Speaker 1: Hey listeners, Jessica here. Be sure to check out new
Speaker 1: episodes of Undetermined every Tuesday for free wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. For early and ad free listening, check out
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot plus on Apple Podcasts. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: in this podcast are solely those of the individuals interviewed
Speaker 1: and participating in the show, and do not represent those
Speaker 1: of Tenderfoot TV and Resonate recordings. All individuals described or
Speaker 1: mentioned in the podcast should be considered innocent until found
Speaker 1: guilty in a court of law. This podcast contains subject
Speaker 1: matter such as violence and graphic descriptions, which may not
Speaker 1: be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I'm
Speaker 1: Jessica Noll, an investigative journalist with twenty years of experience.
Speaker 1: I've been covering crime stories for a good chunk of
Speaker 1: my career, with a particular interest in unsolved and cold cases.
Speaker 1: That's because these are cases that are often overlooked and undercovered.
Speaker 1: If I can tell the victim's story, shed new light
Speaker 1: on it, and give them a voice, maybe that can
Speaker 1: help their case. In twenty eighteen, I produced my first
Speaker 1: true crime podcast, covering two fifty year old cold cases
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. I've gone on to produce several others since,
Speaker 1: and at the heart of each and every one of
Speaker 1: those stories is the victim. These aren't my stories to tell,
Speaker 1: they're their stories. So I want to tell you the
Speaker 1: story of Jessica Easterly Darning. She was the kind of
Speaker 1: person who one of our friends told me, could make
Speaker 1: you feel so special, so loved, and like you were
Speaker 1: the most beautiful, most important person in the world to her,
Speaker 1: and those who loved her back felt the same way
Speaker 1: about Jessica. But in the summer of twenty eighteen, Jessica
Speaker 1: vanished from her Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans. Within days,
Speaker 1: her body was found just two and a half blocks
Speaker 1: from her home.
Speaker 2: Her body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Now
Speaker 2: her family in advanced stages of grief and disbelief that
Speaker 2: something like this could happen.
Speaker 1: She shouldn't be dead right now. My family's devastated.
Speaker 3: They lost a cousin, a sister, a daughter.
Speaker 2: Everything seems to be hush hushed.
Speaker 4: The police don't know anything. The neighborhood is very upset
Speaker 4: about it, and we would really like some answers as
Speaker 4: to what happened to our neighbor.
Speaker 2: While no cause or manner of death has been determined,
Speaker 2: Jessica's family and friends are determined to get justice for Jessica.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, her case and manner of death were classified as undetermined,
Speaker 1: which has left the investigation into her death in limbo,
Speaker 1: and because of that, more than three years later, her
Speaker 1: case remains unsolved. I wanted to know more about Jessica,
Speaker 1: more about her life and about her death, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to find out what really happened in the days
Speaker 1: leading up to and following August fourteenth, twenty nineteen. The
Speaker 1: more I learned, the more convinced I became that her
Speaker 1: story was one that I needed to tell, and that's
Speaker 1: why I'm here today. But when I first learned about
Speaker 1: Jessica's story, I didn't think I would be where I
Speaker 1: am right now, behind the microphone telling her story to
Speaker 1: the world. So before we dive into Jessica's story, I
Speaker 1: want to share with you how we got here, because
Speaker 1: a lot has happened over the last two years that's
Speaker 1: brought me where I am today. It all started with
Speaker 1: my partner, retired Detective Todd Macombas.
Speaker 5: I retired from law enforcement in twenty seventeen, and I
Speaker 5: did so to take a job on a sports radio show,
Speaker 5: host a comedy podcast, and focus on my career in
Speaker 5: stand up. But by November of twenty nineteen, I had
Speaker 5: fallen completely in love with true crime podcasts because that's
Speaker 5: when I listened to the first season of Culpable, and
Speaker 5: I mean I was hooked three minutes in to the
Speaker 5: first episode and I binged it from beginning to end. Now,
Speaker 5: at that time, I was hosting a podcast called Heartland
Speaker 5: Radio for the Pat McAfee Show. And even though Heartland
Speaker 5: Radio was a comedy podcast, I decided to throw our
Speaker 5: listeners a little curveball and invite Dennis Cooper, the co
Speaker 5: creator and host of Culpable, to be a guest on
Speaker 5: the show. So a lot of weird, hinky things. You
Speaker 5: would think that law enforcement in the scene would think,
Speaker 5: you know what, maybe we need to take a little
Speaker 5: a layer deeper than maybe just what the two people
Speaker 5: that allegedly found the body are saying. And that really
Speaker 5: wasn't done initially, right, it was just let's get it
Speaker 5: looks like suicide. Us just wrap it up, boys, let's
Speaker 5: go get some lunch.
