challenges.
184.9K views8.7Klikes1:35:50Original Release: 2024-06-16
[Music] Hello everybody welcome back to Crime weekly I'm Stephanie harlo and I'm Derek Lasser So today we're diving into part two of the Julie Jensen case and this case already has me livid so I I really I can't wait to see what today brings us but as a little recap in November of 1998 40-year-old Julie Jensen confided in several people about her fear that her husband of 14 years Mark was planning to poison and kill her she mentioned that he had been buying syringes researching poisons and potentially tampering with her food she was so frightened that she told her friend a police officer named officer Cosman that if anything happened to her the police should look into Mark despite her obvious Terror her concerns were not taken seriously until December 3rd when Mark called 911 and claimed he had found Julie dead in their bed when detective ratzburg arrived Mark suggested Julie might have died from an allergic reaction to new medication he said she'd been sick for a few days before her death however detective ratzburg and the District Attorney's Office found this explanation suspicious and they decided to launch an investigation and thank God they did thank God they did because I mean obviously the circumstances surrounding this are definitely suspicious and that's just on on the surface that's before diving in to some of the other things that that come up in this case yeah I mean obviously from part one we know Mark's not a good guy I mean he he literally tortured his wife for years with these pornographic images putting them all around trying to convince her that somebody else was doing it trying to convince her that she couldn't trust anybody yeah no he's a bad dude he's a bad dude so this this is definitely something where on the surface as a detective you could come in or as a patrolman come in there and say okay yeah you know let's just take the what you know the husband that face value he's proba he knows his wife better than us and I'm not saying that sarcastically that that has happened where you come into a situation and the officers automatically assume that the person they're dealing with is a good person and telling them the truth well you can't do that and and and some people can be offended by that when we come in there and look at everything with a question mark but that's why that's we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't so hats off to law enforcement here saying okay thank you sir we appreciate your suggestion or your opinion on this matter but we're going to take a deeper look at this to make sure everything adds up yeah and I mean obviously I'd rather have that I'd rather have the police come in immediately suspicious so they do a thorough investigation then to come in and take whoever they're dealing with at face value when they literally don't know this person at all and that's happened to me before where the police have been like oh well they seem like good people so and it's like but I know they're not I know they're not so and you just met them so it's it's it can be frustrating and and I think it does come from laziness any good police officer is going to go into a situation like they encountered at the Jensen home and be on guard especially given the statistics that many women die at the hands of their own romantic Partners yeah no like I said good job by them and I'm looking forward to diving into the details because we're just we're just starting to crack this one open there's a lot more to talk about so while at the Jensen home detective ratzburg told Mark that as part of the investigation into the cause of Julie's death they wanted to search the Jensen home and because of this Mark would have to find somewhere else to spend the night and Mark said you know that would be no problem he would just stay with his father Mark then read and signed the consent form a decision that would come back to bite him later on now that night neighbors were gathering across the street from the Jensen home hoping to figure out what had happened when Mark and his father walked over and declared that Julie had had a bad reaction to medication and died the neighbors couldn't believe what they were hearing one neighbor later said they were surprised by Mark's demeanor he broke the news with no emotion he was matter of fact and he sounded rehearsed that same night Julie's brother Paul showed up to Mark's dad's house and while there he overheard Mark and his father in a loud heated argument about what not to tell the police by the end of the following day December 4th authorities were done searching the Jensen home during the two-day search they had seized Mark's computer and sent it to the crime lab for an analysis but but it would take a really long time for technicians to go through the computer after the search of the home was over and the home was released back to Mark the Jensen's neighbor Ted who remember was not only Julie Jensen's neighbor but her friend he saw Mark and his father giving each other a high five and celebrating in the driveway around the same time Ted handed detective ratzburg the sealed envelope Julie had given him for safekeeping the month prior inside the envelope was a photo she had taken of a list written in Mark's handwriting that include items like own drug Supply bag hands and syringe and Derek I saw you shaking your head a little bit when I talked about Mark and his father celebrating in the driveway and obviously you know Mark has his issues and his father clearly also has issues because What's Happening Here is not only is Mark doing horrible things to Julie while they're married things that his his family probably supported knew about and endorsed and maybe even at times helped him carry out this torture but now in the aftermath of Julie Jensen's death Mark and his father are high-fiving each other like yeah yeah you really did it we we really we we did it here and this is something that's going to just increase and enforce a personality disorder like this when there's no accountability when you're enabled by people who are close to you AKA your parents your family and and that's what it appears to be is happening here so I have two things to say I was actually thinking about something else but to answer your qu what you just said yeah I definitely think you can have a level of enabling going on there and I think to a lesser extent a lot of us as parents do this with our own kids where we try to justify something that they do wrong right and it's not like a malicious thing it's just it's a natural instinct but in cases like this that you're talking about it goes to an extreme where there may be something that's most parents would look at and go wow this is a problem uh these types of parents again find a way to justify or like you even said contribute or cover it up which is only promoting that behavior and not explaining to them that it's wrong can lead to bigger issues down the road and this could be an example now just to qualify this it could be a situation here in this moment where they're high-fiving over a sports game that went on you know we don't know what they were talking about but based on the context and based on the timing there should be no sometimes I feel like you play Devil's Advocate to a fault this is the day after his wife died yeah why would you be high-fiving over a sports game and I know you're trying to cover our bases well I I was going to go there and say that it's no time to be high-fiving but the reality is it's an assumption and I think that investigators and normal individuals can make this mistake we're talking about the timing of the high five there's no disagreement or any dispute I think by most people to say the timing of it whether it's for a sporting event whether it's because it's just like hey I love you whatever the case may be it's a bad time to be high-fiving when your wife just died a day earlier but it's an assumption to say they're high-fiving over the fact that they pulled off this murder we can keep going down this road if you want but there was something else I wanted to bring up that I'm reading in between the lines here as a police officer that's not in this script because it can't be because it wasn't written anywhere but something that I have a strong suspicion about regarding this case and that suspicion is this I just gave the law enforcement officers involved with this case a lot of credit and a lot of kudos to go in there and be objective and not take Mark at his word and I stand by that but I'm going to say this and I know it's probably not in a report anywhere I have a really strong sneaking suspicion here that these officers had a little bit of insight going into this now that could have been officer Cosman for that maybe tip them off about this or something because the the extent of their investigation including searching the entire house immediately tells me that they're either really really good at their job or they went into this case they went into this house knowing something's not right here we've heard some things we've heard some rumbl Lings from some Associates of ours don't go in there and believe this guy like I feel like they might have had an indication that there was some issues in the relationship before they even arrived at the house that day because it seems like their investigation was not only very thorough but very fast which would indicate they had an an idea that the preservation of evidence was extremely critical in this situation so again I don't know and I guarantee you it's not written in any report but this has happened to me before where we go into a case whether it's a Narcotics case or an assault or a gang investigation where we go in there and the report is written as if we are going in there with no preconceived notions no assumptions but the reality is through intelligence gathered from multiple agencies officers can go in there with some type of uh information that may assist in that investigation prior to even arriving and I feel like the expedience of this investigation May indicate that can't be certain but that's what it sounds like to me well I think I'm about to tell you something that's going to enforce what you just said because although it's not technically I guess written in any report I just told you that the police had found a sealed envelope that's right that's from Ted right yes that's from that's from Ted and inside the envelope they found a photo that photo was the list that was in Mark's handwriting that said things like own drug Supply bag hands and the syringe y also inside that envelope was a letter and this letter read quote Pleasant Prairie Police Department Ron Cosman or detective ratsenberg now the detective who was the lead in Julie's case was detective ratzburg but she says detective