Within the smooth South Carolina night time, within the metropolis of Simpsonville, Cati Blauvelt was lacking. It had been two fearful days for her mother, Patti Piver.
Patti Piver: I simply was terrified that one thing was gonna occur to her.
Then, previous midnight on Oct. 26 2016, investigators Cheryl Schofield and Keith Morecraft had been dispatched to the scene. Cati’s mangled physique had been present in an deserted farmhouse. She was 22 years outdated. A knife blade left in her physique.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: There was an oblong concrete field sort of within the heart of the basement. … We discovered Cati’s physique inside that field.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Her physique had mainly been folded into this field. It was an image of what you’ll see in a horror film.
Jennifer Piver
Cati’s mother was overwhelmed.
Patti Piver: I used to be completely empty inside. … She didn’t need to be murdered.
Jennifer Piver is Cati’s stepsister.
Jennifer Piver: I simply prayed and cried and … Simply sick. Simply sick.
Morecraft and one other investigator went to inform John Blauvelt his spouse’s physique had been discovered.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: We went to make the loss of life notification.
INVESTIGATOR (loss of life notification go to): I am so sorry to your loss, sir.
At first, Blauvelt appeared distressed. However because the dialog progressed his demeanor modified.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: Did not ask regular questions … equivalent to … the place did you discover her? How did she die?
Peter Van Sant: He wasn’t shocked by the information?
Investigator Keith Morecraft: He did not appear to be in any respect.
Peter Van Sant: What did that counsel to you?
Investigator Keith Morecraft: That he knew how she died. He knew the place her physique was.
John Blauvelt did have one query. Nevertheless it wasn’t about Cati.
JOHN BLAUVELT (loss of life notification go to): Am I being charged with against the law? As a result of he is recording me. And I am not comfy with that.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: You are not being charged —
JOHN BLAUVELT: OK.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: — with against the law proper now.
Peter Van Sant: Immediately you sensed this might be our man.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: I used to be fairly assured on the time.
However they could not arrest him on a sense. First Morecraft and Schofield had proof to collect and a case to construct. However simply as they acquired began, John Blauvelt took to the highway. Touring with him was Hannah Thompson, his new girlfriend, all of 17.
Peter Van Sant: How involved had been you about Hannah’s security?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: If he was keen to kill his personal spouse, there isn’t any telling what sort of hazard Hannah Thompson would’ve been in by fleeing with him.
WHEN CATI MET JOHN BLAUVELT
However John Blauvelt hadn’t all the time been thought-about threatening. Again in 2014, within the quiet metropolis of some 20,000, he was a welcome a part of the group — the bigger than life, public face of the U.S. Military.
Peter Van Sant: An individual of precept, somebody keen to sacrifice.
Patti Piver: Sure.
Peter Van Sant: For his nation.
Patti Piver: That is what I believe.
Peter Van Sant: These are all admirable traits, proper?
Patti Piver: Yeah precisely.
Jennifer Piver
It was then that John Blauvelt met Cati, simply yards from his recruiting workplace at a sub store the place she labored. Cati turned 20 and Blauvelt was 26. They began courting.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: And so they simply hit it off.
Patti Piver: She’s lovable, caring, humorous. Who would not fall in love together with her?
In the summertime of 2015, recruiter Blauvelt satisfied Cati to enlist. However after simply two months, a well being challenge prevented her from ending her coaching.
Patti Piver: They discovered an issue together with her backbone. … She acquired a medical discharge out of the Military.
Whereas Cati’s navy hopes had been dashed, Blauvelt instructed associates he had discovered his calling.
Along with his warfare tales about his deployments in Iraq and his sharp uniform adorned with service ribbons, Blauvelt impressed native youngsters.
Aly Somerville: Like, to me, he had all his geese in a row.
Peter Van Sant: Nearly like a task mannequin, proper?
Aly Somerville: Nearly like a task mannequin. Extra like—it was positively like a task mannequin.
Aly Somerville, an in depth good friend of Cati, says she typically ate lunch with John Blauvelt at his recruiting sales space in her faculty. She provides he additionally generally confirmed up at native hangouts.
Aly Somerville: I believed he was cool.
Peter Van Sant: He was all for your life, what you had been as much as and issues?
Aly Somerville: Yeah, he made positive I used to be OK.
However as he started courting Cati, her household was by no means half positive about Blauvelt.
Patti Piver: I do not assume I ever had a significant dialog with him.
