Kriti Mehrotra
When Mengqi Ji was reported missing from her Columbia, Missouri, home on the evening of October 10, 2019, it left her community and her loved ones absolutely perplexed. The 28-year-old was actually a devoted mother of one, so it was hard for anyone to even imagine her leaving on her own accord without her 1-year-old toddler in tow. What followed was thus an extensive investigation, as explored in ID’s ‘On the Case with Paula Zahn: A Needle in the Mud,’ only to unravel a web of deceit, lies, and murder.
Mengqi Ji’s Remains Were Found 17 Months After She Disappeared
Although a proud native of Xi’an in Shaanxi, China, as she was born there on April 18, 1991, to Ke Ren and Xiaolin Ji, Mengqi Ji always knew she had a more global mindset. Therefore, when she had the opportunity to come to the US for an exchange program while pursuing her degree in Materials Engineering, she embraced it with open arms. She subsequently earned her Master’s from the University of Missouri before managing to settle down in the wondrous city of Columbia for good and kickstart her career.
It was while Mengqi was working at a company called Nanova that she first came across fellow engineer Joseph “Joe” Elledge in September 2015, only for there to be a spark between them. The duo gradually fell head over heels in love, resulting in them having a whirlwind romance, deciding not to waste any more time, and tying the knot in a cozy ceremony on September 22, 2017. A little more than a year later, on October 3, 2018, they happily welcomed a baby girl into the world, following which Mengqi decided to take a step back from her career to focus on being a mother. She was undeniably ambitious and loved her profession as a Materials Engineer, but she wanted to be there for her daughter even more, which is why she chose to be a stay-at-home mother.
Things honestly seemed idyllic for the young family from outside, yet everything changed when Joe reported his wife missing on October 10, 2019, claiming she hadn’t been home for over 24 hours. An expansive search for Mengqi thus began, but it was ultimately a hiker who found her near-skeletal remains buried in a shallow grave in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park on March 25, 2021. According to her initial autopsy, while an exact cause of death couldn’t be ascertained due to decomposition, she had 4 broken ribs, injuries to her back/head, and showed signs of asphyxiation. However, later on, it was determined she had died of a fatal subdural hematoma, meaning a head trauma had led to a fatal collection of blood between her brain and its outermost covering.
Investigations Into Mengqi Ji’s Case Led Authorities to Quickly Suspect Foul Play
When detectives first began looking into Mengqi’s case, they learned from Joe that she had not been home from the morning of October 9, 2019. He claimed their relationship had been on the rocks for a while, and that they had a fight the evening prior to that about him not already having their daughter for Medicare. He said that he stayed in the living room for a few hours after that before going to bed at around 11 pm, by which point his wife was already asleep. Yet, the next morning when he woke up, she and her purse were gone, with her cell phone, other personal items, and her wedding ring all left behind. He added he wasn’t worried until later because he thought she just needed to cool off from their fight, but after more than 24 hours, he knew he had to report her missing.
According to records, Joe also told investigators that their marital struggles had been going on for a while and that he had later discovered she was emotionally involved with another man. Mengqi had been texting a man named Chao Zhou for a while, making many assume she had left home to be with him. However, when they looked deeper, they learned he lived more than 7,000 miles away in her homeland of China and had never even met her – their connection was strictly online. There were no signs of her having returned to China either, but when her friends were questioned, they did suggest she was thinking of it owing to her troubles with her husband.
It turned out Joe and Mengqi’s relationship had turned sour, with secret phone records from both their phones later indicating he often got her to do his bidding by threatening her immigration. His behavior in the weeks to follow also raised suspicion as he didn’t seem emotional over his wife, and even referred to her in the past tense at least twice in a television interview. The fact that he seemed to be smiling while asking the public for help also seemed strange, driving officials to look deeper into him. That’s when it came to light that he had taken two long drives on October 9, with the latter lasting about 4 hours. Since no one had seen Mengqi leaving her house, and Joe seemed to deflect every time he was asked about the second drive, authorities became certain he was responsible for her vanishing. So, even though they did not have Mengqi’s remains, they believed they had enough circumstantial evidence against him in the form of the calls and his drive that they charged him with her murder on February 19, 2020.
Joe Elledge is Currently Incarcerated in a State Prison
Although Joe was arrested in early 2020, his case didn’t go to court until over a year later, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, authorities used this period to build their case against him, which only became stronger when Mengqi’s remains were recovered from a shallow grave in March 2021. Since they had already searched the couple’s home and seized a pair of his muddy boots months prior, they did a forensic analysis of it against the area from where Mengqi was found. The test came out to be a perfect match, with the needles on the sole of his boots also matching a tree near the grave. That’s when Joe admitted to being responsible for his wife’s death.
However, when Joe stood trial for the charges against him in late 2021, his defense team argued that Mengqi’s death was an accident. Although Joe admitted he caused her death, buried her, and then lied about her being missing, he claimed he did so because he had panicked. According to his records, he had pushed her during their fight on the evening of October 8, 2019, which caused her to fall, hit her head in the kitchen, and never wake up. He stated he never wanted to harm her, so it was truly an accident. In the end, in November 2021, he was found guilty of second-degree murder, for which he was later sentenced to the maximum of 28 years in prison. He was also found guilty of abuse or neglect of a child, third-degree domestic assault, and child endagerment, for which he was handed down another 10 years. Therefore, today, at age 30, he is incarcerated at the maximum-security Southeast Correctional Center (SECC) in Charleston, Missouri. He is expected to remain there until he becomes eligible for release around 2058.
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