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It was the evening of Sunday, July 14, 2013 & 19-year-old Jessie Blodgett was performing in a packed theater at a matinee show at the Schauer Center in Hartford, Wisconsin in the Fiddler on the Roof where Jessie was playing the fiddler. Jessie was an aspiring actress, singer & musician & it was clear to those in attendance that Jessie was an extremely talented young lady.

Jessie was born in Marietta, Georgia to parents Buck & Joy Blodgett. Despite the fact that Jessie was well loved by those who knew her, she was also aware of the darkness in the world around her. At a young age, she became outraged by bullying & unfairness & was proudly outspoken for those in a vulnerable situation. Jessie was a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee & had been offered a Talent Scholarship for her excellence in the music education program. Being a resourceful & hard-working young woman, Jessie also started her own business teaching piano, voice & violin to young people in the Hartford, Wisconsin area & garnered 26 students in only two months. It was Jessie’s goal to become a high school or university choir director, using music to impact people & change the world.

After the show that Sunday, the production cast & crew gathered at a pool party to celebrate a job well done. Jessie was a very outgoing & well-loved person, but on this night, her time was soured by the inappropriate behavior of two of her fellow actors who were well into their forties. When she returned home from the party at about 1 am, Jessie complained to her mom, Joy & explained that the men had made passes at her. At one point, one of the men had even aggressively pulled Jessie onto his lap against her will. She questioned why it seemed impossible for members of the opposite sex to just be friends without crossing a line.

As Jessie wound down that night, she brought her frustrations to her journal where she wrote about how she felt she was being “corrupted” by some of the men in her life & she felt that they were mistaking her friendly nature for something more. She concluded her journal entry by writing, “I am not hopeless.. I will recognize problems & confront them without fear. God be with me.”

The next morning, Monday, July 15th, Joy peeked into Jessie’s room to check on her at 8 am before she headed out the door for work at 8:15 am. She set a basket full of laundry in Jessie’s room & could see that her only child was fast asleep. Her husband, Buck, who was a chiropractor, had already left for work so Jessie would have a quiet house to get some rest.

When lunchtime rolled around, Joy came home at about noon as she always did. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but Jessie wasn’t downstairs so Joy assumed she was doing her own thing or still sleeping upstairs. At 12: 30 pm, Jessie’s piano student arrived for a lesson so Joy shouted up to Jessie, but got no response. Joy headed upstairs to see where she was & when she opened Jessie’s bedroom door, her daughter was still in bed so she called out her name, but Jessie failed to respond.

Joy made the quick assumption that Jessie must be exhausted from performing & had simply slept in. She approached Jessie to rouse her & when she reached down to touch her shoulder, she was shocked by the iciness of Jessie’s skin. Joy immediately pulled back the covers & was horrified to see the blue tinge to Jessie’s skin tone. As she tried to process what was happening, she noticed that Jessie’s hair & clothing were soaking wet.

Joy immediately called 911 & then called her husband, Buck & explained that she believed that Jessie was dead. As she waited for the paramedics to arrive, Joy moved Jessie to the floor & started CPR which was when she noticed ligature marks on her neck. At this point, Joy started to put the thoughts in her mind together, realizing that someone must have come into their home & killed her daughter while she & her husband were at work.

Within minutes, the house was teeming with first responders who secured the scene. When police arrived, they found Jessie unresponsive, on the floor of her bedroom on the second story of the home. She was wearing a t-shirt, underwear & sweatpants & there were two stains on the fitted sheet of her bed that appeared to be blood. Soon, Buck arrived & the paramedics confirmed the devastating fact that Jessie was gone & had likely been strangled to death. By the time Buck arrived, he wasn’t allowed upstairs which meant that he was unable to see his daughter, touch her or say goodbye. He said, “I couldn’t tell her I loved her & I couldn’t tell her I was sorry for not being there when she needed her dad.”