Peter Van Sant: Did he appear all for you and … the household?
Jennifer Piver: No. By no means.
Then, after a few 12 months — and seemingly out of the blue — Cati stunned her household with an alarming announcement.
Patti Piver: She says, “Oh, by the way in which,” she stated, “me and John acquired married at the moment.” … And I am in shock. .. Then she stated, “Oh, we acquired married on the courthouse.”
Patti Piver: They went on the honeymoon … However inside two months, that honeymoon was over.
A DREAM HOUSE-TURNED-PARTY HOUSE
Workers Sergeant John Blauvelt and his new bride had been placing down roots in the neighborhood. Cati had taken a job on the native PetSmart.
Patti Piver: Yeah, she’s gonna love that (laughs) and she or he did. …
Peter Van Sant: And she or he was obsessed with animals.
Patti Piver: She was.
Peter Van Sant: This might be a profession for her.
Patti Piver: Sure.
As for John Blauvelt, he already owned a four-bedroom house in Fountain Inn, proper subsequent to Simpsonville, the place Capt. Schofield labored.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield (with Van Sant exterior the Blauvelt’s house): As soon as they acquired married that is the home that they had been supposed to maneuver into and have a household.
Jennifer Piver: She needed a household. She needed to have children.
Cati moved in. And shortly the home was crowded with children. However not the type Cati imagined.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Sadly the one children that had been right here had been the youngsters that John Blauvelt invited.
John Blauvelt had invited Cati’s niece to stick with them, and later Hannah Thompson and Aly Somerville crashed there, too. Somerville says it grew to become a celebration vacation spot for teenagers from Hillcrest Excessive College, the place Blauvelt typically labored as an Military recruiter.
Aly Somerville: We had been simply smoking weed all day, daily.
Peter Van Sant: And the way outdated had been you then?
Aly Somerville: 16.
And Somerville claimed it wasn’t simply weed that was the draw. She stated, at instances, there was booze, acid, and cocaine.
Peter Van Sant: That is with the U.S. Military recruiter, proper?
Aly Somerville: U.S. Military recruiter, sure. … Letting us occasion at his home. … Like, that — that is superior.
Patti Piver says it wasn’t lengthy earlier than Cati grew pissed off with all the partying and instructed Blauvelt it needed to cease.
Peter Van Sant: Her dream home become a celebration home.
Jennifer Piver: Proper.
Peter Van Sant: And that is the very last thing your sister needed, proper?
Jennifer Piver: Completely.
As Cati and John Blauvelt drifted, Thompson was there to gas the fireplace.
Investigator Cheryl Schofield: Hannah completely despised Cati.
Peter Van Sant: And what was the character of Hannah’s relationship with John as time went on?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Hannah grew to become John’s pet. Any time that John would inform her to do one thing, she would do it.
It was all an excessive amount of for Cati. In line with police data, after being married lower than three months, Cati moved out. Schofield says Blauvelt and Thompson wasted no time.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: She moved into John Blauvelt’s bed room on this home when Cati moved out.
Aly Somerville: Whoa, that is creepy. Such as you’re in your late 20s and she or he’s 17 dude. … Like, you are not speculated to be doing stuff like this.
Thompson’s father went to the police and instructed them he hadn’t seen his daughter for 2 weeks. That night time, on Feb. 26, 2016, cops confirmed up at Blauvelt’s home.
Peter Van Sant: Once they arrive what occurs?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield (with Van Sant exterior Blauvelt’s house): They tried to make contact with John … and John refused to come back exterior.
Somerville was inside the home with Blauvelt and another minors when police arrived.
Aly Somerville: And John was like “Lock the door. No one go exterior.”
Peter Van Sant: What had been they saying?
Aly Somerville: Like, “John Blauvelt,” like, “come out of the home together with your palms up.”
Peter Van Sant: You could have been a little bit terrified. Have been you not?
Aly Somerville: Terrified. Yeah.
Peter Van Sant: These had been folks with weapons. Have been weapons out?
Aly Somerville: Oh yeah. There have been weapons drawn and every thing.
Peter Van Sant: A veteran of the Iraq warfare and so they’re having to drag their weapons to get him out of the home?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Sure.
Peter Van Sant: It is sort of extraordinary, is not it?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Sure, very a lot so.
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John Blauvelt finally opened the door and was questioned by police. On Feb. 27, 2016, he was arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. His soldier’s picture was changed with a mug shot.
