The FBI's first major criminal profiling case: a mother kept a serial killer on the phone for an hour, called him by name, and broke the case that launched modern behavioral profiling.
Crime Junkie
The FBI's first major criminal profiling case: a mother kept a serial killer on the phone for an hour, called him by name, and broke the case that launched modern behavioral profiling.
TL;DR
When 7-year-old Susie Jaeger was snatched from her Montana campsite in 1973, her kidnapper spent a year tormenting her family with cryptic phone calls before investigators caught a break. The case helped validate the FBI's then-nascent criminal profiling unit, whose psychological profile of the killer proved eerily accurate [1] — Ashley Flowers "On the exact one-year anniversary of Susie's kidnapping, the killer called Marietta. She kept him on the phone for a full hour — sobbing, n…" 33:23 . Ultimately, it was Susie's mother Marietta — staying on the phone with the killer for an hour and boldly calling him by name — who helped force a confession from serial killer David Meirhofer, who died by suicide hours later [2] — Ashley Flowers "When agents lost track of Meirhofer and the phone rang at the Jaeger house, Marietta didn't flinch. She answered, accepted the collect call…" 43:35 .
In the summer of 1973, the Jaeger family wakes at a Montana campground to every parent's nightmare: their young daughter Susie is gone. The case finally breaks when a determined mother joins forces with the FBI's newly formed behavioral profiling unit, uncovering the truth about serial killer David Meirhofer.
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Ashley Flowers sets the scene — a Montana mountain landscape hiding a little-known serial killer who evaded capture for years despite brazen crimes. She frames the case around two forces that would ultimately break it open: a mother's unstoppable determination and the FBI's newly forming criminal profiling unit, something almost nobody had heard of at the time. The listener is told from the outset that this is a foundational case in the history of behavioral science and law enforcement — a high-stakes story that helped turn profiling from 'hooey' into a respected investigative tool.
In the earliest hours of June 25, 1973, 12-year-old Heidi Jaeger wakes up to a breeze she shouldn't be feeling inside the tent — and discovers her little sister Susie is gone, the back of the tent sliced open. The Jaeger family, in Montana on a month-long road trip from Michigan with four kids, grandparents, and a camper, wakes one by one to help search. A footpath in the dewy grass and a rock with reddish-brown stains are the only clues. As the search grows and light breaks, a chilling coincidence surfaces: volunteers whisper that a Boy Scout, 12-year-old Michael Raney, was stabbed in his tent at the very same state park in 1968 — and that case was never solved. The FBI and sheriff's office set up a command center, widen the search to rivers, dumps, and neighboring towns, and dispatch officers to the Jaeger home in Michigan. Nothing is found.
Five days after Susie's disappearance, the FBI's Denver office receives a call from a man claiming to be the kidnapper and demanding $25,000 — then hanging up. Two days later, the same man calls Deputy Ron Brown's home at 11:16 PM, raising the demand to $50,000 and directing the money to a Denver bus depot. To prove he has Susie, he describes a barely visible quirk in her index fingernails — a congenital detail so minor her own parents had forgotten to mention it to police. Authorities scramble to set up surveillance and gather dummy bills, but the kidnapper never appears at the drop point. Around the same time, 20-year-old nurse Donna Lemon goes missing 30 miles away; her body is later found in Idaho, and while locals wonder about a connection, investigators keep the cases separate and focused on finding Susie.
As summer fades with no solid leads, the Jaegers — who have been living at the campground, sustained by kind locals — face the heartbreaking drive back to Michigan with one child missing. Marietta barely leaves the house; the phone has become her post. When she slips out for just 10 minutes to pick up her youngest son from catechism class, the kidnapper calls. Her 16-year-old son Dan presses record before answering. The two-minute recording — now lost, but preserved as a transcript — shows the kidnapper stringing the family along. He again references Susie's fingernails to prove himself, then tells Dan they'll be contacted again in 'a week, a month, maybe two months.' It is sustained, deliberate cruelty dressed up as ambiguity.
