LOOSE LIPS

“In February 1990,

18-year-old Craig White

gets into a truck with his

cousin Jesse Watkins and

is never seen again.

The case goes cold,

but after 17 years police

suddenly arrest Jesse for

Craig's murder.

Chris and Fatima investigate.”

In Whitesboro, New Jersey,

Fatima and Chris meet Lana

(Jesse’s sister) and Gale

(Jesse’s Cousin).

They said the real Jesse was

a sportsman, a hunter, and

a fisherman. They also said

Jesse was a showman, a

storyteller, an entertainer.

Jesse’s family said there

wasn’t any evidence.

Police had no weapon,

no body, no blood, no nothing.

The family isn’t even convinced

there was a murder, they think

Craig just might have left

(because he had some charges

he was running from).

They didn’t even buy the motive,

police said it was done in a

murderous rage. Craig had an

affair with Jesse’s girlfriend

Dawn. According to the family,

there were 3 non-credible

witnesses who said that Jesse

was bragging about committing

the murder, each one of them

had an ax to grind. The witnesses

were his brother Donald

(who was kicked out of his house),

the mother of his 2 children,

and an ex-girlfriend.

Fatima and Chris split up

the investigation.

Chris looks into the police

work, while Fatima focuses

on the legal issues.

Fatima goes to talk to Jesse’s

brother Donald (a minister)

who promised to finally come

clean and tell the entire truth.

Donald said he basically raised

Jesse. He agrees with the family

that Jesse is a liar and a bragger,

sometimes he doesn’t even know

when he’s telling the truth.

Donald talked about how his

addiction problems and Jesse

wanting more help with the bills

caused a rift between them.

After Jesse kicked him out of

the house, Donald called the police

and said he was afraid Jesse was

going to do him like he did Craig.

When Donald testified, he said

what he perceived what Jesse told

him and was he believed he said

was two different things.

He didn’t know if he said Craig,

Greg, or Red. Donald regrets

calling the police on his brother

Jesse, and he has a problem with

Jesse being convicted without the

weapon or body.

He doesn’t believe he did it.

It weighs heavily on Donald

knowing he if he never called

the police, Jesse wouldn’t

have gone to jail.

Chris checks out Lana’s claim

that there was no evidence.

Chris goes to the field where a

witness said Jesse told her the

body was supposedly buried.

Daniel Slachta, a radar technician,

uses a device (similar to what

archeologist use) called ground

penetrating radar to scan the

ground to see if anything’s there.

Daniel did not find the body or

anything in that field.

Fatima follows up on Gale’s lead

that Jesse had no reason to kill Craig.

She goes to talk to Jesse’s other

brother George who hung out

with Jesse and Craig. George said

Jesse was a liar but not a murderer.

He said there was no arguing or

tension between Craig and Jesse

before Craig disappeared.

Silva goes to see a woman who

claims to have seen Craig a few

days after his “murder” and tried

to tell the cops. Jennifer work at

a convenience store where Craig

shopped daily. She said Craig

seemed to be a great dad for an

18-year-old, he almost always

had his kid with him. Jennifer

said Craig came into the store a

few days after the police said he

disappeared, they chatted for a

few minutes, he bought an apple

juice and left. She said she didn’t

noticed anything unusual about

him that day.

Lana and Gale are convinced

Craig is alive and living under

an alias, so Chris goes to see

if there were any bodies matching

Craig’s description around the

time of his disappearance.

Using the National Missing and

Unidentified Persons System,

NAMUS’s director Todd Matthews

enters Craig’s information and
date of disappearance. There are 10

unidentified young men’s bodies

currently in NAMUS fitting his

description found during that time.

It would help if the family had dental

recorders or any DNA.

Fatima and Chris come together

to compare notes. Chris says,

“We don’t have a body.

We don’t have a weapon.

We have no evidence.”

Fatima thought it was far-fetched

when Gale and Lana said Craig

could still be alive, but then she

met Jennifer who claims she saw

him a few days after his disappearance.

Fatima says she’s going to speak

with one of Craig’s best friends,

and Chris says he’ll speak with Jesse.

Fatima says, “Be careful, I hear he

can convince a lot of people of some

crazy stories.” Chris replies,

“I can guarantee you he won’t convince me.”

Fatima says if Jesse did do it,

he could have gotten away with

it if he didn’t open his mouth.

Chris agrees, “I think he literally

talked himself into prison.”

Chris says if Jesse tries to talk

his stories, he will call him out

on it. Jesse said he was a father

figure to Craig, they were

extremely close. He said that

Craig wasn’t living a good lifestyle

(street pharmacist), and he was doing

what he can to get him away from that.

Jesse said when he proposed to Dawn,

she wouldn’t take the ring.

She said she and Craig slept together,

Jesse said it hurt him to his core.

Dawn and Craig both apologize,

and all three of them supposedly

got over it. Jesse said afterwards

they still when on trips to California

together and did things.