Patti Piver: He is the precise reverse of what everyone thought he was. The precise reverse.
And shortly John Blauvelt’s troubles would get even worse. Police talked to Cati the day John was arrested. She instructed them a few extra troubling incident she says occurred a month earlier.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: There had been a home violence incident the place John allegedly pointed a gun at Cati.
Peter Van Sant: Pulls out a gun, factors it at her —
Jennifer Piver: Proper.
Peter Van Sant: — head …
Jennifer Piver: Yep.
Peter Van Sant: Says what?
Jennifer Piver: That he was gonna kill her. … And likewise threatened the household.
Peter Van Sant: Threatened the household. What do you imply?
Jennifer Piver: Threatened to kill the household.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: The Fountain Inn Police Division investigated the matter and ended up charging him with home violence.
A restraining order was issued stopping John Blauvelt and Cati from seeing one another.
Jennifer Piver: He blamed her for ruining his life. As a result of there was clearly gonna be a consequence from the navy.
That consequence got here just some days later, when the Division of the Military minimize John Blauvelt’s pay and suspended him from the recruiting obligation that outlined him.
Patti Piver: You possibly can’t do that and be a navy recruiter.
The Military reassigned him to a small again workplace and started an investigation which may result in his dismissal.
Aly Somerville: He was like, “I can not be out within the discipline” … “like on the entrance traces” … “I am not recruiting folks for the Military. Now I am sitting behind a desk” and that is what made him so mad.
Cati shortly moved on from her brief, disastrous marriage and instructed her mom she deliberate to divorce John Blauvelt.
Peter Van Sant: Your daughter strikes out. Did she transfer again with you?
Patti Piver: Yeah.
Jennifer Piver
However However regardless of the restraining order, Cati and John Blauvelt nonetheless had some contact, together with visits to the home she had shared with John.
Patti Piver: The one purpose she would return over there was as a result of she had her canine over there, Jupiter.
Patti Piver: For some purpose I simply was terrified that one thing was gonna occur to her.
As for John Blauvelt, the navy profession he cherished was in tatters. And in accordance with Somerville, he deliberate to get revenge.
Peter Van Sant: Did he ever say something about harming Cati?
Aly Somerville: Sure. He did say a number of instances that he was going to kill Cati. …He stated that she ruined his navy profession, that is all he is ever needed to do in life. …
Peter Van Sant: You destroy my profession — I will destroy you?
Aly Somerville: Yeah. …
Peter Van Sant: Did you assume he’d actually undergo with it?
Aly Somerville: No. By no means.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: He was very vocal on the truth that he needed Cati useless. He needed Cati gone.
A HUSBAND’S ANGER AND PLAN FOR REVENGE?
Police say Cati Blauvelt was final seen alive on Oct. 24, 2016, at her job at PetSmart. However come morning in Simpsonville, nobody had heard from her. Calls to her went to voicemail. Her mom reported her lacking.
Peter Van Sant: Did she inform the officer she spoke with that she was suspicious of John Blauvelt?
Investigator Keith Morecraft: She did.
The determined search and the painful ready started.
Patti Piver: I did not assume she was alive anymore.
Jennifer Piver: It is terrifying. It is the worst feeling. You are feeling helpless.
Jennifer Piver
After midnight, two of Cati’s associates adopted a hunch that despatched them deep within the woods to an outdated, deserted farmhouse.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Youngsters would go there. And they might occasion, they’d drink, they’d smoke marijuana.
Cati and John Blauvelt had been identified to have gone there, too.
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The buddies made their strategy to the basement. They had been horrified by what they discovered. Considered one of them known as 911.
911 OPERATOR: 911, What is the location of your emergency?
FRIEND: …We discovered my good friend Cati … useless in —
911 OPERATOR: OK.
FRIEND: — the home.
911 OPERATOR: OK. … Are you saying she’s useless in the home?
FRIEND: Sure, ma’am.
911 OPERATOR: Is she chilly?
FRIEND: She’s very pale. And there was no response.
Cati Blauvelt’s physique had been stuffed into a chilly, concrete field.
Peter Van Sant: You imagine she — Cati was killed exterior the home and introduced in?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Sure … And we imagine that she was really killed on the gravel driveway. After which drug on her face by way of that window.
Peter Van Sant: And if she’s screaming there isn’t any one to listen to.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: You would not hear it … from that home the place that home was situated.
Peter Van Sant: And you reside with that daily.