The FBI lab results come back a dead end: no fingerprints, blood samples unsuitable for further testing, and hair consistent only with Susie's own. The case limps through the winter holidays, and by early 1974, Susie's investigation has no active leads. Then in February, Sandy Dykeman — a 19-year-old waitress in Manhattan, Montana — disappears, her small white car missing too. When deputies fan out across the county, they stumble onto an abandoned ranch with a bloody whip, melted candle wax, a nailed-shut closet full of feces, and Sandy's car hidden under hay. And then, in a burn pile, they find over 1,000 bone fragments. Forensic experts determine the remains belong to at least two people — including a girl aged 5 to 8. Susie.
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David Meirhofer is a 20-something Manhattan, Montana native — Boy Scout, Marine veteran, self-employed carpenter — who is curious, cooperative, and slightly irritating in his eagerness to help. He appears in Susie's case early on as a local worth a look, and in Sandy's case for two reasons: he turned in a woman's red blouse he 'found' near the ranch, and Sandy had turned him down for a second date. Investigators visit his warehouse, a half-block from Sandy's apartment, and he agrees to a polygraph. He passes. The agents move on, but there's nowhere much to move on to.
Attending routine FBI training at Quantico in the spring of 1974, Agent Dunbar wanders into a session run by agents with psychology backgrounds who are developing a then-radical idea: that a crime scene encodes information about who committed it. With nothing to lose, Dunbar asks them to look at Sandy and Susie's cases. The resulting profile is eerily precise — a white man in his 20s, local, military background, unmarried, physically fit, a loner who likely kept souvenirs from his victims and would insert himself into the investigation. But local investigators are skeptical; polygraphs are the known science, and Meirhofer passed one. The profilers push further: they predict the killer will call the Jaeger family again, and they think it will be on a significant date. Agents prepare Marietta for the one-year anniversary.
June 25, 1974. Exactly one year to the minute after Susie was taken, the kidnapper calls Marietta. She is prepared. For a full hour, Marietta sobbed, pleaded, negotiated, and called his bluff — at one point demanding proof that Susie was still alive, which he could not provide (claiming he'd used 'psychotherapy to wipe her memory'). She asked how he knew Susie was even in the tent; he said he had been lurking, heard the sisters talking, waited for them to sleep, and then took her. She told him no court would force a child to testify, removing his stated reason for not returning Susie. The kidnapper even became emotional on the phone. No trace was successful — but a few days later, a Montana rancher's disputed phone bill would hand investigators the break they needed.
A Montana rancher disputing a mysterious 3:25 AM phone call to the Jaeger house inadvertently hands investigators their biggest break: the call was placed from a phone line adjacent to the very ranch where Susie and Sandy's remains were found. And tire tracks in the soil match the specific Goodyear tires on Meirhofer's truck. Agent Dunbar visits Meirhofer again and convinces him to submit to a second polygraph — this time administered with truth serum. He passes again. Local investigators are once again tempted to move on. But FBI profilers deliver a blunt warning: true psychopaths can pass any test on any day. They push Dunbar to stay the course.
Agents search Meirhofer's property and find a damning cache: bloodstained sheets, a necklace, lipstick, a girl's blouse, newspaper clippings about the very investigations he's central to, and — most chilling — a hand-drawn map of Camp Silver Cloud, the site of an earlier attempted strangulation. A to-do list labeled 'Things to do today' itemizes camp access routes with a checkmark beside Silver Cloud. A newspaper photo of 5-year-old Karen Smith, cut out from a fishing story, identifies what appears to be his next planned target; the FBI immediately assigns her a round-the-clock bodyguard who sleeps on her family's couch. But Meirhofer talks his way out of all of it, and investigators don't feel they have an airtight case. The voice lineup with Marietta and Bill — who separately identify Meirhofer's voice — and a face-to-face meeting in Montana still aren't enough for an arrest. He walks free.
FBI surveillance briefly loses Meirhofer — and the moment they do, the phone rings at the Jaeger home. Marietta answers and goes straight to it: 'Hello, David.' He tries to deny knowing who she means; she tells him she sat across a table from him. During the call, a small girl's voice comes on the line, claiming he is 'nice.' Marietta recognizes immediately that the voice is not Susie's. The call triggers a law enforcement swarm on Manhattan, Montana, but Meirhofer has vanished. When he calmly reappears 18 hours later claiming he never went anywhere, investigators find a receipt from a Salt Lake City motel in his pocket — the location of the final call. The county prosecutor has seen enough. An arrest warrant is issued.