In addition to the obvious markings on her neck, she also had faint markings to her wrists which indicated that she had likely been bound during whatever horrific act had taken place that led to her death. An officer also found a roll of tape under the floorboard of Jessie’s bed.

Investigators deduced that an intruder must have entered the Blodgett home through an unlocked door after Joy had left for work. They made their way to Jessie’s room where they rendered her helpless by binding her wrists before brutally raping her. When the monster finished, they used a ligature & strangled Jessie to death.

Police made the assumption that the killer was likely known to the family & familiar with their daily routines & would have known that Jessie would be home alone that morning between 8 am & noon. The family was also known to rarely lock their doors, believing that their area was safe & there was no reason to do so.

Investigators paged through Jessie’s journal, hoping to find mention of someone that she may have had conflict with or was fearful of. It didn’t take long for them to find her last entry where she discussed how she had been manhandled just the night before. Police quickly called this man in for questioning & learned that he had called off work that Monday morning. He did admit that he had crossed a line by what he had done during the pool party, but he never meant any harm. He provided investigators with a solid alibi & was soon cleared as a suspect. They also interviewed the other man mentioned in Jessie’s journal who had made her uncomfortable & like the first man, he was also eliminated as a suspect. 

When the autopsy was complete, the medical examiner found confirmed ligature marks to Jessie’s neck, wrists & ankles & her cause of death was ligature strangulation.

Meanwhile, police continued their investigation & spoke with potential witnesses in the area & one individual indicated that they had driven into the subdivision to visit a friend at about 8 am on July 15th & saw two cars in the driveway of the Blodgett home; one silver/tan in appearance & the other blue. This person was familiar with the Blodgetts & believed these cars to belong to the family. When they left the subdivision at about 10-10:15 am, they saw the same two cars in the Blodgett’s driveway. When police spoke with Joy about this, she confirmed that the tan/silver car was Jessie’s & that she, herself, drove a blue minivan but it wouldn’t have been in the driveway when the witnesses saw it because she was at work between 8:15 am & noon. She told police that the blue car seen in the driveway would not have been hers.

At the time, police were aware of an incident that happened three days before Jessie’s murder but believed that the two cases were unrelated. A young woman named Melissa Etzler arrived at the Richfield Historical Nature park with her dog at 9:45 am on Friday, July 12. When she pulled into the parking lot, Melissa noticed a navy blue Dodge Caravan parked facing the woods. A man sat in the minivan with his legs crossed & hanging out the window. She walked for about a half hour until Melissa noticed that her dog was getting hot & she headed back to her car to get some water.  

When she walked past the minivan to get to her own car, she let go of her dog’s leash to allow her dog to run to the car. As she got closer to her car, she was startled by the sound of footsteps behind her. She looked back & laughed & said, “Oh, you scared me” when she saw what she thought was a friendly guy. She turned around again because she could still hear him walking in her direction & this time, she saw that he was holding a knife. He was the man she’d seen earlier in his van & he suddenly tackled Melissa to the ground & raised a knife to stab her. Melissa grabbed the blade of the knife & despite the searing pain, refused to let go. 

After struggling with her attacker for about a minute, Melissa managed to remove the knife from his grasp. Once she had gained control, the would-be assailant simply asked her, “Can I just go?” Melissa was stunned by this question & boldly told him “no.” The man scrambled to his van & sped away before police had the chance to arrive. Melissa got into her car, threw the knife to the floorboard & drove away with her dog while she called the police. After the police arrived, they removed the knife from her car as evidence. Melissa’s hands had been absolutely shredded from the knife blade & despite the trauma she had just survived, she was able to give an extremely detailed description of her attempted murderer. 

Melissa recalled that he was a white male with sandy blond hair, a pale complexion, about 18-20 years old, 6’2” & about 210#. He wore dark, thick-framed glasses, a dark gray baseball hat, a white t-shirt with blue sleeves to the elbows & a blue collar & blue & tan plaid shorts & drove a dark blue, older model Dodge Caravan. When the man ran back to his car, she noticed a roll of silver tape had fallen out of his pocket. After giving her statement, Melissa was immediately taken to the hospital for treatment of her wounds. It had taken fifteen stitches to close the wounds on her fingers & palms. 