Speaker 6: That's what all indications point to and to not knock
Speaker 6: bringing place too much, as once the family gave pressure,
Speaker 6: they started to look into things. But you know, as
Speaker 6: many other victims families have probably learned, it really hurts
Speaker 6: when you don't do it right out the gate.
Speaker 5: Dennis's guest spot was a big hit with our crowd,
Speaker 5: and then he and I quickly became friends over text
Speaker 5: and listen. I got so hooked on true crime podcasting
Speaker 5: that I left my job. I just quit and I
Speaker 5: went back to my detective roots and started my own
Speaker 5: true crime podcast called ten forty one with Todd Macomas.
Speaker 5: Then six months later, I get tagged in a tweet
Speaker 5: from a woman named Audrey Schmidt. Now Audrey asked me
Speaker 5: to bring her, her sister, and her sister's best friend
Speaker 5: on ten forty one to talk about the suspicious death
Speaker 5: of their sister, Jessica Easterly Dearning. So I did, and
Speaker 5: that interview changed my life.
Speaker 7: According to detectives, they can't hand it over from missing
Speaker 7: persons to homicide until the coroner calls it specifically a homicide.
Speaker 7: So as long as the coroner is calling it undetermined,
Speaker 7: just can't do anything. Sorry, sooner or.
Speaker 5: Later somebody's gonna have to do something for your sister,
Speaker 5: and it's frustrating, right you guys are you guys are
Speaker 5: all warriors and you're out there battling for her. And
Speaker 5: I'm sure that Jessica is very proud of each and
Speaker 5: every one of you. It's admirable. And any way that
Speaker 5: I can help in the future, please don't hesitate to
Speaker 5: let me know. Stay in contact and I'll try to
Speaker 5: keep up on the case. If I can offer advice
Speaker 5: or if I can help you get the word out
Speaker 5: of anything, I definitely will do that. And I, as
Speaker 5: a former detective, I just have to apologize to you.
Speaker 5: This is injustice. It shouldn't be happening. I had interviewed
Speaker 5: these three amazing women, let them tell Jessica's tragic story
Speaker 5: in one single episode, and then it was on to
Speaker 5: the next week's story. But I could not get that
Speaker 5: conversation out of my head. I mean, I wanted to
Speaker 5: help them find justice for their sister and her friend
Speaker 5: so badly, yet I felt completely powerless. My inner detective
Speaker 5: was screaming at me, man one episode and done, what
Speaker 5: in the hell are you doing? Do something? But what
Speaker 5: my following wasn't big enough. My reach wasn't far enough,
Speaker 5: and I just didn't have the infrastructure or resources to
Speaker 5: cover this story in the way it deserved, let alone
Speaker 5: get it to the size of the audience it deserved.
Speaker 5: But fortunately I knew someone who did, my buddy Dennis Cooper,
Speaker 5: and man, before I knew it, my world would come
Speaker 5: full friggin circle.
