Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers’ discretion advised.
Jessica Lynn Heeringa (born July 16, 1987) disappeared from the Exxon gas station where she was working the late shift in Norton Shores, Michigan, United States, on April 26, 2013.
Left at the scene of the apparent abduction, investigators found Heeringa’s car and jacket, as well as her cigarettes and purse with a large amount of money. They also located drops of blood outside the gas station,which subsequent DNA analysis positively matched to Heeringa.Also, parts to a firearm were uncovered in proximity to the blood.
Over the next three and a half years, a 75-member task force with 14 specialized divisions—such as aviation, behavioral sciences, technical services, and intelligence analysis — from 15 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies — gave 12,000 man-hours to a vast investigation that included upwards of 1,400 tips received, 33 search warrants executed, 20 residential searches by consent, as well as 12 ground and two underwater searches.
Although Heeringa’s remains have never been found, a pair of male cousins have been tried and convicted in connection with her untimely disappearance and assumed murder. In September 2016, a resident of Muskegon Township, Michigan named Jeffrey Willis was charged with her kidnapping and murder on the strength of forensic evidence combined with eyewitness testimony that implicated him. Willis was found guilty of Heeringa’s kidnapping and murder on May 16, 2018 he was sentenced to life in prison a month later.
Jeffrey Willis
On November 2, 2017, Willis was also found guilty of the 2014 murder of Rebekah Sue Bletsch; six weeks later, he received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Willis was also charged (but not tried) with the attempted kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl in 2016, as well as child pornography in 2011, which involved his unsuspecting female next-door neighbors who were 14 years old at the time.He is also a suspect in the unsolved murder of a 15-year-old girl that occurred in 1996.
Willis’s cousin, Kevin Bluhm, pleaded guilty to lying to detectives both during the Heeringa investigation as well as during that of a 2014 homicide (of which Willis was convicted); for this offense, he was sentenced to time served.[On November 27, 2017, Bluhm pleaded no contest to having been an accessory after the fact by helping Willis dispose of Heeringa’s body; for this, he was sentenced on January 9, 2018, to time served plus five years’ probation along with the added requirement of having to wear a GPS tether for one year at minimum.
The following is based on eyewitness and police testimony made in court hearings.
April 25, 2013 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.
April 26, 2013
10:55 pm: The last transaction, a cigarette lighter, was recorded on Heeringa’s register.
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.
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.
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.
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.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.
2016 mugshot of Jeffrey Willis
This undated photo provided by The Muskegon County Sheriff’s Department shows, Jeffrrel Willis. Willis who is accused of abducting a 16-year old girl last month was charged in the shooting death of a 36-year old woman in 2014. The Muskegon County prosecutor’s office announced the charges Wednesday, May 25, 2016.(Muskegon County Sheriff’s Department via AP)
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. Police executed a search warrant for Willis’s home and found pictures of Heeringa in a folder labeled “vics” on his computer.
Police searched for her body near his home after a tip was called in on June 17, 2016, but found nothing.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
Jessica Heeringa trial
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.
Jeffrey Willis Will Stand Trial For the Murder of Jessica Heeringa
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.He received a life sentence without parole a month later.
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. Another sub-folder found inside the “vics” folder on Willis’s computer had pictures of Bletsch.
Judge Kostrzewa denied bond for Willis and ordered him to remain in the Muskegon County Jail. Jury selection for the Bletsch murder trial began on October 17, 2017.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
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. It was passed by the Michigan Senate on May 10, 2018.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed it into law on May 24, 2018. It is officially known as the “Rebekah Bletsch Law.”
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.
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.
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.
2016 mugshot of Kevin Bluhm
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.
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 sex and used sexual toys and torture.
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 placed shovels, and buried her in a hole that had already been dug. Bluhm was suspended without pay from his job as a sergeant at the West Shoreline Correctional Facility, a state prison in Muskegon Heights. 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
On December 9, 2013, a Michigan House of Representatives Bill was announced titled the Jessica Heeringa act, or alternatively Jessica’s Law (officially known as House Bill 4123). It was requested by Heeringa’s parents, introduced by Representative Collene Lamonte and community member Sharron Pennell and sponsored by Marcia Hovey-Wright and several other Michigan legislature members.