Patti Piver: On daily basis.
Peter Van Sant: It does not get any simpler, does it?
Patti Piver: No.
It was Oct. 26, 2016. Investigators made that official “loss of life notification go to” to Blauvelt. They acquired their first sense of the resentment he held in the direction of Cati.
JOHN BLAUVELT (loss of life notification go to): She flipped my life the wrong way up.
Morecraft and Schofield needed extra info from Blauvelt. And so, only a week later, they spoke with him.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: Did not appear to actually care that she was gone. Not to mention had been murdered.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT (Nov. 2, 2016 interrogation): Something you say can be utilized towards you in court docket
JOHN BLAUVELT: I misplaced a good friend. Possibly not the very best spouse, however I misplaced a f******* good friend.
He instructed them he visited Cati on the funeral house.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT (Nov. 2, 2016 interrogation): Did you go by your self?
JOHN BLAUVELT: Yeah. Nicely, I took Hannah with me.
Blauvelt stated he hadn’t seen Cati in months. Their marriage had been a nonstop argument.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT (Nov. 2, 2016 interrogation): What sort of stuff had been y’all arguing about?
JOHN BLAUVELT: Um. All the things. (Laughs)
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: Simply regular?
JOHN BLAUVELT: Simply regular stuff.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: He appeared very boastful, cocky, narcissistic.
Then the cop fired that point-blank query.
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INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: Did you kill Cati?
JOHN BLAUVELT: No.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: OK. Have you learnt who killed her?
JOHN BLAUVELT: No.
Peter Van Sant: Sitting throughout, speaking to this man, what are you sensing in John Blauvelt?
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: That he very a lot is the one who greater than seemingly … dedicated this homicide.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: Like he was delay. Like we had been taking over his time. … That he was smarter than we had been, and that he was gonna get away with this.
Subsequent up: Hannah Thompson.
HANNAH THOMPSON (interrogation): I do not know something about her homicide.
INVESTIGATOR: You do.
HANNAH THOMPSON: I do not.
INVESTIGATOR: You do.
Investigators confront Thompson, sensing she should know one thing.
CAPT. SCHOFIELD (interrogation): Inform us precisely what occurred to Cati.
HANNAH THOMPSON: I actually do not know.
And whereas they suspected Thompson may know one thing, they didn’t know precisely what.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT (interrogation): I can inform you already you are mendacity to me. OK? You don’t wanna get wrapped up in catching a homicide cost.
HANNAH THOMPSON: Proper.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: You are 17 years outdated. You’ve your total life forward of you.
HANNAH: Mm-hmm.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: You could love John … and you might assume you two are going to get married and … stroll down the yellow brick highway, OK? However no man and no girl is price going to jail for.
HANNAH THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: Do you agree?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure, sir.
CAPT. SCHOFIELD: If one thing, and also you’re making an attempt to cowl up for it … you are gonna go down with the one who did this to her. For — for realizing something, whether or not it was beforehand or after the actual fact — you are gonna go down with them.
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Investigators confirmed Thompson an post-mortem picture of Cati.
INVESTIGATOR: Take a look at her. She’s proper right here.
HANNAH THOMPSON: I do not wanna have a look at her.
INVESTIGATOR: That is your good friend.
HANNAH THOMPSON: I do not wanna do that anymore.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT: Do not wanna do what? Do not wanna assist us discover out who killed her?
HANNAH THOMPSON (crying): Can I please go away? Can I please go away?
CAPT. SCHOFIELD: Hannah, this can be a good friend of yours that we’re making an attempt to do —
HANNAH THOMPSON: I do know. And I wanna assist, however I can not.
With no assist from Thompson, police palms had been tied.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: We needed to let him go.
Potential laborious proof needed to be processed, together with John Blauvelt’s cellphone data and his DNA.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: It’s totally aggravating. … as a result of we all know we’re sitting throughout from the one who killed his spouse. … And shortly after that interview is when he fled the state.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: He had taken his purple GMC Yukon.
Peter Van Sant: And he was gone.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: He was.
John Blauvelt, skilled in survival and fight, was out of the blue unfastened on the open highway.
Patti Piver: I did not assume they had been ever gonna discover him. He simply disappeared off the face of the map.
And so did Thompson. Police believed she was with Blauvelt.
Prosecutor Kinli Abee would start constructing the case with the chilling proof she says he left behind.