ratsenberg I assume she meant detective ratzburg which means either a she'd already had interactions with him before Andre and had talked to him or uh Ron Cosman detective Cosman was had given her his name and said oh hey this is somebody you should talk to or this is somebody you should bring this information to so detective ratzburg it appears before he walked into the Jensen home that day already was aware of Julie Jensen Mark Jensen and what was going on between them I agree and if you remember and it was a while ago but we talked about it last week where we discussed detective Cosman and we discussed the obligation when a friend comes to you and starts confiding in you about these things and what you should do as a officer and you and I debated it for a little bit it was quick but overall regardless of whether he filed a report or not you know against his friend's wishes right Julie's wishes is it fair to say that he may have informed some of his colleagues and his counterparts about these things to say Hey listen this is going on over there we got to keep an eye on it absolutely yeah and then told hey I talked to my buddy detective ratzburg you know he's he's in the Criminal Division um I I kind of let him know what was going on he people were aware of this this didn't come this this her death did not come out of the blue I would wager a guess that the whole Pleasant Prairie Police Department to some extent knew about the Jensen mhm it it definitely sounds like I keep picturing that Meme of like the dog with the side eye you know I don't know like the the Beagle or whatever when it's like got the side eye going I feel like they walked into that house and Mark's like yeah you know it's looks like it was a allergic reaction and they're like mhm sure we're going to need you to leave the house we're GNA need you to leave we got to right I mean that's I'm giving them a lot of credit as far as like their intuition and I'm not negating that I'm just saying there might have been some some information going into that house that they were aware of which allowed them to deduce what they did so quickly and that goes back to the State of Mind of a person like Mark Jensen a lack of self-awareness he literally he he thought he was fooling them he thought you know I'm a super nice guy I'm you know a legit business personis sociable Falls for my charming demeanor this is not going to be an issue I don't even care how obvious it is they'd have to prove it or you know they're not even going to suspect me like we see this too once again with Mark's father and when we go back to the rad and family massacre in uh in pikon which we covered uh what last month mhm you can see Jake's family his mother his father they all took part in what they were doing to their son's romantic Partners they all created a narrative that would support and justify the treatment that they were doing out to their son's girlfriends and some of this stuff was horrible like custody battles and keeping their kids from them and making them feel trapped and not letting them talk to anybody but in their heads this is horrible stuff but in their heads they're like well this is what we have to do to protect the children right so they they have to do that and the whole the horrible thing is they do it so effectively that they completely convince themselves that they're the best people in the world so it always surprises them when they encounter someone or more than one someone that sees through them and that's what's Happening Here Mark's letting these people in he's like yeah sure I'll leave let me sign a consent form yeah whatever you guys need acting like a damn fool super suspicious but in his he's like who's afraid of little old me yeah well I mean they the best that's why they're a lot of the times the best liars and I've said it to you you guys out there numerous times I've been in interrogations with people like this where if I didn't have the video or multiple written statements from objective Witnesses who were just at the scene I would who saw this person there committing this crime I would believe them because you can't it's hard to pick up on a lie from someone when they believe the lie they're telling so I'm going to uh continue reading this letter and then we're going to take a quick break but and we'll come back and talk about what the letter says so she says you know this is for Ron Cosman or a detective ratzburg she said quote I took this picture and I'm writing this on Saturday 1121 98 at 7 a.m. this list was in my husband's business daily planner not meant for me to see I don't know what it means but if anything happens to me he would be my first suspect our relationship has deteriorated to the polite superficial I know he's never forgiven me for the brief affair I had with that creep 7 years ago Mark lives for work and the kids he's an Avid surfer of the internet anyway I do not smoke or drink my mother was an alcoholic so I limit my drinking to one or two a week Mark wants me to drink more with him in the evenings I don't I would never take my life because of the kids they are everything to me I regularly take Tylenol and multivitamins occasionally take over-the-counter stuff for colds Zantac or am modium have one prescription for migraine tablets which Mark uses more than I I pray I'm wrong and nothing happens but I am suspicious of Mark's suspicious behaviors and fear for my early demise however I will not leave David and Douglas my life's greatest love accomplishment and wish my three d's daddy Mark David and Douglas end quote and this letter was signed Julie C Jensen so let's take a quick break and we'll come back and [Music] [Applause] [Music] discuss so dererk and I have talked about iqq bar many times on crime weekly and that's because we really love them we love their protein bars we love their electrolyte powders and you can power up your life with Superior brain and body nutrition products from IQ bar their plant protein bars are the perfect low carb grabing go breakfast their IQ mix zero sugar hydration drinks 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[Music] details okay we're back so a couple things that stood out to me was first of all Julie refers to the man that she had an affair with as a creep and that's interesting to me because it makes me feel like she still even though she knows that Mark's kind of Nefarious she still kind of believes that this guy was the one who was harassing her with those pornographic images because that's what Mark told her right and that that's pretty consistent with what you know being psychologically abused for so long will do to you I also thought it was interesting that she says I don't smoke or drink but Mark wants me me to drink more with him in the evenings and she kind of said something about that we talked about it last episode where he was chasing her around the house with a glass of wine right yep yep I remember that yep and you were like I don't know why and I said I don't really know why either besides the fact that it's just this like harassing thing and just keep you completely off balance but it's it's interesting to wonder why did Mark want her to drink with him in the evenings was it to just you know give him one more layer of having her confused and sort of out of it or was he putting something in those drinks that he wanted her to consume yeah it's a great point and I I'm going to play defense attorney probably a little bit throughout this episode this isn't my personal opinions but to stay in the middle here the only thing that's concerning about this letter is clearly there's something here no doubt about it where our victim Julie is concerned about her husband and concerned about his behavior and and and making sure to emphasize that regardless of what's going on with her life she would never take her own life because of her children wants to be very clear about that well that can be true and the fact that she died from an accidental mixture of drugs can also be true so that's the one defense that I'd be latching on to here if I'm Mark and his team because we're not necessarily suggesting that she killed herself what Mark is trying to convey to law enforcement is oh my God this was a lethal dosage a mixture of drugs that resulted in an accidental death not that she killed herself so on one hand you could have a situation where Mark made it look this way on the other you could have a woman who was concerned about her husband potentially hurting or killing her but ironically ended up dying from a accidental mixture of drugs that again that's the defense here and as the prosecutor I would say that this was before Julie died and she would have no way of knowing how Mark was going to set up her death to look right and she would probably assume he would try to make it look as if she had done it to herself and and just in case that happened correct she was letting people know I would never do that to myself that ended up not being how he posed it but maybe that's because he knew she was telling people that she would never take her own life so he kind of preemptively came up with another thing I would also say that Julie in general just feeling scared enough of her husband that she had to tell anybody is enough of you know evidence for any defense to come in and and and take the focus off of that and start talking about well you know Mark didn't say Julie killed herself so therefore throw the letter out right oh no and listen that's why I'm saying here it is hard for me sometimes to do it because I don't necessarily believe what I'm saying but there's been a lot of occasions where we hear from defense attorneys or defense teams and their defense for their client um doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense to everyone else else but they have found a way to convince themselves of whatever alternate Theory they have come up with so it's just something where you when as a defense attorney you're looking for holes in the case this is one that I would attempt to exploit yeah listen you know they had their problems they had their issues and there was a lot of you know things going on between them however you know Mark didn't want to kill his wife and and he is as upset about this tragedy as anybody else you know that's the that's the narrative you're going with now that before uncovering all these other behaviors that are now linked back to him but again on the surface that's where I'm going with this if I'm one in in Mark's camp or two defending Mark okay well good thing that neither of those things are true that that that is also true IRL so okay so this letter actually confirmed to detective ratzburg and the district attorney that Julie's death was in fact suspicious the letter and the envelope were submitted to the State Crime Lab along with Julie's known writing examples and