The bill requires gas stations and convenience stores that are open between the hours of 11pm and 5am to install and maintain a security camera system or to have at least two employees on shift during these hours. The bill would establish a civil fine of not more than $200 for each violation. Businesses excluded from Jessica’s Law include hotels, taverns, restaurants, pharmacies, grocery stores, supermarkets or businesses that have more than 10,000 square feet of retail space.
As of March 11, 2020, the bill has not been passed by the Michigan legislature. Small business owners are concerned about the cost associated with installing surveillance cameras or the hiring of additional staff. In November 2014, Shelley Heeringa, Jessica’s mother traveled to the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing to speak with state lawmakers concerning Jessica’s law. “If you have a daughter, a sister, thank God that they’re still with you,” Shelly Heeringa said. The owner of the gas station Jessica Heeringa worked at, which did not have a surveillance camera system at the time of her disappearance, has since had one installed.
Heeringa case: Cousin says Willis ‘did it,’ then recants
Kevin Bluhm now says he lied when he told cops he helped Jeffrey Willis ‘take care of” Jessica Heeringa
WZZM and Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
MUSKEGON — A cousin of alleged killer Jeffrey Willis told police he helped Willis “take care of” Jessica Heeringa, but later recanted, saying he lied, according to a newly obtained court document.
Kevin Lavern Bluhm
Kevin Bluhm during an initial interview first told police he knew nothing about Heeringa’s abduction three years ago, but during a second interview he said his cousin Willis “did do it, ” Norton Shores Detective Lt. Michael Kasher told a Muskegon County magistrate, in a transcript obtained by WZZM, a western Michigan TV station.
During that second interview, Bluhm told investigators he was “scared from it and that he was forced to help her … or help Jeffrey Willis take care of Ms. Heeringa,” according to the transcript.
But then, after telling that story to police, Bluhm “said that he was lying about the account and he knows nothing about the missing person or that Jeffrey Willis was involved.”
Willis, who is jailed on a murder charge in the 2014 shooting death of jogger Rebekah Bletsch in rural Dalton Township, has been named by police as person of interest in Heeringa’s disappearance. He is also accused of kidnapping a 16-year-old girl who managed to escape April 16 in rural Fruitland Township.
Jessica Herringa and Rebeckah Bletsch
Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Tim Maat provided the following statement:
“Because Mr. Bluhm has been charged with lying to police in both the investigation into Jessica Heeringa and Rebekah Bletsch investigators will need to determine what if anything Mr. Bluhm has said is true.”
“As court records indicate, Mr. Bluhm has given contradictory statements. And as a result investigators are going to have to determine what is true and not true.”
Bluhm is charged in two instances with lying to police.
On May 18, the day after Willis’ arrest, Bluhm is accused of lying to Michigan State Police investigators, telling them he hadn’t seen Willis for a year or more and that he never saw Willis with a gun. Court records show he provided different answers in a second interview: Bluhm saw Willis in May -not a year or more – and Willis once showed him a 22-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
The second charge involves the conversations with police about Heeringa’s disappearance.
Heeringa was 25 when she disappeared April 26, 2013, while working the closing shift at a Norton Shores gas station. A silver minivan was captured on surveillance video as being in the area around the time she disappeared.
Police said Willis, 46, a married factory worker from Muskegon Township , was driving a silver 2008 Dodge minivan when he attempted to kidnap the teenage girl in April. During a later search of the van, police said, they found ropes and other restraints, a ball gag, a syringe filled with a suspected sedative, photos of women bound and gagged and a .22-caliber handgun and ammunition.
Ballistic tests of that handgun led to Willis’ arrest in Bletsch’s murder. The 36-year-old mother was shot multiple times in the head as she jogged near her home, police said.
How Jeffrey Willis came close to trial after 2-year investigation into Bletsch killing – The homicide of Rebekah Sue Bletsch was a mystery for nearly two years before police seemed to have a suspect, and now the trial will have to wait for months more.
Bletsch, a 36-year-old mother and a wife, was found dead on the side of the road in June 2014. But it wasn’t until May 2016 that officials publicly announced that investigators were meeting to compare notes from the Bletsch investigation to a new kidnapping case. At that time, they had already charged a man with the kidnapping case: Jeffrey Thomas Willis, 46, of Muskegon Township.
A trial scheduled for December was postponed, with the public defender’s office saying that the trial could be nine months away from happening, if ever.
Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson has charged Willis in no less than half a dozen cases, including the kidnapping, the high-profile Jessica Heeringa case, two child porn-related charges and videotaping unclothed persons without consent. The Bletsch case is the first of the group expected to go to trial.
Rebekah Bletsch.
Here are some of the twists the investigation has taken over two and a half years:
Discovery – 6/29/2014
A man and woman came upon Bletsch at 6:11 p.m. Sunday, June 29, 2014 in the 4300 block of Automobile Road in Dalton Township.
“She has a pulse. We just came up on her. She is breathing. She has a pulse. She has a head injury and she’s lying face down,” the man told a dispatcher.
Bletsch stopped breathing as the couple were on the phone with Muskegon County Central Dispatch. The woman was a nurse, and conducted CPR trying to keep Bletsch alive.
Task force formed – 6/30/2014
When Bletsch was first found at the side of Automobile Road, the initial thought was she may have been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Bletsch had been jogging or walking that morning.
But Sheriff Dean Roesler announced the next day that she had been shot with a small-caliber firearm, and that he was forming a multi-agency task force to investigate her death.
Investigators canvassed the area near where she was found and looked at several theories, including the idea that the shooting could have been “a random crime of opportunity.”
More details revealed – 7/15/2014
Bletsch’s death certificate stated she died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head, with her “actual or presumed time of death” about 4 p.m. June 29, 2014, about two hours before being discovered.
But investigators contradicted that, stating eyewitness accounts show Bletsch was alive until about 6 p.m. To protect the security of the investigation, authorities declined to reveal the number of bullets that struck her.
No arrests yet – 7/22/2014
Investigators leading the multi-agency task force said they had made no arrests connected to Bletsch’s death.
Family speaks out – 1/19/2015
Rebekah Bletsch’s family members spoke about their loss to MLive Muskegon Chronicle.
“She was always really outgoing. She was a real people person. She had no fear of anyone. She had no enemies,” said her husband, Kevin Bletsch.
Event remembering Rebekah – 6/13/2016
The family of Rebekah Bletsch held a 5K run in her remembrance.
All registration fees, silent auction proceeds and donations went to a college fund for her daughter.
“None of us have given up on finding justice for Becky,” Bletsch’s sister said before the event.
Linked to other cases – 5/19/2016
Prosecutors and police investigators met to discuss the cases of accused sexual kidnapper Jeffrey Thomas Willis – including connections to the unsolved Rebekah Bletsch and Jessica Heeringa cases.
Authorities declined to comment on specifics of the investigation, including what evidence led authorities to suspect a possible link between Willis and the Bletsch and Heeringa cases.
Willis had previously been identified by a 16-year-old girl who said Willis abducted her.
Wills’ gun compared to Bletsch case –5/24/2016
Muskegon County Sheriff Dean Roesler said that investigators were comparing a gun found in Willis’ van with shell casings found at the scene of a slain jogger.
Bletsch charges announced against Willis – 5/25/2016
Prosecutors formally announced a murder charge against Jeffrey Thomas Willis for Bletsch’s shooting death.
Officials said they thought Willis acted alone when he allegedly killed Rebekah Bletsch, and they didn’t believe the two knew each other.
Bletsch’s family said they were relieved, and at the same time, horrified by the charges against Willis.
Willis cousin pleads guilty to lying – 8/26/2016
Willis’ cousin Kevin Lavern Bluhm pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to police – once about the Rebekah Bletsch case and also about the Jessica Heeringa case.
He was later sentenced to time served, 96 days in jail, for the offenses.
Trial date set – 11/10/2016
Authorities confirmed that the Bletsch case – the first of Willis’ cases to be tried – was set for trial on eight days in mid-December: Dec. 6-9 and Dec. 13-16.
Bletsch trial delayed – 12/3/2016
At an evidentiary hearing in early December, Willis’ defense attorney Brian Hosticka claimed there had been “a deliberate breach of attorney-client privilege” because of three occasions when he said investigators had accessed Willis’ papers in jail.
Willis got on the witness box to talk about the alleged breach of attorney-client privilege.
Judge William C. Marietti of Muskegon County’s 14th Circuit Court gave Hosticka time to finish the motion, which put the trial beyond the holidays.
Jeffrey Willis
Evidence unveiled in the Jessica Heeringa prelim –12/12/2016
Evidence against Jeffrey Willis was unveiled in a preliminary examination for the alleged murder of Jessica Heeringa. The evidence included evidence from the Rebekah Bletsch case.