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Kinli Abee: First, what I need to sort of present is, , the knife that was present in Cati’s neck … And so what you’ll be able to see right here is that this X-ray, that the precise knife blade broke off within Cati.
Peter Van Sant: What you are holding there —
Kinli Abee: Yep.
Peter Van Sant: — is what I am seeing on this X-ray.
Kinli Abee: Precisely. Matches precisely proper there. That is what was discovered and lodged in her neck. And that is how she died.
Simpsonville police knew they wanted assist to seek out John Blauvelt.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: I contacted the USA Marshals.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: The investigation is let’s discover him, let’s discover him, let’s discover him.
THE SEARCH FOR A FUGITIVE
On Nov. 18, 2016, John Blauvelt — nonetheless on the run — was charged with Cati Blauvelt’s homicide.
Peter Van Sant: What sort of fugitive are you coping with?
Marshal Will Cook dinner: A cocky one. … John thought … we had been by no means going to seek out him.
U.S. Marshal Will Cook dinner, primarily based close to Simpsonville, would turn into the purpose individual within the hunt for John Blauvelt, who had been expert at evasion.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: He had coaching from the Military that … the federal government offered him to —
Peter Van Sant: — keep away from you guys.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: Keep away from us. And he was good at it.
U.S. Marshals
Investigators remained unsure about Thompson’s involvement within the homicide — if any. However they knew for positive she was touring with Blauvelt. They uncovered photographs of Blauvelt and Thompson procuring and Blauvelt at an ATM. His purple Yukon truck passing by way of Texas and New Mexico, heading west.
Peter Van Sant: Have been you capable of get hits on the place this automobile was infrequently?
Cook dinner: So there have been a few license plate reader hits.
However by the point police had been capable of reply, Blauvelt was gone.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: And in a recreation like this, all of the seconds rely.
Then, after a month, investigators caught a break. Thompson made contact together with her household from Eugene, Oregon. She needed to come back house to Simpsonville. Schofield could not wait to speak to her.
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): We’re very glad that you just’re again, and that you just’re protected, and that nothing unhealthy occurred to you.
HANNAH THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.
Thompson’s story was that Blauvelt had left her in Eugene. Simply up and walked away.
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): Did you ever see John once more?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Mm mm. [shaking her head no]
And, Thompson added, she had no thought the place Blauvelt was headed. However apparently, she had sufficient of life on the run.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: She thought it was going to be a fairy story. You understand, they had been going to reside on the lam and make issues occur. However after a number of weeks of that, actuality set in.
Any romantic notion Thompson could have had was derailed when Blauvelt acquired the Yukon caught within the mud within the Pacific Northwest.
Peter Van Sant: Could not get out?
Marshal Will Cook dinner: Couldn’t get out.
HANNAH THOMPSON (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): He stated that we might hike. We needed to hike, like, stroll off the mountain mainly.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: Miles and miles.
The couple was diminished to panhandling for change.
Peter Van Sant: And so they used that for meals?
Marshal Will Cook dinner: Sustainment.
Thompson says whereas on the highway, Blauvelt confessed — sharing the terrible particulars of the killing.
HANNAH THOMPSON (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): He instructed me that the knife broke. … I can not imagine that he would do one thing like that. … (crying)
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD: What — what else did he inform you about it? I do know it is — it is laborious.
HANNAH THOMPSON: He instructed me that the very last thing she — she stated was … that if he let her go, that she would not name the police.
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD: The place had been they, Hannah?
HANNAH THOMPSON: The deserted home.
Peter Van Sant: An grownup can psychologically reap the benefits of a baby. Do you imagine in a manner that is what was happening between John and Hannah?
Investigator Keith Morecraft: Completely, yeah.
HANNAH THOMPSON (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): And he was simply crying and screaming and like … he was like, saying that he did all that stuff for me, like —
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD: Did all what stuff?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Like kill Cati. Like — he was like, “I did that for you” and like, all that sort of stuff, like making an attempt to make me really feel prefer it was my fault.
Thompson instructed conflicting tales about her involvement, finally saying she dropped John Blauvelt off by PetSmart the day Cati disappeared after which left. Thompson says she didn’t know he deliberate to kill Cati. However later that day, he requested her to assist cover Cati’s automotive. She additionally admitted she had lied in her first interview simply days after Cati’s homicide.
HANNAH THOMPSON (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): He instructed me that if I lied to the police, that he would preserve me protected.
Investigators didn’t cost Thompson immediately as a result of they wanted her.