The assailant’s physical description & the description of his van were immediately shared with other law enforcement agencies within the district. Soon after, a deputy who routinely patrolled the park came forward to report that he was positive he had seen that van in the very spot it had been parked when Melissa was attacked only weeks earlier. The driver hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but the deputy had a gut feeling that something seemed off & as a precaution, he ran the plates which meant that the owner’s name was now on record.

When the officers who were handling Melissa’s case checked into this promising lead, they were dismayed to realize that the car’s owner was a middle-aged man vs. the 18-20-year-old assailant that Melissa had described. They reached out to him & he offered to help in any way that he could & also mentioned that his 20-year-old son Dan often drove the van. They soon learned that Dan just happened to have blond hair & stood at 6’1” & weighed 200#.

As investigators spoke with the man, his son Dan Bartelt wasn’t home, but he gave them his cell phone number so any questions could be addressed & any misunderstanding could be cleared up. When they found their potential suspect, he just so happened to be attending a vigil for Jessie Blodgett at her parent’s home.

Police soon learned that Dan & Jessie had gone to school together & even briefly dated. Despite the fact that their romantic relationship had ended, they remained good friends even well-past graduation. They both had a passion for the theater & were the best of friends.

Other friends at the vigil recall Dan receiving a phone call from detectives & he told them in a nonchalant manner that he needed to speak with them about something. With that, he gave Joy & Buck a hug goodbye & headed out the door.

Detectives immediately found it suspicious when Dan came into the station on July 16th & didn’t question why he was being summoned. Dan was asked where he was on the morning that Melissa had been attacked & he told them that he had been at his girlfriend’s house, but was unable to provide any specifics as to what he did that day. 

Because police were now aware of Dan & Jessie’s friendship, detectives brought him back into the station the next day & asked him what he knew about the circumstances around her death. He said he learned of Jessie’s murder from a friend on July 16th & decided to attend the vigil hosted by her parents that same day. Without hesitation, he told police that Jessie had been raped & murdered in her own bedroom. Detectives also noticed the fresh abrasions on his hands & arms & when he was questioned about the injuries, he chalked them up to a work mishap. Police quickly discovered that this was a lie & Dan was not actually employed. When he was informed of this, he changed his story & admitted that he hadn’t worked since March or April that year. This time, he told officers that he sustained the injuries while he had been cooking. Police made it very clear that they were not buying his story; had he actually injured himself while cooking, he would have had no reason to lie.

He told police that on the day of Jessie’s murder, he’d slept at his parent’s house the night before & left as if to go to work at 6:30 am, but then drove around & ended up at Woodlawn Union Park to read & write. He was there until noon & then he went home where he lied to his parents, saying he only had to work a half day. He admitted that he had been lying to his parents for several months, pretending to work.

Soon, Dan realized that he was cornered & confessed to being the person who had attacked Melissa. He explained that he often spent time at the park because it was a peaceful area which allowed him to work on the novel he had been writing for years. During these times, his parents often believed that he was in school or working, instead he was sitting in his van, people watching or imagining his life as a successful novelist.

Police asked him what possessed him to attack Melissa & he simply responded that he just, “wanted to scare someone.” When he saw Melissa in the park, he had a knife with him & made a “spur of the moment” decision to attack her. He said that he was struggling mentally; he was a college drop-out with no plans for the future & was scared by the world around him. Because of these feelings, he wanted to release his mounting fear onto someone else as a sort of outlet.