the lab eventually concluded that she was the one who wrote both on the same day that Ted gave ratzburg the letter pathologist Dr Michael shambles performed an autopsy on Julie's body and while there was unexplained throat bruising and petia in the upper chest he was unable to determine her cause of death because of this the kosha County Medical Examiner Dr Moren Leen ordered additional toxical studies for Julie's kidneys blood and gast contents unfortunately results wouldn't be available for years this is bananas by the way because typically you do toxicology and and it's back maybe a couple months tops years it took for these results to come back so no one was sure how Julie died all they knew was that her death was suspicious as hell I don't even know how it would take years for the talk I've never heard of that you're right there's got to be something else going on there but yeah I completely agree with you I don't know why it would take that long for the results to come back or maybe to be revealed but this is always an issue uh that that law enforcement has to deal with and it's not necessarily any fault of the pathologist I appreciate the fact that they know how important that ruling is right they're not the main ones investigating the case but their ruling could could be the difference between someone being a free person or going to prison for the rest of their life so those words just the you know cause and manner of death it's usually just two or three words after that but that is extremely significant to a case and can impede a detective's ability or a prosecutor's ability to charge anyone if they don't have a definitive cause of death so in many instances if the pathologist is not completely confident in that they will rule it as undetermined and we've talked about that at length in cases that I've worked it is um something that always frustrates me I've even gone to the extent of bringing in pathologists from other parts of the world to give a second opinion and in those cases those Pathologists have come to a definitive conclusion but again it's two different experts having a difference of opinion and ultimately they're both right because even though this is science there is some subjectiveness to to to these results and to these examinations yeah absolutely uh but why would it take so long that's I don't I don't know that part after all that I just said I can't explain that that would take an expert I'm I'm sure it's the truth but I don't know why it would take that long the tests go out even if there's a backlog you know with a homicide investigation they usually put some type of urgency on those yeah and I mean I I did I do remember reading that the the levels of the um the antifreeze in Julie system were like very low so maybe they had to do it several times I'm not sure but either way even yeah years something more than likely something happened again as far as the process in of this where there's humans doing this there's a chain of custody there's there's a lot of things none of it's Justified none of it's an excuse I'm just telling you guys how how it is sometimes where there's probably again more to this story where there was a miscommunication a laps and you know handling of this and and it it got lost in the shuffle which it shouldn't have cuz I'm I'm sure detectives were waiting on these results yeah I want to um I want to kind of like look into that because I try finding out you know I was looking into it why would it take so long I I also feel like that's probably something they not they don't want to publicize like if they made a mistake or if the samples got lost or if the whole case kind of got shuffled to the back they probably don't want to talk too much about that part it it can take a few months for sure now and then you know this was some time ago wasn't yesterday so maybe add a couple extra months but not years I mean we talk about Riley strain remember we were discussing that case they were going to do the toxicology they take it from the eye even that case that's highly publicized everyone's talking about it it still can take a few months but years that's that's that's a long time yeah and I think they did Riley's toxicology it was maybe not even a month where it came back again they can you know they move it to the top of the top of the list but even with that sense of why would you move this to the top of the list well that's the question what happened here what happened here we don't know right now and it's so frustrating but anyways detectives continued investigating Julie's death they interviewed multiple people including the neighbor Tad and his wife the teacher that Julie had confided in and of course officer Cosman and through these interviews detectives learned that Julie was terrified Mark was trying to kill her which only helped cooporate Julie's letter as the investigation pressed on Mark and his sons continued living in the home that Julie died in and within one or two days of Julie's death Mark asked his friend and cooworker David if it was appropriate to bring his mistress Kelly to Julie's wake and funeral he said he would just tell people that Kelly was an out of town friend yeah read the room Mark read the oh my God I mean you know can I I'm doing this I'm gonna piss people off but in a way doesn't this almost seem like for a second where you're like well maybe he's not guilty because you wouldn't be this dumb like if you really did this he has no self-awareness this is exactly the the why I know he's a sociopath you you follow what I'm saying though yes like you at least put on the the front that you're upset about this if you actually murdered your wife you would like at least pretend like you were grieving what happened in my head when I read this was like okay let's say you were innocent let's say you'd been cheating on your wife for 2 years and you didn't even want to be married to Julie anymore and you've had this girl Kelly in your life and you're in love with her and it's a real relationship but you just stayed with Julie for the kids and you had this thing going on in the side even in that case you would still not bring your mistress to your dead wife's funeral because you would have no hatred or vital towards your your deceased wife you know she was a good mother she was a good wife to you you just fell out of love you were still friends you worked as partners you would still care about that person enough to not do something that shitty to them and around their family and around your children but the fact that Mark even considered doing it lets me know he had no care for Julie at all there was no love in him for her there was not even any mutual respect for her if you're considering doing that this is like something you do like literally pouring more dirt on the grave just adding in salt to injury this is something you do to continue torturing and messing with your wife even after she dies this is not a normal person thing to do I would agree it's definitely a poor uh judgment call at minimum yes we could say that yes now it doesn't appear that Mark ended up bringing Kelly to the funeral cuz probably every he asked was like what the hell's wrong with you and he was like oh this is not a good thing to think this is not a good thing to do noted like in his freaking robot brain but he still managed to act in appropriately he showed no signs of grief and one woman later recalled quote Mark was standing maybe 5 feet from her casket and he had a group of men around him he was laughing and joking and it was just so odd end quote it's 1998 and like I know people probably had cell phones and stuff back then but this is why we needed smartphones back then because you know if Mark was doing that stuff in 2024 somebody would have pulled out their iPhone and and gotten this on video and it would have been so much more impactful to see it instead of just hear it like a man standing with a bunch of his buddies joking and joshing around and and laughing and and having a good old time 5T away from his dead wife to make matters even more dramatic Dr Borman Julie's Doctor Who prescribed the paxel she'd been taking right before she died he actually showed up to the funeral and told Julie's family that there was no way she died from taking the medication as Mark was claiming days after the funeral neighbors noticed that Mark had thrown out Julie's clothes shoes crafting supplies and sewing machine he put them all in garbage bags one friend later said quote it's like he wanted to erase her he's erasing her from his life and from the house end quote it is exactly like that cuz he's moved on and now he wants to pretend she never existed and any life that he had with her never happened yeah and some might say oh you know it's just it's too hard to see those things and it's awful quick to get to that point where it's too hard to see any of her stuff some people go the opposite route and never remove things ex most people do or at least keep a few things you know her sewing machine super important to her her clothes these are personal items yeah this isn't like a Pyrex dish that she'd store leftovers in it's like the things that mattered to her the things she wore very personal yeah yeah and you definitely have a situation here where it looks like he had moved on prior to her death and this was just kind of putting a bow on on that behavior oh yeah and around this time his mistress Kelly started staying the night at Mark's house even though she was still married to her husband the suspicious Behavior continued and in mid December Mark and Kelly's company held their annual Christmas party Mark's co-workers had tried to postpone the party out of you know respect for Mark and his deceased wife but Mark insisted that they have it and while at the party he lived it up he drank he laughed he flirted the whole time then in January of 1999 Mark held a birthday party for his and Julie's oldest son and you know who was there Kelly Kelly was there and Mark introduced her two people as his friend 3 months later in April detectives asked to speak with Mark and to their surprise he said yes even though his attorney had warned him to not talk to the police remember no self-awareness well that's what we that's what we hope for as detectives we want that false sense of security that that confidence because once you're in there and you start talking it's in stone whether it's on recording or on paper once we start locking you into a statement and you're you're toast if you're lying and that's and that's why maybe Mark's attorney was saying hey you shouldn't do this you know the best thing you can do is just move on with your life and hope they don't come after you so I'm going to play you a little clip from that interview right now and then we're going to go to break and when we come back we'll discuss it but we need to find out what happened here well I did not do anything to hurt her there was a question between myself and the kids that morning whether or not the call an ambulance her breathing was funny she could hardly get out of bed I mean it was a God awful situation here in your statement Wednesday December 3rd Julie they could hardly move here 900 p.m.
