Murder of Jessica Heeringa

Jessica Lynn Heeringa (July 16, 1987 – April 26, 2013) was a 25-year-old woman from Norton Shores, Michigan, who disappeared from the Exxon gas station where she was working on the night of 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.

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. Provided by Wikipedia