Speaker 6: As he said, I was wrapping up on Culpable Season one,
Speaker 6: and he asked me to be on his comedy podcast,
Speaker 6: And of course I'm nervous because I don't like doing
Speaker 6: that stuff anyways, and also, why would they want to
Speaker 6: talk to me about a true crime podcast. I just
Speaker 6: didn't understand that. But I go on there, and Todd
Speaker 6: and his co host took really good care of me,
Speaker 6: and it ended up being this great experience, which I
Speaker 6: did not expect whatsoever going into it. So Todd and
Speaker 6: I exchanged information and from that point on we stayed
Speaker 6: in touch. I learned that he had a background in
Speaker 6: law enforcement and had done some work on some cases
Speaker 6: that I was familiar with back in his home state
Speaker 6: of Indiana. I figured, who knows, maybe someday we pair
Speaker 6: up and make a podcast, or he tells me about
Speaker 6: a case that I then feel compelled to make a
Speaker 6: podcast about. Like Todd said, he had moved on from
Speaker 6: comedy to true crime. And then I believe it was
Speaker 6: near the end of twenty twenty that he reaches out
Speaker 6: and he starts telling me about this case in New
Speaker 6: Orleans that he covered on his show, and he's like, dude,
Speaker 6: I cannot stop thinking about this one. So of course
Speaker 6: I get sucked in and I start going down all
Speaker 6: the same rabbit holes, and it wasn't long before he
Speaker 6: connected me with the victim's family. The victim is jessicaate
Speaker 6: Easterly Darning and her sisters are Audrey and Amanda, to
Speaker 6: super strong women who have basically led the charge on
Speaker 6: their own sister's investigation. And I'll just say it's amazing
Speaker 6: what they've done. But we connected with them, we hit
Speaker 6: it off on a zoom call, and from that point
Speaker 6: I just felt like, we need need to take on
Speaker 6: this story. The well, like I said, is to make
Speaker 6: an impact on this and whether that's finding something new
Speaker 6: or getting somebody to talk, or breaking this thing wide
Speaker 6: open ourselves. I mean just really put a shit ton
Speaker 6: of pressure on NPD to do something with this to
Speaker 6: where they can't really do much about the amount of
Speaker 6: questions they're receiving now related to this, and that's.
Speaker 3: All I want, And I just want to put enough
Speaker 3: pressure on them to where they'll they'll take it seriously.
Speaker 6: God, we didn't know what it was going to be,
Speaker 6: but we traveled in New Orleans anyways, and we spent
Speaker 6: some significant time there in the field recording, and eventually
Speaker 6: we came to this crossroad where we needed to decide
Speaker 6: what is the show. So at the time what we
Speaker 6: landed on was this would become season two of Culpable.
Speaker 6: Obviously that's not what ended up happening. Resonate Recordings was
Speaker 6: looking to hire our first producer to work on original shows,
Speaker 6: Jessica Noll, an investigative journalist out of Ohio. We were
Speaker 6: familiar with her name because being from Kentucky. We listened
Speaker 6: to Vault Studios podcast Bargetown, which takes place in Bargstown, Kentucky,
Speaker 6: and Jessica was a producer on that show and she
Speaker 6: had a big presence in it, working alongside the host.
Speaker 6: We knew they'd done a phenomenal job on that show,
Speaker 6: and Jessica had twenty plus years of experience, so needless
Speaker 6: to say, it was an easy decision. And when she
Speaker 6: comes on board, she says, Hey, I have this story
Speaker 6: in my hometown and I really think we should do
Speaker 6: a podcast on it. And that case was about a
Speaker 6: young mother, Britney Stikes, who'd been murdered in Brown County, Ohio,
Speaker 6: and we start doing some research and we say, yeah,
Speaker 6: let's do it. Well, as I started getting pulled more
Speaker 6: and more into that project, I asked Jessica to fill
Speaker 6: in and do some work on the project that I
Speaker 6: had been working on, that being the Jessica Easterly Darning case.
Speaker 6: Long story short, the case in Ohio became a perfect
Speaker 6: fit for Culpable, so it ended up becoming season two.
Speaker 6: And while Jessica is digging into the Jessica Easterly case,
Speaker 6: it's eventually decided that she could use some assistance while
Speaker 6: she's on the ground recording and investigating. And immediately I
Speaker 6: think of Todd McComas. He's got the background and experience
Speaker 6: to help make a difference in a case like this,
Speaker 6: he knows the story, he's passionate about it. He brought
Speaker 6: it to us no brainer. So, like Todd said, it
Speaker 6: did in fact go full circle. And now all of
Speaker 6: a sudden, they're going to tag team this new series
Speaker 6: of ours. And I say new series because when Jessica
Speaker 6: and Todd went to New Orleans, they quickly realized what
Speaker 6: this podcast should have been all along.