told me that she was fine and she wanted to commit suicide and on Wednesday morning Julie asked me not to call anyone I meeting not to call her help she wanted to die MH right yeah so on Wednesday morningday morning she me not to call anybody she's pretty bad off she wasn't looking good she couldn't no m control should you call the rescue squad that Wednesday you think she was bad off enough to where should have called the rescue squad but she didn't want you to she didn't want me to well right I should have you in hindsight I know that so you didn't do anything to Aid in her death but you didn't do anything to stop her from dying I really did I mean I just watched it happen are are you up to looking at some pictures of her I can I can grab her real quick okay show you where the position she was in there and maybe you could explain it a little bit further I've got the image in my mind okay let it it'll take me just a minute to hook it okay let me bring back in the photos and I'll show you see like here's a picture of juli and you can see here look at the nose how it's bent like it was pushed into the pillow like somebody pushed it in there I I don't know how to clean it where you know here's probably a better I mean it's almost look like it's broken I have Dr chamblas is report right here which says it's basically an aixia death she suffocated and the only way you can suffocate Mark is if you did something to her a 40 41 year old young female does just not stop breathing you had to do something Mark be honest with me be straight with me Mark be a man tell me what happened here nothing more than what I told her you didn't get on top of her no well the evidence suggest is that there was a pillow over her head with you recall you saw the nose same as I did I got pictures of it right okay you saw the nose and put a pillow over her head no no no no Mark how how how did she how did she stop breathing Mark she straight with me be honest when I found her Mark you had to do something I did not how how how can I how can you explain this I don't know I don't know I don't know well let's get back here to Julie I mean look at where you're sitting for my position here Mark okay one we have a relation a marriage that was not good okay that was not good you basically has a girlfriend at this point the one that you were seeing before Julie okay I've talked to some of Julie's friends and they said you she was divorced was mentioned uh some of this other stuff you guys were not having a good marriage okay I um you know she contacts us uh a couple days before and she leaves us this life okay then all of a sudden boom she turns up to you know I'm not making this up this is true evidence and here we have Julie Jensen telling me that if she dies you're the person that that did it anything happens to me he would be my first suspect I know he's never forgiven me for the brief affair I had with that creep 7 years ago I have been doing this 15 years Mark and I've never had 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dumb for him to do in my opinion yeah that that clip is very interesting and and the interrogation was pretty well done and you can tell that Mark wasn't anticipating this I don't know what he was going in there for maybe just he thought he was going to clear up some things for the detectives I'm sure the detectives uh made it seem that way Hey listen we just had a couple things we wanted to clarify to put a button on this investigation right so he's going in there with this false sense of security and then the detective throws a different alternate angle at him Hey listen she didn't die from an accidental overdose or a mixture of drugs she didn't die from a suicide she was killed and the manner of death the cause of death was asphixiation and as he said right to Mark she can't asfixiate herself and what he's describing there we don't have the images which thankfully we don't when when someone passes away you'll have a lividity you'll have these different things but you'll also have these impression marks and depending on how the position you're in when you die your skin kind of stays that way or your your your hands your face if if your face was smooshed down on something those Impressions will kind of stay and what he's describing here is her nose where she's in bed and it looks like she died from this overdose but yet the her face suggests that she had something over it that she was it was being smooshed at the time of her death and what the detective is saying here is listen she didn't do that herself she wasn't even in the in in the position to do that based on how medicated she was you did it Mark you were the only one there you put something over her face and you can tell the tactic he's using where he's not really asking him a question he's telling him what he did and he's not giving him an opportunity to get out of it and then he's also building up the motive why he would want to do it he's even and we've talked about this before trying to relate to Mark by saying listen your relationship wasn't good it was in a bad place yeah and then he pulls out the you know his Ace in his back pocket and says buddy I got a letter right here from your wife telling me that if she died you did it and he's pulling out the letter showing it to him and the one final point I want to make that's a little tidbit that behind the scenes when he says I have to go get the photos that's intentional the reason he's saying that is what we will do as detectives is we'll have kind of like a structure of how we're going to approach the interrogation it'll be one person in the room but there's multiple people watching that interview and what we will do is kind of block it off where we want to go and as the detective in the room you're looking for the verbal and non-verbal cues but you're also relying on your partners that are watching from outside the room on video to pick up their own notes as well so leaving those photos outside the room it gives the the detective an opportunity to go out there talk to his colleagues see if there's anything he missed see if there's a different angle they want to go and then he comes back with with the photos he wouldn't have forgotten those photos for this interview so that's intentionally done to give him an opportunity to debrief with this team quickly and come back in with the with either the same plan of attack or a different approach based on how Mark's responding to certain questions I also think it's interesting that Mark's not saying up until now that this was self-inflicted right saying she had allergic reaction to her medication and then the police get this letter Mark doesn't know they have this letter and now he goes into this interrogation and now he's saying it was suicide yeah I did nothing I just watched her die she asked me not to call anybody and the police are like oh that's interesting that your saying now she did this to herself cuz bam I got a letter right here saying that if you ever say she did this to herself it was you you know and it was like this perfect storm of before he he was saying it was an accident he could have pled ignorance about you know why would why would you say she wouldn't kill herself I didn't say she did that but now that's exactly what he's saying he's kind of playing into her hands now and that has to drive him absolutely crazy that she sort of got the jump on him and he was not aware of it so that's and that's interesting you're saying that so and that that's why perspective is so important because everyone can look at the same thing and and and view it differently I almost felt like he was trying to say yeah you know what it was just a bad decision on my part I know she said she was fine and she didn't need me to call anyone and she didn't want me to call anyone but you know I should have I should have said you know no I'm going to make the the educated decision here and I'm going to call someone and I didn't and and I didn't and I'm sorry for that I shouldn't have listened to her she said don't call one I should have just went with my gut but you know I didn't do anything I just did that's exactly my that's my crime here is the fact that I didn't do anything when I should have I think that it may have been this thing where he's trying to claim well on that morning when she told me not to call anybody I didn't know that she wanted to die I just thought she didn't want me to call anybody but now in hindsight yeah maybe that's what she was yeah yeah yeah I got you so he's I do think that that's what she was thinking cuz he does tell the police in this clip because we only have 5 minutes of this long interview but he does tell the police I don't think that she had an allergic reaction to her medicine I think she took her own life so after this change of story detectives asked Mark some clarifying questions about things that they learned throughout their interviews like about the photos the pornographic images that he and Julie had been finding around their house cars Etc dating back to the early 1990s Mark claimed that Perry the man Julie had had a brief affair with had sent the pornographic photos to him at work then Mark saved the photos so he could use them to upset Julie when quote something would happen that caused him to get pissed off end quote he explained that he never did forgive Julie for the affair so sometimes he would just leave the photos out for her to find while other times he would bring them out show them to Julie and then tell her he had found them around the property detectives then asked if Perry or maybe Prowler could have had something to do with Julie's death and Mark said it wasn't likely or possible and when they asked if he was having an affair with Kelly he said no they were just friends detectives went on to tell Mark about the letter that Julie had written prior to her death and he seemed surprised at first but he then doubled down and said he had nothing to do with her death following this interview Mark's attorney called the police and said he would not be speaking with them again and you know how this conversation went by the way like Mark leaves the police station he calls his lawyer he's like hey Bob yeah I just talked to the police I don't know why you told me not to sit down with them it went really well like they they were they were really like friendly and you know they they pushed back a little bit but I think at the end I had them convinced and his lawyer probably like Mark what the hell