The Battle Creek Murders: Part 1 - Maggie Hume

twosleuthspodcast

Sep 4, 202335 min read

Updated: Sep 5, 2023

Maggie Hume

Battle Creek, Michigan, 1982: 20-year-old Maggie Hume was just getting a taste for independence. She had graduated a medical studies program and landed her first real job working in a local doctor's office, which afforded her the ability to move out of her parents' house and into an apartment with her friend.

Maggie was also dating her college's volleyball star, Virgil "Jay" Carter, who had given her a promise ring.

Life for Maggie seemed to be perfect, but those closest to her saw something else.

Maggie and Jay were in a volatile relationship. Then on the morning of August 16, 1982, Maggie didn't show up for work. Her roommate had been gone the night before.

Jay told police he had been with Maggie at her apartment that evening, but had left by 11 p.m. He was the last known person to see her alive. Maggie's roommate had returned around 4a.m. and noticed Maggie's door was open, but that Maggie did not appear to be inside.

Maggie's family and friends began to panic. Her car was still at the apartment, but she was nowhere to be found.

Jay Carter

Source: The murder of Maggie Hume (Pardoe & Hester)

Jay, along with Maggie's younger brother John, were the first to search her apartment. Her car, and glasses were there. Her purse was not. While looking inside Maggie's room, Jay told her brother to check her roommate's room. When John returned, he saw Jay on his knees in Maggie's closet looking through her shoes. He told John he was checking to see if any were missing.

Police photo: Discovery of Maggie's body

Source: The murder of Maggie Hume (Pardoe & Hester)

Together, Joe and John left the apartment without finding any sign of where Maggie was.

Later that day, the police conducted their own search without any results. It was only after Maggie's roommate begged officers to look again, that they find Maggie. She had been in the apartment all along. Her body was hidden in her closet, buried

under a pile of blankets. Most peculiarly, her legs are found piled on top of her shoes. Her purse was right on top.

During a search of the crime scene, police found evidence that the killer may have gained access to the second-story apartment by stepping on a utility box below the balcony. The lead investigator found footprints and grass clippings on top of the box, but also inside the apartment leading directly into Maggie's room.

Outside view of Maggie's apartment complex

Source: GoogleMaps

Join us in this episode as we walk through the details of Maggie's life, disappearance and murder.

She was only the first of three young women to be found murdered in Battle Creek around that time and some people think the killings are all related. However, the investigation yielded multiple suspects, arrests and even a conviction for one of the cases.

Police Photo: Footprint on he utility box below Maggie's apartment

Source: The murder of Maggie Hume (Pardoe & Hester)

The Battle Creek Murders: Part 1 is out now. Part 2 will be released Monday, September 11.

Police Photo: The state of Maggie's room

Note the disarray of the sheets and the phone by her bed, which is back on the hook in this photo because her roommate had used it to call into work before this picture was taken.

Source: The murder of Maggie Hume (Pardoe & Hester)

Police Photo: The closet where Maggie was found (Photograph taken after she was removed)

Source: The murder of Maggie Hume (Pardoe & Hester)

Sources:

