Murder of Jessica Heeringa

Composite sketch of the suspect[17]

The following is based on eyewitness and police testimony made in court hearings.

• A female customer who frequented the gas station saw Heeringa working late at night and commented to her that she should not be there all alone at such a late hour and that her boyfriend should at least accompany her. She reported that a man who overheard the women's conversation then interjected, "She's got her customers looking out for her too" but that Heeringa "sort of shook her head and started shivering ... like a chill went up her spine or something." Furthermore, the customer claimed that Heeringa "wasn't her usual happy self" and that it appeared "something was wrong," so she parked outside the station until it closed. She did observe the strange man leave that night.[18]

• 10:55 pm: The last transaction, a cigarette lighter, was recorded on Heeringa's register.[5]
• 11:00 pm: An Exxon manager and her husband drove by the station only to find a man acting in a suspicious manner; they observed him repeatedly opening and closing his silver minivan's rear hatch. Then they saw him drive away. They later described the man, his behavior, and his vehicle to the police.[6]
• 11:02–11:05 pm: A silver Chrysler Town & Country matching the manager's description was caught by surveillance cameras of three other businesses speeding away from the station.[6]
• 11:10 pm: A man pulled up to the station and attempted to pay for gas; however, being unable to find Heeringa anywhere in the store, he called 911.[6]
• 11:25 pm: Police arrived at the gas station. In addition to Heeringa's belongings, they found accessory parts to a gun near a pool of blood outside the station.[5] They ruled out robbery as soon as they discovered that over $400 cash was left in Heeringa's wallet and that no money was missing from the station's register. About an hour later, a police K-9 searched the immediate area but did not find anything.[6]

Jeffrey Thomas Willis
2016 mugshot of Jeffrey Willis
Born	(1970-03-06) March 6, 1970[19]
Height	68 in (1.73 m)[19]
Conviction(s)	First-degree murder (two counts) Kidnapping Use of a firearm in the commission of a felony
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole
Details
Victims	2 (convicted)
Span of crimes	2013–2014
Country	United States
State(s)	Michigan
Date apprehended	April 16, 2016

On September 20, 2016, Jeffrey Thomas Willis, a former factory worker previously incarcerated at the Muskegon County Jail for other crimes including homicide, was charged by the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office with the kidnapping and murder of Heeringa. Willis had been a frequent customer at her place of employment, he matched a police artist's sketch of a man seen "being real flirty" with her on the night of her disappearance, and his minivan matched the description of one witnessed at the crime scene and recorded on security cameras speeding away from her workplace at about the time she went missing. His co-workers told police that he was scheduled to work that night but that he never arrived, nor did he show up for work in the days afterwards.[1][20] Police executed a search warrant for Willis's home and found pictures of Heeringa in a folder labeled "vics" on his computer.[21] Police searched for her body near his home after a tip was called in on June 17, 2016, but found nothing.[22] Police had previously searched for her body in and around a cabin in Mancelona owned by a friend of Willis's on May 20, 2016, but also came up empty. Soon after Heeringa's disappearance, a local resident saw Willis at the Mancelona property walking out of the woods with a shovel.[23]

On December 13, 2016, a Muskegon County judge ruled that Willis would stand trial for murder and kidnapping charges in Heeringa's case. The judge decided there was enough evidence to call for a trial after four days of testimony during the preliminary hearing. Judge Raymond Kostrzewa noted evidence such as the folder on Willis's computer titled "vics" (possibly short for victims) which prosecutors say included a sub-folder titled with her initials, photos of Heeringa, and the date of her disappearance. They also found necrophilia and murder porn videos downloaded from the internet—some of which were simulated and some of which were real.[7][24][25][26]

The trial for Heeringa's murder took place in May 2018. After 1½ hours of deliberations, the jury found Willis guilty of Heeringa's kidnapping and murder on May 16, 2018.[8] He received a life sentence without parole a month later.[9]