Investigator Keith Morecraft: We had a long-term aim of, A, discovering John, B, prosecuting him. And she or he was the important thing to numerous that.
CAPT. SCHOFIELD (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): We’re nonetheless looking for John.
HANNAH THOMPSON: Proper.
CAPT. SCHOFIELD: OK?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.
They hoped she may cause them to Blauvelt.
INVESTIGATOR MORECRAFT (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): Has John contacted you by Fb in any respect because you separated? Or since contacted you by any means in any respect?
HANNAH THOMPSON: No.
CAPT. SCHOFIELD: However please do not preserve it a secret —
HANNAH THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD: — from — from us.
HANNAH THOMPSON: OK.
INVESTIGATOR SCHOFIELD: OK?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.
But when Thompson knew the place John Blauvelt was, she wasn’t prepared to inform them.
HANNAH THOMPSON (Dec. 20, 2016 interrogation): I nonetheless actually care about him, despite the fact that he did one thing, like, actually unhealthy. Like I really feel like I ought to hate him. Part of me does, however part of me simply retains interested by how he was once.
Blauvelt was nonetheless on the market. Months become years and lives modified.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: He is beating us. And we do not prefer to lose.
Peter Van Sant: It is driving you loopy.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: It is driving us loopy.
Peter Van Sant: Was it irritating that you just retired with this case nonetheless on the market?
Investigator Keith Morecraft: It was very irritating. … And it was the one case that I nonetheless had that was open.
Those that knew John Blauvelt thought justice for Cati may by no means come.
Ali Somerville: John is the kind of person who if someone was gonna get away with it, it might be John.
Patti Piver: I by no means actually thought that they’d get him.
The police in Simpsonville interviewed Thompson repeatedly over time. Then in 2022 – six years after Cati’s homicide — Thompson lastly revealed a secret. She had been in common contact with Blauvelt for years.
HANNAH THOMPSON (June 2022 interrogation): We had been speaking — the entire time. … Like, at first we had been speaking each single day, a number of instances, like, for hours a day. …
CAPT. SCHOFIELD: Did anyone know you had been nonetheless speaking to him?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Nope.
Thompson instructed investigators how they communicated.
HANNAH THOMPSON (June 2022 interrogation): On the very starting we had been speaking on Fb Messenger. After which after that we had been speaking on Snapchat.
She stated their conversations resulted in 2019.
Authorities imagine Thompson had matured, with time and distance away from Blauvelt. She instructed them she realized what she had achieved was mistaken, and progressively supplied extra leads. Blauvelt may nonetheless be in Oregon. And she or he added Blauvelt instructed her he had been residing with one other girl for years.
CAPT. SCHOFIELD (June 2022 interrogation): ‘Trigger actually, she’s in peril, too.
HANNAH THOMPSON: I do know.
Marshal Will Cook dinner: Primarily based on among the info that Hannah gave us … zoned us in on … John’s new girlfriend in Medford, Oregon.
Medford is small metropolis within the northwest. Investigators jumped on the lead and found a telephone quantity that Blauvelt had used to textual content a thriller girl.
Peter Van Sant: And this sounds tantalizing, is not it.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: Very tantalizing.
Marshal Chris Tamayo is Cook dinner’s colleague within the Northwest. His staff acquired an deal with that corresponded with the thriller girl’s home. He took “48 Hours” to the scene.
Peter Van Sant: They began to stake out the home?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: Stake out the home … And …they adopted a topic out — a male that appeared to match our description.
However six years after Blauvelt allegedly murdered Cati, how may investigators make certain they’d their man?
Marshal Will Cook dinner: John has some distinctive tattoos.
Peter Van Sant: Are you able to present me?
Marshal Will Cook dinner: This can be a nonetheless shot — from one in every of John’s preliminary interviews with Simpsonville Police.
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The tattoo of a pirate.
It was a quiet morning in Medford.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: As I am beginning to pull by way of this neighborhood my coronary heart is racing.
The Marshals made their transfer.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: That is the home proper there.
Peter Van Sant: And did you see any exercise?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: We — did see him come out.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: He is popping out shirtless.
However was it for positive John Blauvelt? A pirate instructed the story.
FUGITIVE JOHN BLAUVELT CAPTURED
On July 20, 2022, some six years after Cati Blauvelt’s loss of life, Chris Tamayo joined Marshals and different regulation enforcement for the takedown of the person they believed killed her.