Episode Transcript

Katie Kaplan, Host: 00:00 Hey there, fellow sleuths, we are your true crime hosts. I'm Katie Kaplan, an investigative journalist. Em, Host: 00:06 And I'm Em, a former special agent and you're listening to 'Two Sleuths.' Katie KaplanHost00:11 Battle Creek, Michigan, in the 1980s, three young women were murdered. Suspects are developed, arrests are made and there's even a conviction, but these cases are still unsolved. Join us for this two-part episode covering the murders of Maggie Hume, Patricia Rosansky and Carrie Evans. Welcome back, sleuths. Today we head to Southwest Michigan, the city of Battle Creek, otherwise known as the Serial Capital of the World. It is a fairly small place with only about 35,000 residents. Its claim to fame stems from its most famous former resident, the man who invented corn flakes, john Harvey Kellogg. Now, that was back in the late 1890s. Much different world back then. EmHost01:30 And be prepared to never think about corn flakes the same way again, because Kellogg had a very specific purpose in mind when he invented the still popular breakfast cereal. According to an article in Forbes magazine, kellogg explained that he was trying to create a health food that focused on something he called biologic living and that focused on cutting out the primary food Americans ate back then meat and potatoes. His personal belief was that a diet centered on bland foods would lead Americans away from sin. So what sin was Kellogg so concerned with? Masterbation? 02:02 Kellogg was behind a movement during that time period when some people thought that masturbation led to insanity, impaired vision and heart disease. In fact, he and his brother built a building that is still around, called the sanatorium. I spent some time looking into it and there's a lot of dark history there, so if you're interested in checking it out even further, I highly suggest it. But back to cereal. Right on the heels of corn flakes, another local resident named CW Post created grape nut cereal. Battle Creek had suddenly become a hub for breakfast food production and the town was dubbed Serial City. Katie KaplanHost02:36 But today we are not talking about cereal, the Kellogg brothers or masturbation. We are talking about the brutal murders of three beautiful young women First, 20 year old Maggie Hume. Six months later, 17 year old Patricia Rosanski. Then, two months later, 17 year old Carrie Evans. The potential links between them is still something that's debated today. 03:00 So let's start with Maggie. She is the oldest of our victims. She was five foot six, with reddish brown hair and hazel eyes. She also wore glasses in that classic 1980s fashion of thick round rims Think Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink. It sounds like she had a pretty charmed life growing up. She was born on April 20, 1962, the first and only girl for Mike and Lori Hume. Three years later they would welcome her little brother, john. Both kids grew up attending a private Catholic school called St Phillips, where their dad was the head football coach, and Maggie is described as being the whole package, both smart and popular. She was an honor society, but also on the cheerleading squad. Her high school sweetheart was a guy named Jim Downey, and while their romance didn't last forever, their friendship continued long after their break up. EmHost03:53 After Maggie graduated from high school, she stayed close to home and enrolled at Kellogg Community College. This is where she met Virgil J Carter, who went by Jay. He was the star of the college's volleyball team and a year older than Maggie. The two hit it off and started dating. Now Maggie, who was described as a very independent woman, eventually graduated from the medical secretary's program and landed a job working as an office receptionist for a local doctor who also happened to be a family friend. With her new income coming in, she got an apartment with her friend, margaret Van Rinkle. Now the two have similar names, so to help you keep it straight, remember Maggie Hume is the victim in this case and Margaret was her friend and roommate. The pair rented unit 19 at the river apartments, a two bedroom unit on the second story of a three-story building. At this point Jay and Maggie were still going strong and he often stayed the night at the apartment. By April of 1982, jay had given Maggie a promise ring making it known that he planned to propose in the future. Katie KaplanHost04:51 Friends say Maggie was compassionate, outgoing and fun loving. She was really happy in her new place and at her job in the doctor's office, which is why, when she didn't show up for work on August 16, 1982, her coworker became instantly concerned. Maggie hadn't called to say she was ill or running late, and that was really out of character. The other receptionist informed her boss, dr John Chadwick, who was also a bit concerned, but coincidentally Maggie's roommate happened to be coming in for an appointment that morning, so they decided they'd wait to ask her where Maggie was. 05:27 When Margaret showed up a short time later, she told them how Maggie hadn't been home that morning. In fact, margaret told them she had been gone all night picking her sister up from the airport because the flight had been delayed. So this kept her away for hours. But when she got back to their apartment around 4 am that same morning she had noticed that Maggie's door was opened. When she looked in, the room was empty and she had just assumed that Maggie was staying at her boyfriend Jay's. Like we mentioned, dr Chadwick knew the Hume family, so he called Maggie's father, mike, right away. However, mike said he hadn't heard from Maggie either and had no idea where she might be. EmHost06:04 After that phone call, margaret suggested that the doctor also called Jay to see if Maggie might be with him. But Jay had the same story he hadn't seen Maggie that morning and he didn't know where she was. Once he told them Maggie hadn't stayed at his place the night before, real worry started to kick in. Where else could she have gone? Two hours went by and there was still no word from Maggie. So Margaret decided to call Jay for herself, and this time she explained to Jay that when she got home early in the morning Maggie wasn't home, and now she was several hours late from work and no one else had heard from her. Katie KaplanHost06:37 This call seemed to finally spur some action from Jay. He later told police that he drove to the Catholic school to look for Maggie's dad, but he couldn't find him. So then he drove to Maggie's parents' house, where he found her 17-year-old brother, john. He brought him up to speed on the situation and John thought it was best to find his dad. So together they went back to the school and they found Mike sitting in his office, and Mike had already been alerted by Dr Chadwick. But now that Jay and John had shown up at his work, he became even more alarmed. He gave them a spare key to Maggie's apartment and told them to go there first. Mike planned to stay by the phone back at his office in case she