Because Dan had confessed to attacking Melissa, he was placed under arrest for aggravated assault. They now had Melissa’s attacker secured & were also aware of his relationship to Jessie. This interview had taken place only days after Jessie had been murdered so the detectives working Melissa’s case weren’t yet aware of the fact that Jessie had been raped before she was murdered. Dan’s slip of words put him at the top of the list of suspects in Jessie’s case after her autopsy was complete & law enforcement was made aware of this detail.

Dan told detectives that he had met Jessie during the summer after 8th grade when he began dating one of Jessie’s friends. He said that he broke up with his girlfriend & began dating Jessie during freshman year of high school & they dated for 3-4 months. According to Dan, it was he who ended the relationship & after, he didn’t spend much time with Jessie until senior year of high school when they had a class together & became good friends. They lost touch after high school & didn’t reconnect until April or May of 2013. Despite the fact that he had a girlfriend, he hoped that his friendship with Jessie would become something more. 

A friend from high school remembered how both Dan & Jessie shared their love of music & the stage; Dan was a gifted violinist who was first chair while Jessie was second chair. She admired their friendship & described Dan as a hilarious person who was smart, extremely out-going & constantly making jokes. When Jessie told her parents that Dan was back from college after dropping out, they were shocked since he was always a straight-A student. After he returned from college, they spent a lot of time together, collaborating & playing music together & even wrote & recorded a song together which they posted to YouTube.

When Dan was questioned about Jessie’s murder, he adamantly denied any involvement. A warrant was obtained to search his belongings & investigators came across disturbing images on his computer. In addition to the images, Dan often researched serial killers & their methods. He was also fascinated with snuff films that often involved a female being raped & murdered. Other pornographic images were discovered & again, also depicted violence against women.

In one video, a woman was depicted being raped & then strangled by a stranger who then washed her body & placed her back in bed where she was then covered by a blanket so it appeared that she was only sleeping. Detectives were fully aware of the similarities between the film & what had happened to Jessie.

When Dan was confronted with this, he continued to vehemently deny having anything to do with Jessie’s murder. He did change his story & said that rather than being only close friends as he initially reported, he & Jessie had actually recently rekindled their romantic relationship in the weeks leading up to her murder. He claimed that he hadn’t given this version initially because he had a girlfriend & hadn’t wanted to disrespect her. His girlfriend was unaware of the fact that he was being unfaithful, so he hid the truth from investigators.

Since Dan said that he had spent the majority of the day writing at Woodlawn Union Park on the morning of Jessie’s murder, detectives reviewed CCTV footage from the park that day. They were able to confirm that Dan truly had been there on July 15 & for once, it seemed he was telling the truth. The video depicted Dan in the area of the men’s bathroom at about 10:25 am on the morning that Jessie was murdered.

Detectives made the decision to head to the park & search the trash receptacles for any evidence. Inside a trash bin, they found a Frosted Mini Wheats cereal box that contained a homemade ball gag which is often used in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) to quiet the screams of the wearer. They also found crumpled strips of tape, several different types of rope, wadded up electrical tape, a roll of masking tape & several blood-soaked disinfectant wipes. The ropes of varying lengths were later matched to the marks from Jessie’s neck, wrists & ankles.

Because of these findings, police were able to secure a search warrant for Dan’s parent’s home which they searched on July 20th. Here, they found the same type of rope in the garage. Police also found tape on the air ducts that match a discarded sample that Joy had found under Jessie’s bed in the days after her murder as well as strips that had been found at the scene after Melissa had been attacked. When the tape was inspected by forensic experts, they were found to be covered in Dan’s fingerprints.

With all of the evidence, police were able to piece together what had happened to Jessie on the horrific morning of her murder. They were convinced that Dan entered the Blodgett home after Joy had left for work. Once inside, he crept up the stairs & slipped into Jessie’s room. While she was peacefully asleep, he made his attack & hog-tied her. He then placed the ball gag into her mouth, securing it with tape. Once incapacitated & silenced, Dan raped Jessie before he strangled her using the rope he had brought with for that purpose.