Marshal Chris Tamayo (with Van Sant exterior home in Medford, Oregon): John’s about three quarters away down the driveway, and the blokes begin going proper at him, giving him instructions: “Police present us your palms. Get down on the bottom!”
Peter Van Sant: And what does he do?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: His eyes acquired extensive, pure shock. And he drops right down to the bottom quick.
John Blauvelt was handcuffed and underneath arrest.
U.S. Marshals
However the suspect instructed the Marshals they’d the mistaken man.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: He stated, “I am Ben Klein.” … I stated, no you are not. … And he caught with Ben Klein.
Ben Klein? Had the Marshals make a mistake?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: Now we have a tool that enables us to cell print somebody within the discipline.
Peter Van Sant: Fingerprint.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: Fingerprints.
It took lower than 5 minutes for Ben to turn into John.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: “Your fingerprints present that you’re John Blauvelt. … you are needed out of South Carolina.”
Peter Van Sant: He knew it was over?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: He knew it was over.
When the Marshals went inside the home, they realized the raid may have taken a deadly flip.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: There was a firearm, a handgun sitting proper on the nightstand.
Peter Van Sant: What did that inform you?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: That was a sign to us that … he most likely would’ve given a combat.
All of it was apparently information to the lady Blauvelt was residing with, when she returned to the home later that day.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: Pure shock. She was visibly shaking, crying, scared.
Tamayo recorded audio together with her on the scene:
MARSHAL TAMAYO: So he is being arrested … on prices out of South Carolina.
GIRLFRIEND: For what?
MARSHAL TAMAYO: For homicide.
GIRLFRIEND: Are you severe? (crying)
MARSHAL TAMAYO: Yeah …
GIRLFRIEND: I can not imagine any of this. This is sort of a f******* nightmare. I am sorry.
Blauvelt’s girlfriend instructed the Marshals she had no thought who he actually was.
GIRLFRIEND: We been collectively for like six years … He would do random odd jobs …
GIRLFRIEND: He was mainly right here watching my cats and my … my canine on a regular basis.
Peter Van Sant: She cherished him.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: She cherished him.
The information hit Simpsonville like thunder.
Patti Piver: I used to be over the moon, simply freaking — that was such an incredible day.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: And I used to be fully elated.
Greenville County Division of Corrections
John Blauvelt would go cross-country once more. This time, handcuffed and introduced again to a South Carolina jail to await trial. Simply three months later, Hannah Thompson could be charged with 5 felonies together with obstruction of justice and accent after-the-fact. She would plead not responsible and be launched on bail.
Prosecutor Kinli Abee, who started placing the case towards Blauvelt collectively a number of months after Cati was killed, would staff with John Meadors, getting ready the case for trial beginning with that blade investigators present in Cati’s neck.
John Meadors: Does not get any worse than that and that is what she died from.
Kinli Abee (Holding the blue shirt Cati was carrying): You possibly can really see by way of the collar of the shirt the place that knife blade entered. And you may see it proper there.
Peter Van Sant: Proper there?
Kinli Abee: Yeah. Proper into her neck
They centered on that deserted farmhouse the place children as soon as partied, the place they discovered Cati.
Kinli Abee: They might throw their bottles, their empty beer cans … And that is precisely the place he discarded Cati’s physique.
Peter Van Sant: So do you assume John was making an announcement by inserting her physique —
Kinlee Abee: Completely.
Peter Van Sant: — on this bin that usually you place trash.
Kinli Abee: Yeah, completely.
Prosecutors say Blauvelt blamed Cati for the abrupt finish of his navy profession.
Kinli Abee: It is all Cati’s fault.
Peter Van Sant: He isn’t liable for what he did. He is blaming his spouse?
Kinli Abee: Sure.
And there have been John Blauvelt’s personal phrases. Whereas on the run, he stored a journal—that the Marshals discovered.
Peter Van Sant: Like a diary, appropriate?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: Right.
U.S. Marshals
And it held a damning entry.
Marshal Chris Tamayo: So on the finish … it says boldly, “I did it.”
Peter Van Sant: And for you that is what?
Marshal Chris Tamayo: That is proof and proof that he murdered Cati.
THE TRIAL OF JOHN BLAUVELT
In September 2024, eight years after Cati’s loss of life, John Blauvelt went on trial for homicide.
Patti Piver described the kid she adored.
Patti Piver (in court docket): She was sunshine. I imply everyone cherished her.