called. Remember, this was 1982, long before cell phones were a commonplace thing. EmHost07:23 So boyfriend Jay and little brother John pull up to the river apartments and right away they notice that Maggie's dark green AMC hornet is parked out front. John says the apartment door was locked, which would make sense since her roommate Margaret had been home that morning and then left for her doctor's appointment. So they used the key to get inside. But alarm bells went off quite literally when they realized there was a buzzing sound coming from Maggie's room. It was her morning alarm clock and it was still going off. So they went inside her room and shut it off. 07:54 While there, they instantly noticed that Maggie's glasses were still on the nightstand. This was the third sign that something was terribly wrong. First her car is parked outside, then her wake-up alarm was still going off, and now the glasses that she was blind without were still on her nightstand. The more they looked around, the more signs they saw. Maggie's bed was in complete shambles. The fitted sheets had been pulled off from the corners of the mattress and the door to her closet was open, with blankets and clothes piled up on the floor. Maggie's room was disorderly, but it didn't really appear to be ransacked. Katie KaplanHost08:29 Jay then allegedly ordered John to check the roommate's room and John says he didn't find anything there. But when he got back to Maggie's room, jay was kneeling on the floor looking in her closet. He had said he was searching through Maggie's shoes to see if any were missing Together. They checked the patio balcony but they didn't find anything there and they would later tell police they couldn't remember if it was locked or not. EmHost08:53 The only thing besides Maggie that was missing was her purse. With no sign of Maggie, they went back to her dad, who was still waiting by the phone in his office at the school. They told him how they found the apartment and that Maggie's car and glasses were left behind, and that's when Mike decided it was time to contact the police. Together, the three of them headed down to Battle Creek Police Department to file a missing persons report. Now officers took the information and immediately jumped into gear, which, as we know, is pretty uncommon, especially in the 80s, given that she was an adult and had only been missing for a few hours. I think this is a real testament of how beloved Maggie's family and father was, as he was the coach to the local community football team. It's unfortunate how many cases don't get the same level of response, but nonetheless, in this case, the officers advised Maggie's dad to go home and wait by the phone in case she called. Katie KaplanHost09:45 The first person that police wanted to talk to was Maggie's roommate, margaret. By this point in the day she had left the doctor's office and gone into work On her lunch break. She met officers back at her apartment so that they could look around. She told them how it was unusual for her to be away from the apartment overnight, but it just so happened that she had gotten stuck at the airport and didn't get home until around 4 am. She remembered unlocking the apartment door when she got home and that she saw Maggie's bedroom door open. She told them how she had peered inside but that Maggie wasn't there in bed, so she had assumed that Maggie was staying the night with J, which wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary. EmHost10:25 The officers began to check Maggie's room. They too saw her eyeglasses were still on the nightstand and Margaret mentioned Maggie can't see anything without her glasses, but she did have a second set which she kept as a backup in the bathroom. They went and looked and unfortunately those spare glasses were found in their normal spot. Officers asked Margaret to look around and see if anything was missing from the apartment. She ended up checking Maggie's closet for a blue nightgown that she often wore, but it wasn't there. She also noticed that Maggie's purse was missing. Katie KaplanHost10:57 At this point Margaret was becoming more anxious. The police didn't really find much at the apartment and they began to wrap things up. But as they were getting ready to go, she asked if they could do one more sweep of the apartment. Obviously she was a young woman, worried and afraid and unsure of what was going on. So they obliged. One of the officers made his way back to Maggie's room. He looked in her closet, pulled up a big comforter that had been crumbled on the floor and there was another blanket underneath that. So he grabbed it and started to pull it up. And that's when he saw a pair of legs. Maggie Hume had been there all along and resting right on top of her legs was her purse. EmHost11:39 The missing person's case into Maggie had now turned into a homicide investigation. More officers and detectives were called to the scene. The medical examiner showed up and the entire apartment was now a crime scene. So photographs were taken and, one by one, they removed the blankets and numerous pieces of clothing that had been piled on top of Maggie's body in an effort to conceal it. Once she was uncovered, it was noted that she was laying on her back with her head turned, so it was facing towards the bedroom. Maggie's legs and feet were on top of a shoe pile in her closet. Her neck had visible marks indicating that she might have been strangled. She was still in her pajamas and it was noted as being a nightgown, but we didn't see any official information on if it was that blue one she commonly wore that Margaret had been looking for earlier. Officers at the scene covered Maggie's hands with plastic bags in an effort to preserve any evidence that could be extracted from them later, and her body was taken to the hospital for an autopsy. Katie KaplanHost12:38 Once it was clear a murder had taken place, the apartment was searched again, but this time with a fine toothed comb. The lead detective was on hand at the apartment looking around when he noticed something ominous. He had been standing out on the balcony and looked down when he noticed utility box in the grassy area below. Right on top were a set of grassy footprints. When I googled the address and looked at photos of the complex, those utility boxes are still there, located below each set of balconies around the entire property. As we mentioned, maggie's apartment was on the second floor and it's not out of the realm of possibility that if someone had been standing on the box, they might have been able to reach the second floor railing and hoist themselves up. So after the detective noticed this, they realized that there were grass clippings on the patio floor and that those clippings trailed right on in past the patio door, through the apartment and directly into Maggie's room. EmHost13:35 And it's important to note that those grass clippings were not found in her roommate Margaret's room or anywhere else in the apartment. Following this, lead officers looked for fingerprints on the patio door knob and they only found a set on the inside of the door. In addition, they were able to collect fingerprints throughout the rest of the apartment as well. At the end of the day, though, those fingerprints aren't going to lead investigators anywhere. They never mentioned, at least publicly, if there's a set of fingerprints that are unidentified or didn't belong to someone who was normally in the apartment. Both Jay and Margaret went to the police station that night for more in-depth interviews with the police. It was based off these conversations that they determined that Jay was the last known person to see Maggie alive. 