When he was convinced that Jessie was dead, he washed her hair & body in hopes of erasing potential evidence. He then placed her into her bed & covered her with blankets so it appeared as if she was sleeping. From there, he drove to the park to discard additional evidence. Jessie’s fingernails had been swabbed which was a match for DNA as well as the evidence from the ligatures. The irony was not lost on police that the alibi he provided would be the thing that led to his capture. 

On July 31, 2013, less than two weeks after Jessie’s murder, Dan Bartelt was officially charged with her first-degree murder. On top of this, he was also held over for trial for attempted first-degree murder, first-degree reckless endangerment & false imprisonment for the attack on Melissa Etzler.

A little over a year later, on October 14, 2014, after a week-long trial, the jury deliberated for three hours & found Dan guilty of Jessie’s murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The prosecutor indicated that he felt that Dan was the most dangerous criminal he had ever met & referred to him as a psychopath while others described him as a narcissist. Jessie’s family felt that this decision was a victory & this dangerous man would never have the ability to harm another person.

Jessie’s family had always treated Dan with kindness & acceptance & treated him like a son. As he was given the opportunity to speak during his sentencing, he referenced his prison garb & restraints & said, “Buck, Joy – I can’t give you the reasons you are looking for. There’s no hiding from yourself in a tiny, concrete cell. The jumpsuit that I’m wearing, these shackles don’t make me guilty. I know there is evidence that I can’t refute that would make you believe that I am guilty.” Even after Jessie’s father voiced his forgiveness for the inconceivable thing he had done to his daughter who viewed him as a trusted friend, Dan never voiced an ounce of apology. Buck stood & spoke, “Dan, I forgive you as I have every single day. I believe there is good & bad in each of us, so I don’t demonize or vilify you.”

In exchange for pleading guilty to the attempted abduction & murder of Melissa Etzler, Dan was given an additional five years which were tacked on to his life sentence.

About three years later, in September of 2017, Dan filed an appeal for the verdict in Jessie’s case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the grounds that he had given information to detectives without a lawyer present & this information was later used against him in securing his conviction. However, the court upheld his guilty verdict. 

Jessie was someone who lived her life to the fullest & gave her all to that which she was passionate about. She was a gifted singer & performer & had planned on pursuing a career in the arts at the time her life was ending at the tender age of nineteen. In order to earn extra money, she worked as a violin & piano teacher for children. Jessie was patient & kind & earned the adoration for both the children she taught & their parents.

After Jessie’s tragic murder, Buck & Joy were left reeling with the loss of their extraordinary daughter. They indicated that they received over 1000 cards & letters in the weeks after her death that were filled with words about how much Jessie meant to so many people. Buck reflected that never again would he be able to end a stressful day with a walk with his beautiful daughter where Jessie always asked, “so how was your day, Dad?” Buck had to give Jessie a real, genuine answer before they could move the conversation to how her day was. He & his wife live with pain & grief every single day, knowing they will never see Jessie graduate, walk down the aisle or become a mother.

Those that knew & loved Jessie could only imagine the terror that she must have felt during the moment she realized that her life was ending at the hands of someone she trusted & cared for. Despite the time they bonded together over the years that she knew Dan, Jessie as well as everyone else in Dan’s circle, never really knew the darkness that lurked within him at all. 

In order to honor their daughter & be sure that she did not die in vain, Buck established the LOVE>hate Project (The Love is Greater than Hate Project) which has the mission of ending interpersonal violence while promoting forgiveness.

The project provides tailored presentations to various audiences about Jessie’s powerful story to educate, inspire & motivate people to be resilient, end violence & choose love.

References:

1. Fox 6 Milwaukee: “These shackles don’t make me guilty:” Daniel Bartelt sentenced to life in prison, no chance for parole
2. Love is Greater Than Hate Criminal Complaint: State of Wisconsin vs. Daniel
3. LOVE>hate Project
4. True Crime Daily: The final act: Gifted musician-actress assaulted, killed by longtime friend & collaborator