Chris was confused about Jesse

still taking trips with Craig and

continuing a relationship with Dawn.

He last saw Craig on the 23rd,

and everything was cool.

Chris asked, “You know you

basically talked yourself into

prison, right?” Jesse claims that

he never told anyone he killed Craig.

Fatima goes to talk to Craig’s best friend,

Guy Bethune. Guy said he and Craig

were like brothers. He said Craig had

a minor drug charge pending,

but he doesn’t believe this was

staged to keep Craig from going to jail.

Craig loved his son too much.

He said Jesse was an outdoorsman,

a hunter, a protector, and he was

dangerous. He said if anyone messed

with them, Jesse would beat them

down. Guy said when Craig slept

with Dawn, he wasn’t even a grown

man… “kids make mistakes”.

He said Jesse found out about

Craig and Dawn when they were

in California. He heard Jesse hit

Craig a couple times. He was scared.

Guy believes Jesse had unfinished

business with Craig. Guy last saw

Craig with Jesse, and he told him to

stay away from him… “IF we got

to pop him, we got to pop him.”

Craig was supposed to meet Guy

the next day, but his cousin said he

left with Jesse. He said Jesse would

have had to have a gun or

something, because he wouldn’t

have gone. He never saw his friend

again. Guy believes Jesse killed Craig.

Fatima asks, “If you could go back,

would you do things differently?”

Guy replies, “Yeah. I would have

shot Jesse. I would have shot him.”

Chris and Fatima meet with Gale

and Lana to discuss the results

of their investigation.

Chris agrees that there was no

weapon, evidence, or body.

He said he brought in an expert

to check out the field the body

was supposedly buried, it wasn’t

there. He mentioned he had an

expert us NAMUS to search for

unidentified bodies fitting Craigs

description found around the time

of his disappearance, and they

found 10 possible matches.

Fatima reminds them that it

does not necessarily mean

Jesse is innocent.

Fatima brings up how Craig

last seen on February 23, 1990.

Prosecutors believe that’s the

day that Jesse lured Craig into

his truck and then killed him,

but a few witnesses saw Craig

several days later. She talks

about how Jennifer saw Craig

a few days after he “disappeared”,

but she may have been confused

about the date. Fatima said the

witnesses that testified against

Jesse were not credible.

She reached out to the mother

of Jesse’s children and his

ex-girlfriend, but neither would

talk to her. Fatima talked about

how Donald now believes Jesse

is innocent and feels sorry he

ever called the cops.

As an investigator, Chris looks

towards the collaboration

between witnesses. “If Donald

was the only person that was

saying Jesse confessed, I could

probably write it off. But I’ve

never seen three people, all of

‘em family members, lie about

something like this.”

Chris brings up their claim

that the prosecution made up

the motive, but Chris believes

Jesse is still hung up on his girl.

Chris said, “But this doesn’t

mean he’s a murderer, but he

did love his girlfriend and he

loved Craig, and when the two

betrayed him...well, I’ve seen

people kill for much less than that.”

Fatima says she spoke to Craig’s

best friend Guy. She said,

“According to Guy, Jesse was

furious about the betrayal, so

furious that they were scared,

he and Craig. They even armed

themselves. Guy said he was

prepared to pop Jesse if it came

to that. Guy says that Jesse could

get violent when it came to being

disrespected. And when Guy found

out that Craig was missing, his

gut feeling was that it was Jesse.”

As far as motives go, he had it.

That lead wasn’t much help.

Fatima spoke to a lot of people

who feared Jesse, they used

words like “bully” and “dangerous”.

Chris said that three people close

to Jesse say he confessed, and he

definitely had a strong motive,

but I also want to understand why

you keep fighting. There is no real

evidence, no body. If I were on this

case, it would have been a very

close call on whether or not we

should prosecute.”

Fatima adds, “And as an attorney,

I find it very difficult to believe the

prosecution got a conviction in this case.

There was reasonable doubt.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to

help you. What’s going to help you

is getting new evidence.

That’s what’s going to get you

a new trial, and the best you can

do is try to track down Craig, dead or alive.”

Although, Chris and Fatima are not entirely

convinced Jesse is innocent,

hey are convinced that the truth has not

fully come out. To help the family get

some answers, they’re going to hire

one of the nation’s leading experts in

locating missing persons. He find Craig,

dead or alive.

Chris says, “But I just wanna caution

you guys to be prepared, because the

answers that you get from this

investigation may not be what you

were hoping for. Even though Jesse

is loyal to you, even though he’s

always made you laugh, even

though he was the life of the party,

he also lied time after time after time.

And when he tells you that he absolutely

had nothing to do with Craig’s

disappearance, I’m not thoroughly

convinced that that’s not one of his

all tales, too.”

Lana and Gale are grateful and hopeful.

Thank you for reading.

Please share and join us next week

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