14:17 At the time Jay had been working for a beer company and he told police that he had gotten off around 10 pm the night before. He says he went straight to Maggie's house after work, but when he got there he noticed her car wasn't in her apartment complex parking lot. So he drove to a nearby restaurant, the Urban Dale Ritzies, and he called her from the phone inside. But as he was doing this, he actually saw Maggie drive by the restaurant. She saw his car and pulled into the parking lot as well. Jay told police that she told him she'd been hanging out at a co-worker's house, and they stood there and talked in the parking lot for a little bit. It was during this time Maggie told Jay that she was smelling something coming from her engine, so he checked her car's oil right there, while they were still in the parking lot. Katie KaplanHost15:01 However, jay says the lighting wasn't great in the parking lot, so they decided to drive back over to her apartment where he checked it again Afterwards. They went upstairs and had sex in the living room. Jay says he then made soup and popcorn and they watched the TV show MASH, and then the local news. Now, after the newscast, jay says he had it home. Police asked him if he could remember anything unusual from when he was at Maggie's, and in fact he did. He told police that while he was there Maggie got two phone calls. One was from her roommate, margaret, who wanted to let Maggie know she wouldn't be home until the wee hours of the morning. But that second phone call was a bit odd, according to Jay. EmHost15:43 Now the way it was reported to police is a bit confusing in and of itself. Jay told them that Maggie answered the phone, but the caller called her my sweet Maggie. Jay described the voice as belonging to a black man and says the man described sexual things he wanted to do with Maggie and that Maggie had made a funny face towards Jay and then hung up the phone. Now this is what's not clear. We don't know how Jay knew what the caller's voice sounded like or what was exactly said to Maggie. Maybe Maggie relayed this information to him, maybe he overheard it, or maybe it was something else altogether. Hold on to this information, because we'll revisit this call a little bit later. 16:22 Now back to the police investigation. Officers were able to learn that Maggie had wanted Jay to stay over that night, but he didn't. This stood out to them because Jay stayed over all the time and, in light of the unsettling call she had just received and the fact that it would be the very first time that Maggie would be alone in that apartment overnight, there wasn't a clear reason as to why Jay didn't stay with her. Toward the end of the preliminary interviews at the police station, officers asked Jay if there was anybody he could think of who might want to hurt. Maggie Jay gave the cops three names her high school sweetheart, jim Downey, and then Phil Mitchell and Tom Carpenter. Katie KaplanHost16:58 Meanwhile, police were also learning a bit about Maggie and Jay's relationship. Margaret had gotten a first-hand look at it while she and Maggie had been living together. She told police that it was either hot or cold. She said they fought all the time but they were planning on getting married. She remembered a point of contention that had happened a couple of months earlier. It was an issue that had come up in a discussion on the wedding. Maggie wanted the ceremony to take place in a Catholic church, but Jay didn't. After the blow-up, maggie had confided in Margaret and said the issue was non-negotiable. Essentially she wouldn't marry Jay if he didn't come around to the idea. Police also asked if Maggie had any other romantic partners, and Margaret said she wasn't sure but that it was possible. When they asked for names, she mentioned Jim Downey, phil Mitchell and Tom Carpenter the same exact list that Jay had mentioned to police. Margaret added that she knew Maggie still had feelings for her old high school flame, jim Downey, and that Maggie was convinced she would end up marrying him. EmHost18:01 As police continued to interview her. They wanted to rehash any detail that Margaret could remember from when she returned to the apartment earlier that morning. And this is where they learned a new interesting piece of information. Margaret says she was exhausted by the time she got back from the airport at 4 am. So when her alarm clock went off the next morning she slept through it. So by the time she woke up she was running late. 18:23 She says she ran to the closest phone in the apartment so she could call in and let them know she wouldn't be there on time. The closest phone happened to be in Maggie's room. Now Margaret says when she ran in there the phone was lying on the floor next to Maggie's bed, but it was off the hook. In case we have any young sleuths listening, this was back in the days when phones had a cord and were connected to a receiver. If someone tried to call you and they couldn't get through, they heard a specific tone. Now this meant one of two things Either the person you were calling was on the other line or that the phone was off the hook completely. And this was before call waiting became a standard feature on phones. Katie KaplanHost19:00 So this detail would prove to be an important one. When police later spoke to Maggie's co-worker, lee, and then Jim Downey, you might remember that Maggie had been coming home from Lee's house when she passed the restaurant and caught up with Jay. Now police interviewed her and she confirmed that she and Maggie had hung out. And she mentioned that she tried to call Maggie at home later on, between 11 and 1130, but she couldn't get through. The line was busy. We know from Jay's interview with police that Maggie was on the phone the first time. In that call from Margaret who was checking in, it likely couldn't have been more than just a few minutes long, the second call from the vulgar man Jay described lasting only a few moments because Jay says Maggie hung up right away. EmHost19:45 So the chances of Lee calling at that exact time that one of those other two phone calls came in is pretty slim. 19:52 The chances that when Lee called the phone had been knocked off the receiver is much more likely. So if Lee remembered correctly and she actually did call Maggie between 11 and 1130, that busy signal becomes an important factor when reconstructing the timeline for when Maggie might have been killed. Now phone records show that Margaret's call came in at 1019 and she actually