Speaker 1: One of the first things that captivated me was her
Speaker 1: sisters and their tenacity. It not only captured my attention,
Speaker 1: it fueled me. It made me realize what I would
Speaker 1: do if I ever lost one of my daughters and
Speaker 1: couldn't get any answers, no matter what doors I knocked down,
Speaker 1: I would go to the ends of the earth. I
Speaker 1: would fight with everything inside of me to get the
Speaker 1: justice she deserves. And that's exactly how her sisters have been,
Speaker 1: especially Audrey. She has had to be Jessica's voice for her,
Speaker 1: and so with that, she's had to raise her voice
Speaker 1: just a little bit louder each time she's been told no,
Speaker 1: until she was heard. Todd and I heard her, and
Speaker 1: now we want to give Jessica and her whole family
Speaker 1: the voice they so deserve. When Todd and I hit
Speaker 1: the ground in the Big Easy, we knew investigating this
Speaker 1: case was going to be anything but easy. It's when
Speaker 1: we started talking to people about the case, specifically the
Speaker 1: police in the corner's office. We knew this case was unique.
Speaker 1: It just felt different from any case I've ever covered.
Speaker 1: It felt unfinished. Of course, it was unsolved, but it
Speaker 1: was more than that. The one word that kept coming
Speaker 1: up in our investigation was undetermined. And during a two
Speaker 1: am epiphany, sitting in the lobby of our hotel in
Speaker 1: the French Quarter, it hit us that is what Jessica's
Speaker 1: story is undetermined. It goes beyond unsolved and reaches far
Speaker 1: past the simplistic term cold case, because this case wasn't
Speaker 1: just cold. It was dusty sitting dormant. No one was
Speaker 1: investigating her death all because of that one word in
Speaker 1: the coroner's report, and that word continues to haunt her
Speaker 1: family and ultimately is kept her keys void of answers
Speaker 1: for now. Coming up on undetermined.
Speaker 7: My phone dinged and I was like, it's Justin, but
Speaker 7: it's from Jessica's account, and he's saying he doesn't know
Speaker 7: where she is, and like, my whole body just went cold.
Speaker 7: I don't know how to describe it other than that,
Speaker 7: but I just felt a chill all.
Speaker 3: Over about right there where that white thing is. It
Speaker 3: was down on the ground and I tried to get
Speaker 3: down there, and I slid down and my foot hit it,
Speaker 3: and I remember just thinking, Oh God, please don't let
Speaker 3: my sister be underneath this tart.
Speaker 2: It boggled my mind that there would be less investigation
Speaker 2: because her cause of death was undetermined. That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4: If it seemed like some sort of foul play to
Speaker 4: three amateurs, I can only imagine how it would look
Speaker 4: to someone who does this every single day.
Speaker 1: Undetermined is a production of Resonate Recordings and Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 1: in conjunction with Cadence thirteen, written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jessica Nole and produced by Dennis Cooper and Todd McComas,
Speaker 1: with additional production by Whitney Bozart. Executive producers are Dennis Cooper,
Speaker 1: Mark Minnery, Jacob Bozart, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our
Speaker 1: senior producer is John Street. Editing, mixing, mastering and sound
Speaker 1: design by Caleb Melcher, Dayton Cole and Pat kick Glider
Speaker 1: of the Resonate Recordings team. If you have a podcast
Speaker 1: or are looking to start one, check us out at
Speaker 1: resonate Recordings dot com. Our theme song and original score
Speaker 1: is by Dirt Poor Robbins, with additional scoring by Dayton Cole.
Speaker 1: Our cover art is by Station sixteen. Sources used in
Speaker 1: this episode include Partland Radio, Tin forty one podcast with
Speaker 1: Todd Macoma's and WDSU News. You can follow Undetermined Podcast
Speaker 1: on Facebook and on Twitter at undetermined Pod. Show notes
Speaker 1: as well as bonus content can be found on our website,
Speaker 1: undeterminedpod dot com. If you enjoyed this episode, please take
Speaker 1: time to subscribe, rate, and review. Your feedback is greatly
Speaker 1: appreciated