Shivangi Sinha
In June 1993, Jeanie Childs was discovered brutally stabbed in her Minneapolis, Minnesota apartment. The investigation began after a neighbor reported blood leaking from her bathroom. When authorities arrived, they found she had been stabbed numerous times and was pronounced dead at the scene. Although some leads were initially pursued, the case went cold due to a lack of progress. It wasn’t until 2018 that advancements in DNA technology helped investigators identify a suspect named Jerry Westrom. The CBS ’48 Hours’ episode titled ‘The Footprint’ explores the investigation and the key evidence that ultimately led to solving the case.
Jerry Westrom’s Discarded Napkin Led to His Arrest for Murder
In the early 1990s, Jerry Arnold Westrom was living in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the time, he was a young, carefree man, but he eventually settled down. He got married, raised three children, and helped build a successful business in Isanti, Minnesota. In 2012, he started working at Crop Revenue Management, Inc. as a Risk Management Specialist. To outsiders, he appeared to be a devoted husband, father, and active member of his community who even took a keen interest in his kids’ hockey activities. However, the UMN Carlson School of Management graduate had a history of legal troubles, including a 2016 conviction for soliciting prostitution, though he served no prison time. In late 2018, during a hockey game in Mequon, Wisconsin, he was unknowingly being tracked by police.
Jerry became a suspect in a decades-old murder case. On June 13, 1993, Jeanie Childs, a sex worker, was brutally stabbed to death in her Minneapolis, Minnesota apartment. She had suffered 65 stab wounds and was found unclothed, with blood saturating her bed. The crime scene was gruesome, with blood spattered across bathroom walls, a bloodstained towel, and several bloody footprints. Despite this, no arrests were made at the time. In 2018, the case was reopened, and investigators used DNA from the scene to build a genetic profile, which they then matched against commercial genealogy databases. This led them to two potential suspects, one of whom was Jerry. Given his past criminal record and proximity to the area at the time of the murder, police began surveilling him.
At a hockey game in late 2018, Jerry bought hot dogs from a concession stand and used a napkin, which he discarded. Investigators retrieved the napkin from the trash, tested it for DNA and it matched the genetic material found at the 1993 crime scene. In January 2019, Jerry was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He posted bail and was released, but in June 2020, a grand jury indicted him for first-degree premeditated murder. As he prepared for trial, his defense attempted to suppress key evidence, including the DNA obtained through genealogy databases and the discarded napkin, arguing it violated his privacy. However, the court ruled that no unlawful search had occurred, as the police had simply used public and discarded materials for identification purposes.
Jerry Westrom is Behind Bars Today
Jerry Westrom’s trial commenced in August 2022. Medical experts from both the prosecution and defense presented their arguments, with one of the most contentious points being the bloody footprints found at the crime scene. The defense contended that investigators had mishandled the case and failed to seriously consider another potential suspect named Arthur Gray. He was Jeanie Childs’ boyfriend and alleged manager for her sex work. They emphasized that Gray’s hair had been found clutched in Jeanie’s hand during the autopsy, suggesting he could have been the killer. Despite these claims, in September 2022, after just two hours of jury deliberation, Jerry was found guilty of both first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree intentional murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
In May 2024, Jerry filed an appeal challenging his conviction on the grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated and that he had not received a fair trial. His appeal included a seven-part argument. While the appeals court rejected most of his claims, they did agree to vacate the second-degree murder conviction, stating that a person cannot be convicted of both first- and second-degree murder for the same crime. However, this did not alter his sentence, which remains life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Now 59 years old, Westrom is incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility– St. Cloud, located in Sherburne County. A specific parole date has not been publicly disclosed.
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