talked to Maggie, so we know she was still alive at that time. Again, lee called sometime after 11 and got the busy signal. So is it possible that Maggie was murdered in the short window between 1020 and 1130, when the phone was then knocked off its hook, likely during a struggle? According to an article we found in the Battle Creek Enquirer, maggie's time of death was placed between 11pm, when Jay said he last saw Maggie and left her apartment, and around 4.30am, near the time when Margaret returned home from the airport. But beyond this we haven't been able to find anything more definitive as far as a timeline given out by the medical examiner. Katie KaplanHost20:54 During the investigation, police canvassed the apartment complex to talk to neighbors about anything they might have seen or heard the night Maggie was murdered, and this provided another possible timeline. One neighbor said she had been awoken by a woman's scream that night. She thought it was sometime between 1.30am and 2.30am. This woman said it wasn't a loud scream and it didn't sound like a call for help, but it did startle her enough to go to the bedroom window and look outside. Apparently she could see part of Maggie's balcony but couldn't see the door into Maggie's apartment. The woman had asked her husband if she had heard the scream, but he said no, all he heard were voices. She told police that she could hear voices too, both of a man and a woman, coming from below. EmHost21:40 This neighbor said after she heard the scream she went out to open her window and left it open for the rest of the night. It was later she told the police that she heard the patio door to Maggie's apartment open and then close. Now we don't know how much time passed between that alleged scream and the patio door opening and closing. As we know, and in my experience, eyewitness testimony is a very tricky thing, especially an ear witness. The timing can be off and if you're awoken from a dead sleep, like in this case, the reliability really kind of needs to be questioned here, because we don't know how much of that sound actually registered with the witness. Either way, it is information that was obtained in the investigation and so it does need to be given some consideration. And this wasn't the first time that this couple had heard sounds coming from Maggie's apartment during the night. In fact they told police. They often heard Maggie and her boyfriend fighting, and they were very loud about it. Katie KaplanHost22:34 Next up police traced down Tom Carpenter, one of the men whose name was given to them separately by both Jay and Margaret. EmHost22:40 And how interesting is it that Maggie's roommate named three guys that Maggie might have been dating behind Jay's back and that those are the same three guys that Jay tells police might have had reason to harm Maggie? It? Katie KaplanHost22:51 is interesting that they would have such different perceptions of the same three men, or some might say very telling. I'm not necessarily surprised, though. As a news reporter, you learn pretty quickly that everyone has their own take on things. One person's view of how something happened or what someone is like can be totally different from the next person's, and I've even seen this play out in the criminal court cases I've covered. It's pretty amazing how different two people's perceptions of the same thing can be, and both reasons can be equally compelling. 23:23 So back to Tom Carpenter. He was about the same age as Maggie. Tom had a few different jobs at the time and had started cleaning Dr Chadwick's office before it opened. That's the same place. You'll remember. Maggie worked as a receptionist. Now they were overall friendly but didn't know each other very well. 23:40 However, the last night that Maggie was alive we know that she was with her co-worker Lee. What we didn't know is that they had gone to meet up with Tom. In his interview with police, tom said that he had a feeling that he was about to be fired from the doctor's office and that Maggie and Lee had stopped by to talk to him about it. He says Maggie assured him that he wouldn't be fired, and he had hoped that, because Maggie's family was close with Dr Chadwick, she might be able to stop it from happening. However, when Tom got to work the next day, he was fired, and he admitted to being angry with Maggie. He says he felt like he was lied to. However, it wasn't long before he heard that she had been killed, and then he realized that she hadn't even had a chance to talk to the doctor on his behalf. EmHost24:25 Tom was pretty quickly ruled out from having any involvement in Maggie's death, and so that's something that makes me wonder why Jay would have even thrown Tom's name into the ring, especially if he and Maggie had just met and barely even knew each other. Investigators then moved on to Jim Downey, who told them all about how he and Maggie had dated through high school. They had broken up when he left to attend military school out of town. He got back the following year, but he had started dating somebody else and he was now engaged to that woman. Throughout all of it, however, he and Maggie had stayed close friends. In fact, he told police that the night of Maggie's murder he had called her apartment to talk about details for her roommate's upcoming birthday party. Katie KaplanHost25:06 Maggie wasn't 21 yet, so Jim was going to secure the alcohol for the party. We don't know exactly what time he spoke to her, but we do know that later in the evening, around 1130, he told the cops that he had tried calling again several times, but the phone was busy. So here's where some of the story we've heard starts to fall apart. Remember how Maggie's boyfriend, jay, told police that Maggie received two calls while he was there that night, one from her roommate and the other from an unknown pervy man. Well records showed one was indeed from Margaret, but the other that was answered was from Jim. Those were the only two calls that connected to the apartment phone that night. So what was the deal with that story? Jay told about the second phone call. EmHost25:51 I have to wonder if this call was made up by Jay in an effort to cover up Jim's call while at the same time trying to create a suspect in Maggie's murder. And I think as we go through this, we might find that there is an answer to this question. As police continue to interview Maggie's family and friends, they were starting to hear rumors that Jim and Maggie might have rekindled the romance. So when they sat down with Jim they asked him straight out. But Jim denied any current romance with Maggie. He insisted they were just good friends. But police did find out that Jim had gone to Maggie's apartment at least once before and he tried to get in by stepping on an electrical box and climbing up onto the balcony. But when he did this that door had been locked. Katie KaplanHost26:33 Now police found this interesting. It confirmed the theory that the utility box could be used as a step to access Maggie's apartment, but according to Jim, he had needed help from several friends to be