Aly Somerville stared on the man she as soon as known as a task mannequin.
Aly Somerville: He seemed like a stone-cold killer to me.
The prosecution’s key witness was Hannah Thompson. She would admit to serving to Blauvelt the day Cati died.
PROSECUTOR MEADORS (in court docket): You really liked John Blauvelt, did not you?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure.
PROSECUTOR MEADORS: You helped him … cover Cati’s automotive after he killed her, did not you?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure.
PROSECUTOR MEADORS: You did not know he’d killed her at that time?
HANNAH THOMPSON: No.
PROSECUTOR MEADORS: However you probably did assist him?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure
And prosecutors performed grainy video that Thompson says exhibits John Blauvelt getting out of Cati’s automotive and into his. Thompson was on the wheel of his Prius.
JOHN PROSECUTOR MEADORS (in court docket): However that was you on that video?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure.
PROSECUTOR MEADORS: In these vehicles?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Within the Prius, sure.
WSPA/Pool
As soon as on the run she says he instructed her the main points of the homicide.
HANNAH THOMPSON (in court docket): He had instructed me that he killed her …
HANNAH THOMPSON: He instructed me that … he stabbed her … within the neck …
HANNAH THOMPSON: He stated that he threw her telephone into water … that was on the bottom, within the deserted home.
HANNAH THOMPSON: And he stated that … he needed to cowl up the—her blood with dust.
However Blauvelt’s protection staff, Paul Neely and Ana Walker, made Thompson admit that her story modified over time.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY WALKER (in court docket): You have lied to your folks and your loved ones?
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure …
DEFENSE ATTORNEY WALKER: And also you stored mendacity.
HANNAH THOMPSON: Sure.
Then the protection zeroed in on the shortage of DNA proof on the scene.
Peter Van Sant: Was there any DNA that tied John Blauvelt to this homicide?
Paul Neely: No.
Ana Walker: There was no DNA matched to John Blauvelt.
And what about John Blauvelt’s journal, during which he wrote “I did it…”? His attorneys instructed “48 Hours” a lot of it was a fantasy.
Ana Walker: Quite a lot of this journal is stuffed with these fictional tales of observations. It is stuffed with poems, drawings, all types of issues.
As for Hannah Thompson —
KINLI ABEE (in court docket): You heard she has 5 pending prices for the knowledge she finally offered to regulation enforcement.
The prosecution pointed to the significance of her testimony.
KINLI ABEE (in court docket): She is going through 55 years in jail upon conviction for these crimes and she or he acquired up right here with no deal. The State did not supply her a single factor, no settlement to dismiss her prices, no cooperation settlement, no nudge nudge, wink wink — none of it. She acquired up right here and testified. And she or he instructed you as a result of she thought it was the best factor to do.
Capt. Cheryl Schofield: She did an incredible job, going up there and telling the reality and giving the important thing particulars of what John had instructed her, what he had achieved to Cati …
The trial lasted 4 days. The jury was out some 5 hours.
COURT CLERK (studying verdict): As to the cost of homicide, we the jury unanimously discover the defendant, John T. Blauvelt, responsible.
Reporter Taylor Farmer coated the case for WSPA.
Taylor Farmer: And it was very emotional within the courtroom, sort of quiet however you may inform Cati’s household was very emotional.
Patti Piver: As quickly because the jurors acquired out, I simply began crying.
John Blauvelt was sentenced to life in jail with out parole.
Patti Piver: He is a monster. … She was helpless.
And what did the household take into consideration Hannah Thompson, who allegedly coated for Blauvelt for thus lengthy?
Jennifer Piver: I’d assume she was a silly 17-year-old till at trial once I heard how lengthy she’d been in contact with him. … You aren’t keen, at the moment, to show him in. … I’ve laborious emotions about that. … it is unfathomable.
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Peter Van Sant: What would you say to your sister at the moment in the event you may.
Jennifer Piver (crying): That I am sorry. … That I like her. And that I believe she was courageous.
Hannah Thompson’s trial date remains to be pending.
John Blauvelt is interesting his conviction.
If in case you have been a sufferer of home violence, name the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or textual content START to 88788.
Produced by James Stolz. Kat Teurfs is the sphere producer. Ryan Smith, Charlotte Fuller, Michelle Sigona are the event producers. Michael Vele, Greg McLaughlin and Marcus Balsam are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the chief story editor. Judy Tygard is the chief producer.