happened I you think that you think that's the call he made yeah he was probably once again delusional thinking that H thinking that maybe it hadn't gone too well but then at the end he got him back and he didn't want his laer to get mad but just on the basis that Mark had talked to his lawy to the police and his lawyer knows Mark and probably knows how free he is with information his lawyer was like damn God damn it I got to call the police Mark I'll call you right back no I what I I think there was a call beforehand like you referred to where the lawyer was like don't go do that interview if they're not forcing you don't go do it and Mark's like I got this they just want to clarify some things they're put they're probably going to wrap this case up this week let me just put a button on it we're done you know it's over I'll be done in 15 20 minutes tops then I think there's a call immediately after he's going oh my God they think I killed her they're coming after me they told me to my face that I killed her why did you let me do this interview and the lawyer's like what and I did why did you tell me and the lawyer is like that's when he said calls the police department says yeah he's never speaking with you again we know where you're going with this we're not helping you anymore that that's what I and I think he was probably blaming his attorney like what am I paying you for why did you let me do that so I think uh I think Mark left that call even we had a small clip of it it's a lot longer if you want to go check it out strongly recommend you do so this interview probably started off soft it didn't just go into this he set him up he got him comfortable they were both on a firstname basis he was even referring to the detective by his first name this was a long conversation he set him up he laid down the line and then he and then he went for it and that's why this is later in the interview guarantee where now the approach has changed now the demeanor has changed now Mark realizes why the detective actually called him in and it's too late to walk out now and and he can't blame himself for messing up he's got to blame someone else right and by the way someone's going to come back and say well he could have walked out he absolutely could have but now it's about Optics now now you're trapped you came in and he's he's trying to save it he thinks he can he has this delusional self-belief in himself that that he can fix anything right if it means saving his face saving His Image saving his reputation and protecting the image that he projects to the world yeah anyone watching right now or listening if you're coming waiting on YouTube very interested to hear we're about halfway through with this episode you just heard the interview and there's one thing I've learned about our Channel we don't always agree right and even you guys don't always agree with each other so as of right now with what we know and just seeing that interview pause the video or pause the audio and go over to the comments let us know what you think at this point where's your head at do you think Mark's good for this do you think this could be a situation where wrong place wrong time not a good guy but this could have been an accident where are you on this right now stop real quick let us know what you think and then unpause the episode and keep going all right so the investigation continued and in September Mark and the boys moved to a home on the north side of kosha 2 months later Cali officially left her husband and moved in with them and then she and Mark started Living openly as a couple honestly I'm surprised it took that long I am surprised it took that long that was some real restraint on Mark and Kelly's part so neighbors later said the Jensen children were immediately forced to call Kelly mother and had to refer to Julie as that woman we used to live with oh my God I'm so mad I'm so mad about this this is disgusting this is disgusting that he would do this not even have them call Kelly mother but to refer to their own loving mother as the woman we used to live with I want to kick him in the face with Steel Toad boots that would hurt it would so in January of 2002 just over 3 years after Julie died Mark and Kelly announced their engagement with plans to marry on May 3rd of that year but little did Mark know the police were still building their case against him even though it was 3 years later you know this dude Mark thought he was in the clear man he thought he was in the clear he thought he was about to live his best life with Kelly anyways a computer technician was going through Mark's home computer and this person was Finding massive amounts of incriminating evidence including a lot of penis pictures only some of which were the ones Mark had used to torment Julie what the other photos were for all those other penis photos well the world may never know and that's probably a good thing the technician also found that Mark always deleted his internet browser history but this didn't end up hiding much because the technician was able to recover most of it the only time frame they weren't able to locate any searches for was between October 19th and November 10th of 1998 which is kind of interesting actually because that's the months leading up to Julie's death and how was he able to permanently erase those web searches but I can't talk about all of the searches or we would be here forever but I do want to highlight a select few starting in early September 1998 a few months before Julie's death Mark and his cooworker Kelly his affair partner Kelly began sending flirty emails to each other and it wasn't long before they were having a full-blown Affair the emails discussed how Mark and Kelly planned to ditch their spouses and begin cleaning up their lives so they could be together and take a cruise the following year the technician noticed that whenever Kelly asked Mark how he planned to take care of Julie he would evade this question not once did he mention divorce in fact there were zero internet searches on Mark's computer for terms like separation divorce or child custody on October 15th just over a month after Mark started having an affair with Kelly he used his computer to search the internet for botulism which is a rare but serious illness caused by a toxin that attacks the body's nerves and causes difficulty breathing muscle paralysis and even death it's also the thing that's in Botox injections he then visited a site entitled botulism in low acid canned foods the next day Mark looked at a story about a pipe bomber who tried to blow up his estranged wife then Mark looked at a website about a chemical Detonator in the anarchist's cookbook not long after that Mark went to his company's website he sent some emails to Kelly did some other work rated things then Mark went back to looking up more pipe bomb related stuff before ending his internet session by viewing the anarchist's cookbook again on November 9th Mark used his home computer to access a site titled physician assisted suicide and another site titled toxology these searches were around the same time Julie told her neighbor Ted that she saw syringes in Mark's drawer they got into a fight and Mark chased her around with a glass of wine trying to force her to drink it on November 29th the same day Julie told Ted that she didn't eat all weekend because she was afraid Mark was poisoning her Mark used his computer to go to a site called Sierra anti freeze.com and I think you can see where this is going yeah this is this is bad this is bad all the way around for Mark it's really bad because it's not just one thing now it's not just the motive with the other girlfriend it's not just Julie Jensen's note it's not just the behavior that was was displayed before the incident it's not just the two detectives that were aware that there was something going on in the home it's not just the questions surrounding her actual death and the unanswered things that are going on as far as the smushing of the face and the way she died uh being at a young age being relatively healthy now you have this added layer of some type of research being conducted that would align with ultimately the way she died not perfectly but in the realm in the realm of the way she died all of this in totality is extremely damaging for Mark really bad and I me obviously bad for Julie too obviously very bad for Julie but I think I really want people to understand what we're talking about here because I don't know the details in between but what I do know is there were multiple trials and some people might be sitting there going wow and I've even said it you know if it's not for the note we're not sitting here right now and Julie basically solved her own murder it absolutely was critical no doubt about it but what you will find is that this becomes a big part of the story and all these other things that we're talking about like Stephanie describing the the search history of the computer these are the types of things that ultimately led to where we are today it wasn't just the letter so that's important as we go forward because even if you question the letter itself you you have to then go ahead and question all these other things like physician assisted suicide why would you search something like that think about that why would you search something like that unless that's going through your mind it's not just a random typo so something to think about as we continue throughout this episode so we're going to take a quick break we'll be right [Music] [Applause] [Music] back is listening to our show making you wish you had some more privacy I'm definitely one of those people that always is sitting in my room at night if my blinds are open and thinking somebody's looking in on me from the outside even though they probably aren't even though nobody probably cares that much so for that reason and for so many others like having darkness when you sleep we suggest 3day blinds because there is a better way to buy blinds in window treatments and it's called 3-day blinds they are the leading manufacturer of custom window treatments in the US and right now they are running a buy 1 get one 50% off deal I love that we can shop for most anything at home in 2024 so why can you not shop for blinds at home too 3-day blinds has local professionally trained designed Consultants who have an 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went to a site titled ethylene glycol which is a colorless odorless sweet tasting compound found in many products including antifreeze the website Mark was on described the stages of ethylene glycol poisoning which included apparent drunkenness and serious flu like symptoms the website also described how someone who ingested ethylene glycol could be near death in just over 24 hours if they didn't seek medical attention that night Mark