wasted over the balcony. It turns out that this incident happened when Maggie wasn't home and Jim was playing a prank on her roommate, margaret, whom he was also friends with. The patio door was locked and when he knocked he had startled Margaret. From what we could find, police didn't seem to pay much attention to this previous incident. Two guys were reportedly with Jim that night, but there wasn't any public information we could find about if they were interviewed. It is well documented that Jim fully cooperated with police. He let them take his fingerprints, hair and DNA samples. He also took two polygraphs. The first was inconclusive, so he volunteered to take a second one, which he passed. EmHost27:27 Now we couldn't really find many details on Phil Mitchell that's the third man who was named by both Jay and Margaret to the police. Our research suggested that Phil Mitchell was most likely a family friend of the Humes and hadn't actually really been considered a suspect by police. It was at this point in the investigation that law enforcement zeroed in on Jay as their main person of interest, and there are several reasons why, some of which you sleuths have already probably picked up on. First, he was the last known person to see her alive the night of her murder and he was the significant other. As goes that standard rule you always take a good look at the partner. But there were also a few other things, like the information they had learned during the course of some of their other interviews, that, and the more time that they spent with Jay, the more inconsistencies they started finding in his story. Katie KaplanHost28:18 Remember how we told you Jay went to the apartment with Maggie's younger brother, john, and how John had left the room only to come back and find Jay on his knees in the closet. Remember he had supposedly been looking to see if any of Maggie's shoes were missing. Well, we know this would be awfully hard to do without seeing Maggie's body. EmHost28:37 And we're not going to be in the habit of posting crime scene photos on our social media. But this is one case where we're going to make an exception, and that's because it's extremely important to the case and it's also not very graphic. The picture clearly shows that Maggie's legs are lying right on top of her pile of shoes. You can see for yourself how it would be nearly impossible for anyone to look through her shoes, as Jay claimed he did, without finding Maggie's body. Now, this picture was produced during a FOIA request made by the authors of the book the Murder of Maggie Hume, cold Case and Battle Creek by Blaine Pardo and Victoria Hester. It is one of the main sources for our coverage of today's case. The County District Attorney released the case file to these authors in hopes that it would help solve Maggie's murder. If you want to get the nitty-gritty details or see all of the crime scene photos, you should grab yourself a copy of this book. Katie KaplanHost29:29 Jay had confirmed the details about looking through Maggie's shoes with the first officer he spoke to, but later he did a complete 180 and he told detectives that he'd never looked in the closet. Four days after Maggie's murder, police sat down with Jay again and he walked them through how the night allegedly unfolded. He told detectives that Maggie had wanted him to stay over. However, he told her he could only stay for a couple of hours and then he had to go home. But later, in the same interview, he changed his story again. This time he claimed that he had told Maggie that he could only stay for one hour and that Maggie didn't ask him to stay, but instead wanted to know what his plans were for the rest of the night. Jay told the investigators that he had the impression she might have been expecting someone else at the apartment later that evening. EmHost30:18 At this point, jay started to look more suspicious to police, so they interviewed him yet again. It was a few days later, but this time the interview turned from a hey, let's just sit down and chat about Maggie. To more of an interrogation. It was long and drawn out, and they started really applying the pressure. The detective that led this interview informed Jay that at this point he was the only suspect in the case. Now, at some point during this interview, jay started making comments about the murder like, quote it was probably an accident. Unquote and quote she probably was killed by somebody she knew and her wallet was just taken to make it look like a robbery unquote. Jay also made the comment that the killer probably thought to himself quote if I can't have her, nobody can. Unquote. Katie KaplanHost31:05 It almost sounds like he was trying to tell police what happened without claiming responsibility. EmHost31:11 I think that's exactly what it sounded like. Police were clearly gaining momentum in the interview. Perhaps Jay was starting to crack. And in fact in that book we read the detective said he felt like Jay was right about to confess. The detective had just asked Jay what he thought was going to happen next and Jay, head hung low, responded quote you're going to arrest me, unquote. And then at that exact moment the door swung open and the police chief burst in and it was like at that moment all of the air was let out of the balloon. It was such a crucial point in that interrogation. I personally know the rhythm of an interview firsthand, the give and the take and the buildup that leads to that head hanging moment right before you get a confession. It's such a delicate strategy and you only get one shot, but an interruption like this can be catastrophic. Katie KaplanHost32:00 It turns out, the police chief had been monitoring the interview from another room and he wanted to give Jay a polygraph test. However, the polygraph wasn't able to be administered until the following day. The damage was done and the interview lost its momentum. All of those emotions that had been building in Jay the ones the detectives believe had crept across his face and started making him speak a bit more frankly were gone. The next day Jay came in for his polygraph test. The detective also informed Jay that he believed he had murdered Maggie. Police say Jay's demeanor was the complete opposite from the interview the day before and that he was extremely hostile. EmHost32:39 Now the detective believes there was a very specific reason that Jay's attitude had changed. He said the night before, after Jay's interrogation had ended and he got a chance to go home, the news had ran a local story on the case stating police didn't have a suspect in the Maggie Hume case. Now law enforcement didn't know that the news was going to highlight this detail in their story that night and the detective believed that Jay, after leaving this intense interrogation, got home and saw the storyline run through the news. At this point he had time to reevaluate his position. So when he came in the next day for the polygraph he had a renewed sense of self assurance. However, when his polygraph came back, it showed signs that he was not being truthful during the questioning. 