When Marietta called Meirhofer out by name in his last taunt call, a little girl's voice came on the line saying 'he's nice.' Meirhofer refused to explain who she was. Combined with souvenirs at his house that didn't belong to any known victim, Ashley believes there were more victims who may never be identified.
Where this was said
At 52:20 · chapter starts 51:40
The confession was barely hours old when David Meirhofer was found dead in his cell — a suicide that sealed shut the remaining mysteries. He denied any connection to Donna Lemon and refused to discuss cases outside Montana, even though he had spent time in California and Vietnam. He would not explain the girl's voice on the final call, nor the lipstick, blouse, and necklace that belonged to no identified victim. Author Ron Franzell, interviewed for the episode, cautions that trying to apply logic and reasoning to a psychopath's actions is a waste of time. Ashley closes by noting that Meirhofer seems to have only ever taunted the Jaeger family — a mystery in itself — and that answers about possible other victims may never come.
David Meirhofer was found dead in his jail cell from suicide just hours after making his four-murder confession on September 29, 1974.
The Jaeger-Meirhofer case was one of the first real-world tests of the FBI's behavioral profiling unit. The profile was nearly perfect — and the accurate predictions helped convert skeptical local investigators, legitimizing a discipline now considered standard in serious criminal investigations.
Despite losing her daughter to a serial killer, Marietta Jaeger went on to forgive David Meirhofer and became a prominent advocate for forgiveness and against the death penalty.
A man used ChatGPT as a de facto lawyer, sharing self-incriminating details in his chats. When the transcripts were subpoenaed, the judge ruled no attorney-client privilege applied and admitted the chats as evidence against him. AI first passes are useful — treating AI as your counsel is dangerous.
CIA operative Edwin Wilson armed Muammar Gaddafi with 10,000 machine guns and 20 tons of C4 hidden in barrels of mud and flew them to Libya himself. He was sentenced to 52 years and served 12 in solitary. He was also a founder of the same arms network Oliver North contracted for the Contras.
Kim Dotcom's legal nightmare had nothing to do with copyright infringement. He donated to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange — and the US government charged him under RICO statutes, seeking 186 years in prison as payback.
More than a decade after his indictment, the US is still trying to extradite Kim Dotcom from New Zealand — even after he suffered a stroke. He cannot be convinced the authorities are on his side; only the legal process, run by his lawyers, keeps him free.
The illegal wildlife trade and the drug trade aren't just parallel industries — they actively overlap. Smugglers force-fed cocaine to boa constrictors to evade customs, packed drugs beneath layers of live animals in crates with spitting cobras on top, and exploited the chronic under-resourcing of US Fish and Wildlife inspection teams.
Mario Tabraue was sentenced to over 100 years in prison for murder and drug trafficking. He served 12. Nobody — not even the DEA agent who put him there — knows why he got out. That agent, Larry Lovelace, now lives in rural West Virginia with a gun within reach every night, still expecting retaliation.
Anson Wong from Malaysia was the Pablo Escobar of the global reptile trade, supplying rare animals — including Komodo dragons — to buyers across the world. He was caught in a sting, extradited to the US, and served the longest wildlife crime sentence at the time. The animals seized from him went on to stock some of America's biggest zoos.
Zelig Williams landed a role in Hamilton at just 19 while still in college — a rare achievement in a world where most Broadway dreams die young. By 28 he was a veteran ready to mentor the next generation, until he disappeared without a trace on October 3, 2024.
Season 5 of Dateline: Missing in America brings six new unsolved mysteries. The show is explicitly asking listeners to engage — because a detail someone remembers might be the break investigators need.
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