In Minneapolis, Jeanie Childs was killed badly 32 years ago. It was decades before DNA and new technology helped cold case detectives find the person who killed her.
As the subject of “A WCCO Original: Footprint to Murder,” the crime also interested Lisa Andrews, a college professor who teaches forensics in criminal justice. Jen Mayerle, a senior investigative writer, found out why this case is a good one for students to study.
Andrews is a professor of forensic research at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He teaches students how to gather evidence and keep it safe. As part of that, students are shown true cases like the murder of Childs in 1993.
“If you can give them something local, then they go, ‘local cops worked on this, local cops solved this,’ then that’s what I try and do and show them how it starts from scene all the way to courtroom,” said Andrews.
When hockey dad Jerry Westrom was arrested for her murder many years later, Andrews paid attention. As a death analyst for 25 years with metro medical examiners’ offices, she knew about the case.
DNA helps solve these cases because the evidence was stored so well by a police officer or someone working at the crime scene all those years ago that it didn’t get damaged. “That was kind of what interested me at first,” she said. This handprint, on the other hand, is very rare. I talk about that in class, saying things like, “Here’s a real-life example that we probably won’t see again like this,” and how our tracks are special just like our fingerprints.
As part of “Footprint to Murder,” WCCO talks to detectives who posted unknown DNA from the crime scene to a genealogy website. With the help of a hit, they tracked Westrom to a hockey game and got his DNA from a napkin he used to wipe his mouth.
Investigators caught Westrom in 2019 and were able to match his bloody footprint to one that was found at the scene of the crime.
“It’s good for me for printing and for DNA, but it’s also important because the convicted killer is local, and it’s good for us to know this could be somebody that’s nearby you,” she explained. “And going back to Jeanie, the victim herself, I think it’s good to show that cops don’t give up on these cases.”
She tells the kids that they should go to court and watch a case live. A few people did watch the murder trial of Westrom. Andrews says that she often uses WCCO’s interview with jury foreperson Derek Fradenburg after the guilty decision in class. Basically, he says, it came down to Westrom’s police report, the DNA, and the bloody footprint.
Although Westrom said he wasn’t there, his DNA shows that he was. That means he was there when the murder happened, according to Fradenburgh.
“Here he is telling exactly what it took for them to come to that decision,” said Andrews. “Doesn’t that make them thinking? “Like, OK, if I’m a crime scene investigator, I got this evidence, and now I’m seeing what it all means.”
In Childs’ situation, being able to gather evidence was very important.
If she had carpet, this floor would have been almost perfect. Imagine if this floor wasn’t there. She pointed out. “I mean, this is like a perfect setting point for it: nice, hard, firm, smooth.”
She wants the people in her class to think more deeply.
I want you to look at everything. That person needs to make decisions about which way to go because “things aren’t always what they seem at first.” “And I hope this opens their mind to that.”
Andrews runs a class at Hennepin Tech as well. She says that those kids are new police officers learning how to do things like take fingerprints, book people in, and look into crimes.