33:22 What's great about the book that we read is they actually got a copy of the lengthy list of notes that were made by the investigators that night they interviewed Jay. It was pretty insightful. We're not going to list all of them but again, they can be found in that book we mentioned. We'll also link to it in our show notes so you can get a copy for yourself Now. The authors obtained this again through the FOIA request and the DA providing case files to them. Some of those notes regarding the interview of Jay read as such suspect has an extremely strong ego, he admits the relationship with the victim was convenient. She provided companionship, kept his clothes clean, made sure he would eat and then he gained sexual pleasures. They also noted that he showed little emotion over Maggie's death. Katie KaplanHost34:07 They also noted that he didn't have an alibi after he left Maggie's apartment that night through the next morning and that he's likely the only person who knew her roommate would be back in a few hours and would check on her, so he'd potentially have reason to hide Maggie's body in the closet. They also listed a possible motive, a fear that he was losing Maggie in the relationship, adding a note about the statement Jay made that the killer probably thought that if I can't have her, nobody can. Once Jay failed this polygraph, he told Maggie's mom and he was honest with her that he was considered their main suspect and he told her that he planned to get a lawyer. While the investigation was unfolding in the days after Maggie's death, jay was also busy making calls of his own. In the four days between Maggie's murder and her funeral, jay had started to hit on one of Maggie's best friends. Mary says Jay called her multiple times, asking her out on a date he had allegedly invited her to dinner, and then another time a movie. EmHost35:08 As police continued to dig into Jay, they learned a lot more information about the true nature of Maggie and Jay's relationship. About two weeks after Maggie's death, battle Creek Police received a tip from a volleyball coach at St Phillips. She said that about six months before Maggie was murdered she had to intervene during an altercation between Maggie and Jay at a volleyball game. The couple had been arguing when Jay began choking Maggie. The coach noticed what was going on and she ran over to pull him off of her, and that's when she heard Jay say I will choke the life out of you and hide you where no one can find you. Two other people that police interviewed also said they witnessed this entire situation unfold. Katie KaplanHost35:49 And it didn't stop there. Maggie's best friend, mary the same one that Jay had asked out described Jay as jealous and possessive. Ann said Maggie wasn't overly thrilled about being in a relationship with him. In fact, mary claims that on multiple occasions Maggie had stated that she wanted to break up with him, but she was scared of what he might do. Despite that, she had made several attempts to leave Jay, but he would always get aggressive and violent. EmHost36:15 There was this one time. Mary says she was actually there when Maggie had tried to break it off. Mary had been upstairs in Maggie's apartment while Maggie went down to the parking lot to talk to Jay, but then Maggie came running back to the apartment and Jay was chasing behind her and screaming. Maggie was barely able to get the door closed in the apartment and locked before Jay tried pushing his way through. She says Jay spent the next 30 minutes pounding on the door and yelling before he finally left. That breakup, however, didn't last very long. Maggie and Jay apparently got back together only a few days later. Katie KaplanHost36:48 Another one of Maggie's friends named Lynn described a similar incident that happened at a dinner party in front of several friends and she says Maggie also confided in her about her troublesome relationship. Lynn claimed Maggie was afraid that Jay would become violent or possibly even kill her. EmHost37:06 Meanwhile, maggie's family was left reeling from her loss. They were devastated, and friends and extended family really rallied around them. Their house was rarely empty and many people stopped by to show their support and help keep them company. On one of these nights between Maggie's death and her funeral, her friends had come to the house and were hanging out in the front yard. Maggie's mom happened to be laying in her bed with the window open, and she was able to overhear some of the conversations Maggie's friends were having. She then heard Jay's voice, and she was shocked when she heard him telling people some of the intimate details of the case, including that Maggie had been raped and strangled and that the killer had entered through the patio door. He also mentioned that Maggie had been found on her back with her face turned to the side. None of these things had been shared with the family, and the autopsy hadn't even been performed yet. Apparently, nobody outside of Battle Creek PD even knew these details. The detectives themselves didn't even know yet that she had been sexually assaulted. Katie KaplanHost38:06 On a different day, jay was over at the Hume's house when he told Maggie's mother that her death was probably just an accident and that he could tell the killer had cared about Maggie because of how they wrapped her so carefully and neatly. 38:19 She asked Jay how someone could have gotten into the apartment and he told her that the lock on the balcony had been picked. This is something he apparently said to other people at the house, including Maggie's aunt and her cousin. Before the funeral, maggie's mother had to go to her apartment to pick out the outfit that Maggie would be buried in, but she didn't want to go alone, so she asked Maggie's dad, brother, aunt and Jay to accompany her. She later told police that Jay initially didn't want to enter the apartment and had stayed near the doorway, but after a little while, when she was in Maggie's room looking for jewelry, jay came in. He told her that Maggie had a diamond ring that she never took off, and he knew it was in her dresser drawer. When she went to look for it, the ring was all the way at the bottom of the drawer, wrapped in wax paper and hidden under her underwear. She later wondered how Jay would know where it was if Maggie never took this ring off. EmHost39:15 Maggie was murdered in the overnight hours of August 16, 1982, and the autopsy report wouldn't be completed until October 2 of that same day. Her official cause of death was cerebral anoxia, and that means that the brain was completely deprived of oxygen, and a method for this was found to have been strangulation with ligature. The report described this ligature as an object that was about half an inch in width. Beyond that, they weren't able to determine exactly what was used. The doctor also noted that she suffered two head wounds right before she was murdered. The final and most disturbing discovery was that Maggie had a skull. Maggie had been sexually assaulted and sodomized. They did find semen in her underwear and that was collected as evidence. They learned a lot during this autopsy. However, the only thing they released to the public was that Maggie had been strangled. Everything else was kept hidden. Katie KaplanHost40:09 It took a few weeks after the autopsy report was finalized for officers to ask Jay for samples of his blood, hair and saliva. Jay was not on board with this and he told them he would need to think about it. And this is where the police basically went checkmate. They weren't about to sit around and wait for Jay to maybe make up his mind. They went and they got a warrant for the samples. This took only a couple of days and pretty quickly they served that warrant and collected what they needed. 