looked at a site titled antifreeze poisoning on December 3rd at 7:40 a.m. Mark used his computer to search the internet for ethanol glycol poisoning and he ended up visiting at least three websites on the subject the time stamp on the search 7:40 stuck out because Mark had told detective ratzburg that around 7:30 a.m. on the morning of Julie's death she could hardly sit up was not able to get out of bed and was not able to move around in function which are all symptoms of ethylene glycol poisoning had Mark been looking up Julie's symptoms just 10 minutes later hours after looking at websites about ethylene glycol poisoning Mark left the house and picked up the boys from their schools and after they got home he called 911 to report that he found Julie dead and as we know almost immediately authorities thought Julie's death was suspicious so an investigation was opened while searching Mark's computer the technician found a total of 2100 results for the word poison and these searches actually coincided with the days Mark and Kelly were emailing for example on the day Mark was looking up botulism he was also planning his future with Kelly the technician also found multiple results for the word penis as it turns out Mark asked Julie about her sexual history including details of her past partner's penis sizes then he wrote down descriptions of said penises Jesus you know to to to not harp on penises here because I'm going to avoid that like like a like the plague uh but to go back to the ethanol glycol poisoning that wasn't a mistake there what you guys are hearing I I picked it up too December 2nd he searched ethanol glycol and on December 3rd he searched ethanol glycol poisoning so again to go you think about defenses possible ways to at least explain why this was happening you search the same term two different days and then what Stephanie was saying there which is extremely important is another defense could be hey that might have been searched on my computer but it wasn't me how many times have I heard that if I had had a dollar for every time I heard that I would be a very rich one and I mean I'm sure sometimes that's true you're being set up or um multiple people use your computer yeah like remember um Cindy Anthony said oh my daughter Casey didn't look up all of those you know um poisoning searches I was looking it up cuz I was worried about my dog eating bamboo in the yard so that was valid it can happen and that's why the prosecutors or whoever is displaying or relaying this information to us at this point is saying hey before the defense even goes there we're going to play defense attorney as well and explain to you not only were these terms searched thousands of times 2100 times I think you said said the word poison was in there but also around those times those searches were conducted there were things that were going on the activity in that computer that would be directly tied to Mark no one else right emails or looking up certain history whatever it might be so basically they're painting The Narrative without saying it outright that while these searches were being conducted based on the times and dates it appears that whoever was searching these terms was also on the computer conducting business that mark would have to do whether it's an email or business searches so jury you put two and two together we're just giving you the facts you come to whatever conclusion you want to based on that information so great job by everyone involved here especially the the computer forensic expert who was able to to find all this we don't know if it was just all right there or they had to do some actual heavy they had to do some they had to do some recovering because Mark erased his browser history exactly so there it's not just you go on there you click a couple things and it's there so there was some work work done and then with the investigators taking the search history and tying it back to the physical behaviors and the the chronological timeline of what happened to Julie and the and the interactions between her and Mark and how they coincided I think it's just incredible work you can see the picture being painted without being you know skewed one way or the other just these are the facts and the investigators are relaying them perfectly so that everyone can kind of understand them and I am going to talk about the penises because I knew you would yeah well you know you know me I know you but listen some people might look at this and be like Oh Mark asking Julie about her sexual history wanting details about her past partners asking about their penis sizes writing it down keeping like a an Excel spreadsheet you might think this is bizarre I have seen this happen before I'm not going to say who I'm not going to say what I'm not going to say when but this happens and it's so bizarre to to normal people cuz we don't really want to know that like you know talk to me about your exgirlfriend for like 5 minutes and then let's move on and pretend it never happened but Mark wanted to know not only that he kept track and it's usually because they just don't have a ton of uh confidence in themselves and that's why they put on this fake facade but I I love the way this went I I we break down that conversation and I'm talking about the search history and how it ties into the chronolog and you're like you know what back to the penises don't brush over the penises we need about it no I I I am fascinated to hear obviously a woman's perspective on this and I know our audience is predominantly women and I wonder what based on your comments what people are because I'm sure there's other experiences out there and I'm sure you guys will be weighing in because um I'm interested to see what other experiences people have had out there regarding this because it does seem like something where if you have someone who especially if this person if they're asking about sexual history that was wasn't tied to the actual infidelity that seems that seems suspicious to me and I I peculiar to go that deep and to want to know that much in addition to going through Mark's computer medical examiners and taxologist were working behind the scenes to figure out what had happened to Julie like we talked about earlier because the original autopsy performed by Dr Michael chamblas couldn't determine a cause of death the Kenosha County Medical Examiner Dr Morin Leen ordered additional toxical studies on Julie's kidneys blood and gastric contents and these things had been collected during the autopsy these additional toxicological studies revealed that there was significant formation of oaic and acid crystals in Julie's kidneys so I looked this up and basically these crystals may stick together and form a solid Mass known as a kidney stone so it sounds like Julie may have had an excessive amount of kidney stones which was caused for further testing because yeah you get kidney stones especially as you get older and these things build up you'll encounter kidney stone here or there but you shouldn't have this excessive amount that's that's a it's not a normal thing it's a sign that there's a a deeper issue at hand so based on these results Dr Lavin asked a forensic toxicologist to run further tests which ended up showing the presence of ethylene glycol in Julie's blood gastric contents and urine there were 55 microgram per milliliter in the blood 720 in her urine and 3,00 94 in her gastric contents now the major difference in the amounts meant that Julie had received at least two doses of athene glycol one at least 12 hours before her death and then another right before she died it was the toxicologist opinion that Julie would have been too weak to drink the volume of ethylin glycol found in her stomach without help which would be obviously inconsistent with suicide I mean listen what do what do I say here what do I really say here we just talked about the search specifically ethylene glycol now you have the body the pathologist reading the body no opinion on this case just looking at the the the the actual facts and what the toxicology reports are telling this person and here we are finding these high amounts of ethylene glycol in her system and as they laid out here based on her condition at the time when this all occurred she would have been too weak to do this herself so suicide off the table therefore it had to be administered by another person well we know the people there based on the behavior that day and who was in that home there was only one person and it just so happens that that individual had also been searching the term ethylene glycol poisoning MH I mean what are the ODS not looking good not looking good for for good old Mark here and that's not even talking about motive and it does sound like we're being a little bit redundant here but these are building blocks that's not yeah not even talking about the motive of their marriage was bad that he had he had been having a relationship with another woman for an extended period of time not even talking about that nope we're just talking about things that are indisputable and that do not change over time and are not open to interpretation for the most part you could still I guess have another pathologist say well she could have sat up and drank it right you could have someone that's that's just the nature of the game or she could have had somebody else assist her like come through her bedroom window um spoon feed her this antifreeze and then and then sneak back out again without Mark seeing yeah but that person would have also had to search ethylene gayol on on their computer and then search up Mark's you know daily no Derek they snuck in the house when Mark was like he was working on his computer talking to his girlfriend he had to pee it was a guy dropping the penis pictures yeah and then and then yeah then some guy snuck in the window of his office searched those things closed the window out snuck back out yeah obviously you know listen it's it sounds like Overkill and I don't I'm saying that sarcastically it sounds like it's a done deal here but the reason you have to go to this extreme is you have to tie up all those loose ends because there will be people out there that will say I don't know I think this guy could have just been wrong place wrong time and based on what happened beforehand he's just he's just guilty of being the only one there and that they're blaming it on them and that's not that's true we all know that that can happen so they're really trying to drive home the the point here that a this individual was looking up the terms of a particular substance that was ultimately found in high concentrations in our victim's body and he was searching this right before her death and listen there's something else that that they found which I think suggests even more strongly that Julie could not possibly have done this