Among the evidence presented was testimony about digital files found on Willis’ computers and other devices. Investigators discovered a large cache of violent, sexualized videos, but said none of Willis’ alleged victims appeared in the videos. There was, however, a separate folder “VICS” with folders that seemed to be labeled with the initials of Bletsch and Heeringa. A folder labeled RSB contained files with a Bletch reward poster and news coverage, and an image of a woman who looked like Bletsch wearing a bikini lying on a bed.
Motion to dismiss the murder charge -12/16/2016
Willis’ attorneys in the office of the Muskegon County Public Defender filed a formal motion for the court to throw out the Willis’ murder charge for the June 2014 shooting death of Rebekah Bletsch.
No ruling has been made yet on this motion.
But even if the case is not dismissed, Muskegon County Chief Public Defender Fred Johnson said it could be nine months before the case is actually tried, with time taken up with appeals and trial preparations.
At the end, “if it took a long time, that’s because of the magnitude of the situation,” Johnson said
Jeffrey Willis: A Timeline
2013
April 26, 2013: Jessica Heeringa, 25-year-old mother, disappeared while working at a gas station in Norton Shores. A major clue in the case is video of a silver minivan, captured on a nearby surveillance camera, that was seen in the area before she vanished.
2014
June 29, 2014: Rebekah Bletsch, a 36-year-old mother is murdered while jogging on Automobile Road in Muskegon County.
April 16, 2016
April 16, A 16-year-old was involved in an attempted abduction by a man in a silver minivan. She was walking down a rural road in Fruitland Township, and she got in his van to use his cell phone.
He pulled a gun on her. She jumped out of the moving van, running to a nearby house. She was later able to identify Jeffrey Willis, 46, in a photo lineup.
Police are granted search warrants to search Willis’ home and van.
May 17, 2016
Detectives arrest Willis as he leaves work. Police also search his home, and seized nearly 100 pieces of evidence. Inside the van officers found the following within a locked toolbox: two video cameras, handcuffs with chains, leather strap with a ball attached, rope, steel pole, restraints, pair of gloves, jar of lube, battery powered sex toy, empty prescription bottle, two polaroids, two pieces of papers with names and addresses, another sex toy, set of keys. Items found in his van provide police with the evidence needed to eventually charge him with murder for the deaths of Rebekah Bletsch and Jessica Heeringa.
May 18, 2016
Willis is charged with kidnapping for the attempted abduction of the 16-year-old girl in April, 2016.
May 23, 2016
Willis was named a person of interest in the Herringa case
May 25, 2016
Willis is charged with the death of Rebekah Bletsch. According to sworn testimony given by Muskegon County Prosecutor DJ Hilson, shell casings at the scene where Bletsch was shot matched the gun found during a search of Willis’ van
Aug 26, 2016
Willis’ cousin, Kevin Bluhm pleaded guilty to lying to the police about his involvement in the Herringa case. Bluhm told detectives that Willis killed Jessica and Bluhm helped take care of the body. Then he later said he made the story up
Sept. 20, 2016
Willis charged with kidnapping and murder in the Herringa case. Prosecutors did not reveal what evidence investigators have tying Willis to Heeringa.
Oct. 16 2017
The trial for the murder to Rebecca Bletsch begins with jury selection. Attorneys initially examined a pool of 125 potential jurors.
Oct. 19, 2017
Jury selection was completed, and opening statements in the trial were made.
The prosecutor said: “At the time Bletsch was murdered not only did he intend to kill her but he also intended to abduct her.” Whereas, the defense shifted the blame from Willis to Bluhm: “We believe that Mr. Bluhm had both the motive and the opportunity to do this shooting and he is in fact the person that did.”
Nov. 2 2017
Jeffrey Willis was found guilty for the murder of Rebekah Bletsch. It took the jury 90 minutes to deliberate before deciding on the verdict. He will be sentenced on Dec. 18.
Dec. 18, 2017
Willis was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Rebekah Bletsch. At the sentencing hearing, Willis walked out of the courtroom before hearing the victim impact statements from Bletsch’s family.
May 8, 2018
Willis’ trial for the murder of Jessica Heeringa started. The trial lasted until May 16.
May 16, 2018. The finale…..
A jury found Jeffrey Willis guilty for the murder of Jessica Heeringa,