40:37 At this point in the story, we're going to go ahead and follow Jay down a path for a minute. In early November 1982, about 10 days after his DNA was collected, jay went out drinking with a small group of friends. This decision would eventually end with a deadly car accident that would provide some fruitful leads for detectives. Jay and his buddies met at a bar in Battle Creek and as the night went on, one of the friends, a guy named Bart, became super drunk, more so than anyone else, so they decided to take him home. The only problem was that Bart had driven his own car to that bar. EmHost41:12 So the story goes that a third friend, a man named Terry, volunteered to drive Bart and that Jay would follow the two in another one. That way Terry could drop Bart and his car off at Bart's place and then jump in with Jay and catch her right home with him. So they all head out, bart and Terry in one car and Jay in another. But Jay says that Bart's car sped off so fast that he wasn't able to follow it or catch up with it. And when he got to Bart's place he saw that the car wasn't there. Katie KaplanHost41:40 Jay says he then decided to drive to his own apartment in case the guys had driven there instead, but again he didn't see Bart's car parked anywhere. So he says he gave up and he just went to bed. He says it wasn't until later that he learned the car Bart and Terry were in had actually hit a cement shoulder, which sent it flying through the air and as it flipped upside down, both men were ejected from the car. Bart was killed and Terry was left severely injured. The police interviewed Terry at the hospital, where he claimed that Bart was the one who had ended up driving that night. It's a statement that has been the source of ongoing debate and become a major point of contention. Jay later told police he didn't see who actually ended up behind the wheel. He had assumed it was Terry, since he had drank less, but Terry, the lone survivor, says it was Bart, with no way to prove it. One way or another, terry ended up receiving a large payout from Bart's insurance company as a result of his injuries. EmHost42:38 Now this is just one version of this story. There was also another friend there that night, a guy named Kevin, who completely refuted the fact that Bart was driving. He claims that Jay actually had admitted to him that he lied to police and he actually saw Terry get behind the wheel of the car, as was the plan, and Bart was passed out drunk in the backseat. And that's not the only lie that Kevin says Jay told. Kevin also said that Jay told him he watched the car speed off, but he was able to catch up to it because he found that it crashed off the side of the road. Jay then allegedly told Kevin that he had drove to a gas station and called in to report the accident. That is where one of Jay's lies was actually able to be proven. Police found there were only two calls that came into the station that night to report the accident. Both calls were from witnesses who ended up returning to the scene to render first aid, and neither of these callers was Jay. Katie KaplanHost43:31 Bart's family was distraught. Not only had they tragically lost their son, but he was also being blamed for driving drunk and causing serious harm to Terry. When Bart's father caught wind of the story, Jay allegedly told Kevin he wanted to talk to Jay himself and hear it straight from his mouth. He showed up at Jay's work, but Jay reportedly refused to talk to him. While he was there, Bart's father noticed what looked to be fresh damage to Jay's vehicle. However, it's unclear if law enforcement ever followed up on this. Eventually, Kevin confronted Terry and told him that he needed to tell the truth, since he was the driver and the one responsible for the accident and the death of Bart. However, Terry refused and allegedly told Kevin that Jay was the only witness who saw who was actually driving that night and that he had information on Jay which would keep Jay from ever coming clean about the accident. EmHost44:27 So Kevin went to the police and he told them that, as he understood it, the information that Terry was holding over Jay had to do with Maggie's murder. Bart's sister would then come forward a few years later to claim that right before Bart died he had come home after a night of drinking with Jay and confide in her that Jay was planning on killing Maggie because he thought she was seeing someone else. This alleged incident was said to have taken place just weeks before Maggie was murdered. All of this information, coupled with the fresh damage Bart's father saw on Jay's car, produced a new theory. If Jay had confided in Terry and Bart about either his intent to kill Maggie or any details of the crime after he committed it, then he would have incentive to potentially cause a car crash. Now this theory was put forward in that book that we mentioned and I have to admit it doesn't sound very farfetched. Katie KaplanHost45:21 One year after Maggie's murder, there was another big discovery. In a lot that connects to the parking lot of Maggie's apartment complex, her wallet was found buried near a patch of trees. There wasn't any money inside, but investigators weren't sure if there was any in there. To begin with, during one of the initial searches of her apartment, there had been a check sitting on the dining room table in Plain Sight. Since it was untouched, both money and robbery had been ruled out at that point as a motive for her murder. EmHost45:51 Time would continue to pass, but Jay wasn't arrested and instead, over the years, another suspect began to emerge. Police also had to deal with the fact that, right after Maggie was murdered, two more young women were found slain nearby. As we go on, there will be leads that show that some of these murders might actually be connected. Katie KaplanHost46:11 We'll have more on that and what happened to Jay. EmHost46:14 in the next episode We'll see you back here Monday for Part 2. In the meantime, please take a second and leave us some love in that review section on your podcast player. It helps other sleuths just like you find us. Katie KaplanHost46:26 Maggie Hume didn't deserve to die but she deserves to be remembered. EmHost46:31 Until next time, stay vigilant and stay curious, fellow sleuths.

The Battle Creek Murders: Part 1 - Maggie Hume

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