to herself and this happened because I believe Mark was trying to clean up his tracks but what he didn't consider was how that would look in the context of claiming his wife had killed herself and we're going to talk about that right after we get back from our last [Music] [Applause] [Music] break fume is an award-winning flavored air device and flavored air is not like vaping if Vapor was compared to Sticky soda fume cores are closer to herbal teas fume has lots of delicious and refreshing flavors to choose from like crisp mint and orange vanilla and with flavored air you can set ify your oral 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their search they found zero traces of ethylene glycol anywhere in the Jensen home or garage and you might be thinking well that's a good thing for Mark how could he have poisoned her with an that yeah if if it wasn't even in the house well this was of course super suspicious when considered alongside the toxicology results because how was Julie who would have been too week to even drink that last dose of ethylene glycol how would she be able to get rid of all traces of it in the extremely short amount of time before she died not just the fluid itself she could have poured that down the drain she could have you know poured herself a couple cups and then poured the the antifreeze down the drain no containers around nothing now once again Mark's lawyer could say well she planned this she poured some antifreeze into some cups and hid them under her bed and they got rid of all the containers and all the antifreeze in the house yes I suppose you could say that but come on come on now aam's Razer and this didn't make any sense at all that's why the taxologist ended up concluding that Julie had likely been murdered following the taxologist conclusion Dr Lavin reviewed the entire case study with the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office which led her to officially conclude that Julie died as a result of homicidal poisoning with athene glycol the final autopsy report was filed on March 19th 2002 more than 3 years after Julie died the following morning 42-year-old Mark Jensen was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide which had a maximum sentence of life in prison of course he pleaded not guilty and a month later he sold his house he borrowed money from his father and sister and paid his $500,000 Bond then on May 3rd Mark and Kelly got married just like they'd planned cuz nothing was going to get in the way of his new life with his new wife and his children's new mother and that cruise they wanted to take don't forget about the cruise and before the end of the year get this before the end of the year mark and Kelly they welcomed a child into the world they had a son together after Mark was arrested and let go on bond authorities continued their investigation into Julie's murder because there's still evidence to sort through more people to interview and more warrants to file wow to the last part there but to go back to what you were just mentioning as far as the autopsy report and now this three-year Mark where the result is f the the conclusion is homicidal poisoning with ethline glycol I feel like we gave him a hard time at the beginning of the episode talking about three years it's making more sense to me now right it's an ongoing evolving investigation where as law enforcement is learning more through the specific searches that they uncover they are able to develop a better Theory as to how Julie was killed it's very likely that maybe some of the tests that were done later as far as her kidneys all these things um were not done initially maybe they're not part of a normal autopsy report unless they're requested and I I will tell you this Pathologists are absolutely letting the body tell the story but they also include the evidence or the information from the case to develop their investigation they're not they're not separate of that they want to know the circumstances that led to this person being on their table in their laboratory being examined and they will use that as a reasonable person should to decide how they investigate the body to figure out what happened so I do think there were things that came up over time over the few years as the detectives were building their case where they discovered information that then went back to the pathologist and was was examined then so I don't think we were waiting on these results for 3 years this was an evolving investigation where these tests were conducted much later which is when the the pathologist was finally able to say okay now I have the full picture here's what happened yes and and we know that they do that and you know DET absolutely do detectives do that as well they'll kind of pull in stuff that the pathologist finds and combine it with the evidence that they found to to draw a reasonable conclusion absolutely so what do do you think I mean you're given the story here what do you think about all this being arrested being charged with with this murder and yet you get out of you get back out and the first thing you do is sell your house um get married and have a kid it's delusion if there's one thing I know about these people it's that they live in a world of their own creation and it is a world where no one else really goes they don't no one else really understands it so you'll watch the behavior of these people and you'll be like I don't get this and you'll kill yourself trying to get it because your brain doesn't work like that trying to rationalize the irrational yeah try trying to rationalize the irrational like the absolutely trying trying to be sane in insane places it's not possible you better to just not try at all I wonder I'm trying to think of the angle here right not not take away the the EM the angle is it's just selfishness and delusion he killed his wife because he wanted a different life kind of like Chris Watts right yeah could could Chris Watts have been any more godamn obvious in the in the days following the deaths of or the disappearances of his wife and his two daughters could he have been any more obvious it's because he had one thing in mind he wanted a new life with a new woman this this person these people were in the way of that he had to get rid of them and now anything that gets in the way of that like I don't know getting arrested and having to post bond it's just very big inconvenience to the life that he believes he was meant to live so now everybody's just trying to stop him from being the man and living the life that he he deserves I wonder if there also may be a financial component where he he obviously he's not super wealthy he's having to borrow money sell his home borrow money from his parents and stuff but I wonder if there's a financial component where he wants to get everything into Kelly's name before this all comes to a head because that way at least her and her son would have those items even if he goes to prison as part of their investigation detectives obtained a warrant to search Mark's Work computers where they ended up finding can you guess it more penis pictures way more penis pictures way more how many more well when combined with the photos found on his home computer years prior there were at least 5,350 pictures of penises but not just penis pictures cuz Mark he's a man with a plan you know he's he's a businessman he's got to have things organized well these pictures were organ ized in folders labeled small medium and large I'm done just for that he should go to prison just for that unfortunately this was not the end of the penis related evidence the police would gather but we're getting ahead of ourselves here in addition to searching Mark's Work computer detectives tried to question Kelly but she wouldn't talk and later when she finally did talk she said she knew nothing about Julie's death only that Mark said Julie was depressed and sick and he had to get her medicine did detectives also interviewed Mark's friend and cooworker his name was David and David said this started in November of 1998 not long before Julie died and he said Mark was researching possible drug interactions on the internet several times a day on his work computer when David asked Mark why he was doing that Mark said he wanted to find an explanation for Julie's unusual behavior he described Julie as sickly and depressed and claimed that she had lost so much weight she was unrecognized able concerned David went home and told his wife about this and she was so worried that she set up a lunch date with Julie but when they met she said that Julie looked completely normal David further told detectives that on a Friday not long after Julie died Mark mentioned that he was surprised the police had not yet seized his work computer the following Monday David got to work and Mark had a new computer he claimed his old one had quote been fried and he had to get a new one end quote David recalled that the fried computer was the one Mark had been using to look up drug interactions David had another interesting recollection to share with detectives one time he was helping Mark in his office when he found a notebook that was quote filled with sketches of penises each page had a different illustration end quote and the prosecution later described Marcus having a long-standing Fascination or obsession with penises this is my first time 20 years of Investigations I've ever and not to make light of it just never had someone who was specifically focused on this this is beyond a partner inquiring about relations with previous Partners right you know what we Des this is something different I don't know what it is 5,000 pictures of penises labeled by small medium and large I feel like it's a psychological thing I bet there's like a term for this I bet if I reached out to colleague this probably this is not the first time they've heard of it let's ask Dr Chris man Chris Mandi would be a great resource for this but I just wonder if do you think he could have been do you think he could have been gay um I don't know I don't think so actually I mean there's no indication of it if he were and he was having a relationship with a man at this point seen on the computer they would have found it they would found it I think I think he probably had Hang-Ups about his own curious about it no I think he had probably had Hang-Ups about his own memb so wouldn't he be just searching for I don't want to make this episode about this you think you'd think if you had a hang up about a body part of yours you probably wouldn't go searching for other people's body parts to make yourself feel worse but that's exactly what they do and just the CATE categorizing of anyways it's and here's the thing Derek this is the new computer right cuz remember his old computered from it was fried So Not only was he like let me get rid of