On May 25, 2016, Willis was charged with the murder of Rebekah Sue Bletsch, a 36-year-old jogger whose body was found with three gunshots to the head near her home in Dalton Township on June 29, 2014. Shell casings found near her body matched a gun found in Willis's minivan, where police also found disturbing photos of women bound and gagged, handcuffs, chains, ropes, and syringes including one with a liquid later identified as a powerful sedative.[3] Another sub-folder found inside the "vics" folder on Willis's computer had pictures of Bletsch.[25] Judge Kostrzewa denied bond for Willis and ordered him to remain in the Muskegon County Jail.[24] Jury selection for the Bletsch murder trial began on October 17, 2017.[27][28][29] On November 2, 2017, a remorseless Jeffrey Willis was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Bletsch and of the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to life without parole six weeks later.[11]

On March 9, 2018, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill that will require convicted defendants to listen to victims' impact statements at sentencing, which was inspired by Willis's refusal to do so after the Bletsch trial.[30] It was passed by the Michigan Senate on May 10, 2018.[31] Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed it into law on May 24, 2018.[32] It is officially known as the "Rebekah Bletsch Law."[33]

Willis is also charged with the attempted kidnapping of an unnamed 16-year-old girl in Laketon Township on April 16, 2016. She became lost after leaving a party, and Willis approached her in his van with an offer to let her use his phone. He insisted that she get in the car to use the phone. Once inside the car, he locked all of the doors and produced a gun, but she managed to escape with minor injuries after she said she couldn't breathe and convinced him to open her window.[3][34][35]

Willis was charged with production and possession of child pornography after police found videos of two nude girls who were 14 at the time on his computer. He lived next door to the girls in March 2011 in Fruitland Township and recorded them without their knowledge while they used his bathroom.[36]

Willis is a suspect in the unsolved murder of 15-year-old Fruitport High School student Angela Marie Thornburg, whose partially-clothed body was found by a hunter on October 17, 1996, in the woods near I-96 in Fruitport. She went missing a month earlier and was initially considered a runaway, with sightings of her reported soon after. Reports from the time said she ran out a back door at her boyfriend's house when her mother came to pick her up. Willis graduated from the same high school in 1988 and worked as a janitor for the school district from 1998 to 1999 before being fired for looking at pornography on a computer meant for students in an elementary school.[13]

Kevin Lavern Bluhm
2016 mugshot of Kevin Bluhm
Born	(1968-10-18) October 18, 1968[37]
Height	75 in (1.91 m)[37]
Conviction(s)	Lying to a police officer during a violent crime investigation (two counts) Accessory after the fact
Criminal penalty	Five years' probation Required to a wear a GPS tether Time served
Details
Span of crimes	2013–2014
Country	United States
State(s)	Michigan
Date apprehended	June 21, 2016

On June 21, 2016, Willis's cousin Kevin Lavern Bluhm, a former Michigan Department of Corrections prison guard, was charged with lying to a police officer during a violent crime investigation after he told police information about Heeringa's disappearance that was not made public but which he later recanted. He was charged with the same crime in connection with the Bletsch case. Bluhm pleaded guilty to both counts on August 26, 2016, and was later sentenced to time served.[15]

Bluhm was also charged with being an accessory after the fact when he admitted to investigators he saw Willis with Heeringa's body and helped him bury her after she was sexually assaulted. Bluhm said Willis called him the day after Heeringa's disappearance and said he had a woman and there was a party. Bluhm told police he saw Heeringa with an obvious head wound, face down, hands out, and tied. She was naked and wasn't moving. He also told police he knew that "Jeff had been following or watching Ms. Heeringa, and that he hit her ... which made her go unconscious to get her in the van," and that Willis had raped her, used sexual toys and torture.[5] He told investigators he and Willis wrapped Heeringa up in a sheet and drove her to an area on Sheridan Road near Laketon Road, where Willis had already dug a hole, placed shovels, and buried her corpse.[38][39][5] Bluhm was suspended without pay from his job as a sergeant at the West Shoreline Correctional Facility, a state prison in Muskegon Heights.[38][40] On November 27, 2017, Bluhm pleaded no contest to being an accessory after the fact for helping Willis dispose of Heeringa's body and was sentenced on January 9, 2018, to time served, plus five years probation and to wear a GPS tether for at least a year.[16]