this old computer just in case the police feel like coming and looking at it but then when he felt like kind of safe like oh they're not going to come come it's been years they're not coming he got this new computer and then filled it with almost 6,000 penis pictures yeah it's just it I no Rhyme or Reason to it it feels like kind of a compulsion like he can't even help himself there's something yeah that's there's something deeply rooted there I don't know what it is maybe something that happened as a child some type of trauma there's something there I don't know what it is but there's something specifically relating to a penis that he veloped this fascination with what that came from I would I would I guarantee you there's a story behind it maybe he was molested as a child there there might be something there but some type of childhood trauma led to this this didn't come out of nowhere yeah I guess um something happened something happened for sure but this is not this is not normal no no going to say that so while detectives were building their case Mark and his defense team were preparing for trial and they came up with a plan to argue that Julie took her own own life and was framing Mark for her murder you know Gone Girl style the defense tried to get multiple pieces of evidence banned from trial including the voicemails that Julie left for officer Cosman where she said she thought Mark was going to kill her uh including the letter she wrote to the police and gave to her neighbor Ted and including the statements she made to Ted and her son's teacher so basically anything that made Mark look bad they wanted to get excluded from trial the letters and voicemails sometimes referred to collectively as the state statements specifically became the subject of years of pre-trial hearings in Circuit Court where the prosecution and defense argued over their admissibility I feel like why would you even have to argue for years about this they're admissible but that's the whole game that's the game here by time keep people in a constant legal battle no but not only that when defense can't explain away specific pieces of evidence the next best thing is to get that evidence thrown out if they don't have an excuse for it then you got to find a way to question it to the level where it's inadmissible Hey listen we don't have a rational reason to explain away this we got to get it thrown out because if it's in there it's damaging that's that's the game the state argued that Julie's statements should be allowed because they could be used to show her State of Mind near the time of her death and help counter the defense's argument that she took her own life in turn the defense argued that Julie's statements should not be admitted under the confrontation clause which gives a person accused of a crime the right to confront and cross-examine Witnesses obviously Julie wasn't available to go to trial to be confronted and cross-examined so she was considered an unavailable witness the Circuit Court eventually ruled that Julie's letter could be used at trial but not her voicemails but then after that ruling was made the United States Supreme Court decided on an unrelated case Crawford V Washington which established that an unavailable Witnesses hearsay statement is inadmissible under the confrontation Clause if the statement is testimonial and the defendant had no prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness now I know this is not good a statement is considered testimonial if the person making it knew it might be used in a trial for example Julie's voicemails to officer Cosman and the letter sh it to the police could be considered testimonial because she likely thought they would be used to prosecute mark But the statements she made to her neighbor and teacher might not count as testimonial because she likely didn't say those things thinking they'd be used in a trial it was more like she was just talking to a friend I think this is such [ __ ] by the way that even like they like they are screwing victims so much so even if you're a victim and you're in an untenable situation that you can't get out of but you just want to warn people if something happens to me look into this person you're not saying if something happens to me murder this person if something happens to me immediately arrest this person and throw them behind bars without a trial you're saying if something happens to me I'm going to tell you who I think should be a suspect considering it's me and if you were the victim of a crime and you didn't end up dying the police would ask you hey do you know who could have done this to you do you have any idea who might have had a reason to hurt you and you the person who was victimized would say yeah actually my husband is a psychopath you should look into him and then the police would do that but this is ludicrous that it's like okay Mark's already taken away her voice and now the Supreme Court's like let's do it some more it's disgusting I'm disgusted so stepping back for a second and looking at this from just a judicial process you have to just look at what we have here and I I want to say that this is the only option the defense has so let's talk about it suicides off the table that's been ruled out they can't go that angle the mixture of a lethal dose of multiple medications is off the table so they can't go that route everything points all this evidence we've talked about tonight points to the fact that Mark killed his wife so what's the only option left for that defense team it looks so much like Mark our client did it that he had to have been framed that's the only explanation because it's so compelling that he did it someone must have set him up and it looks like Julie set him up before her death to have him end up in the situation he's currently in he is not the offender he's the real victim that's what they're going with and then having this case law this angle to to to take out all of this critical evidence from the case I'm sure this was a huge blow to the prosecution and that's why I mentioned what I mentioned earlier about the other things we have because although this was taken out initially we do have a lot of other evidence that they have to kind of dispel through this case but on the surface this is the angle they have to go with but they but the Supreme Court never should have made that decision because that's a different yeah I mean you can't put somebody in prison for for murder based on just this testimonial evidence from the victim who's no longer with us you'd have to have other things which they do so the fact that you won't even let this evidence in to add to the pile of evidence that you would still need to prove in order to put this person in prison for murder is ridiculous it's just part of the evidence it's not the only thing that matters and you and if that was the only thing you had a jury would still look at that and be like well that's not enough right I agree in TOT there has to be in totality but I completely agree with your sentiment by the way I mean you have a victim who is trying to make sure that her her offender is held accountable if something happens to her and they're being silenced by case law so it's it's it's a it's a terrible uh situation at this point but let's see how it plays out disgusting so after the Supreme Court decision in Crawford Mark asked the Circuit Court to reconsider it previous ruling on allowing Julie's letter and voicemails at trial and the Circuit Court did reconsider and in the end they ruled that Julie statements could not be used because they were in fact testimonial but that wasn't the end of this whole ordeal because the state appealed the circuit Court's decision the case went up to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin they agreed that Julie's voicemails and letters shouldn't be allowed under the confrontation clause however they asked the Circuit Court to determine whether Julie statements were admissible under the forfeiture by wrongdoing Doctrine and at that time the doctrine stated that a defendant gives up their constitutional right to confront a witness when the defendant is the reason for that witness's unavailability yes finally so the Circuit Court looked over the case again and ruled that Mark did cause Julie's unavailability therefore her letter and voicemails should be allowed at trial this was an unprecedented decision as statements like hers had never been allowed in trial before Julie Jensen would become one of the first people if not the first person in the United States history to testify in her own murder trial and thank God the Supreme Court made this decision because it it was a good one and it was the only one at that point that that could have possibly been fair and it's interesting that the Circuit Court found Mark Jensen was the cause of Julie's unavailability it's basically saying like yeah you you killed her even if you just did nothing by not calling anybody even if you just watched her die you're still culpable for that and you're still the reason that she's not here to testify against you yep you're the You're the Reason exactly you're the reason for her unavailability so we're going to allow it and then you know great outcome in that situation and I think what you said there first in United States history to testify in her own murder trial it's incredible statement it's an incredible statement so um fascinating case I believe we're going to have one more part of this one more and we're going to and see the out because we're not done yet there's other things that are this is not going to be smooth sailing from here this is not the end of the bumps in the road of course not you're dealing with Mark Jensen and a you know and a defense team that's going to try to convince a jury and everyone else out there that this man was set up he was set up by Julie and he's he's taking the fall for it now uh so looking forward to the next part any final words from you before we wrap this one up no no no no I just I hope I didn't offend anybody if you have 6,000 penis pictures on your computer I hope I didn't I hope I didn't offend anyone I was thinking about what we're going to title this episode and I mean I know what it should be based Onis pictures but we're not going to do that we're not going to do that Stephanie but I mean listen we talked about it enough oh what about poisoning and penis pictures yeah no nope okay no we're not going to demonetized but that's going to do it for us guys everyone stay safe out there we will see you next week we're going to have a new crime Weekly News coming out later next week and we'll have a new audio episode the final audio episode for Julie Jensen on Friday YouTube on Sunday everyone stay safe out there we will see you next week bye [Music]
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