Investigators return to Meirhofer's property for a second, deeper search. In the freezer, tucked among deer meat and frozen dinners, is a package wrapped in butcher paper labeled 'SMDS.' Inside: Sandy Dykeman's severed hand. Meirhofer has no answer for this. He tells his lawyer he will confess to killing Sandy and Susie — and in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty, he will reveal two more murders. On September 29, 1974, he sits down with Agent Dunbar and the county attorney. He admits to abducting Susie from her tent, strangling her when she fought back during assault, dismembering her, and burning her remains — leaving only her head in an outhouse they had never searched. He confesses to Sandy's murder in similar terms. Then he adds the Boy Scout stabbing from 1968 and the 1967 death of teenage Bernie Pullman, previously ruled an accidental shooting.
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.
Ashley wraps up by placing the case in historical context: the FBI's profiling predictions were so accurate they forced the hand of skeptical local investigators, paving the way for behavioral science to become a serious tool in criminal investigations. The case is now considered one of profiling's founding moments. And then there is Marietta Jaeger — a woman who planned a family camping trip worrying about bears and snakes, and who instead encountered a predator of a different kind. She kept a killer on the phone for an hour, called him by name, and faced him across a table. In the end, she forgave him. She became a vocal advocate for forgiveness and an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. The episode closes with source information and an Instagram follow prompt.
Ashley Flowers closes the episode by pointing listeners to crimejunkie.com for all source material and inviting them to follow the show at @crimejunkiepodcast on Instagram. The show is signed off as an Audiochuck production.
Chapter 2 · 01:21
Ashley Flowers sets the scene — a Montana mountain landscape hiding a little-known serial killer who evaded capture for years despite brazen crimes. She frames the case around two forces that would ultimately break it open: a mother's unstoppable determination and the FBI's newly forming criminal profiling unit, something almost nobody had heard of at the time. The listener is told from the outset that this is a foundational case in the history of behavioral science and law enforcement — a high-stakes story that helped turn profiling from 'hooey' into a respected investigative tool.
Susie Jaeger was snatched from inside a family tent in Montana at roughly 1:30 AM. Someone cut through the back of the tent while four children slept inside, leaving only stuffed animals and a footpath in the dew.
Susie Jaeger was just 7 years old when she was abducted through a sliced tent at a Montana campground in June 1973.
Chapter 3 · 03:20
In the earliest hours of June 25, 1973, 12-year-old Heidi Jaeger wakes up to a breeze she shouldn't be feeling inside the tent — and discovers her little sister Susie is gone, the back of the tent sliced open. The Jaeger family, in Montana on a month-long road trip from Michigan with four kids, grandparents, and a camper, wakes one by one to help search. A footpath in the dewy grass and a rock with reddish-brown stains are the only clues. As the search grows and light breaks, a chilling coincidence surfaces: volunteers whisper that a Boy Scout, 12-year-old Michael Raney, was stabbed in his tent at the very same state park in 1968 — and that case was never solved. The FBI and sheriff's office set up a command center, widen the search to rivers, dumps, and neighboring towns, and dispatch officers to the Jaeger home in Michigan. Nothing is found.
Claims made here
12-year-old Michael Raney was stabbed in his tent at the same Montana state park in May 1968, five years before Susie Jaeger's abduction, and that case was never solved.
Five years before Susie was taken, 12-year-old Boy Scout Michael Raney was stabbed in his tent at the very same Montana state park. That case was never solved — and now the same spot had claimed another child.
Five years before Susie's disappearance, 12-year-old Boy Scout Michael Raney was stabbed in his tent at the exact same Montana state park, a case that was never solved.
Chapter 4 · 09:20
Five days after Susie's disappearance, the FBI's Denver office receives a call from a man claiming to be the kidnapper and demanding $25,000 — then hanging up. Two days later, the same man calls Deputy Ron Brown's home at 11:16 PM, raising the demand to $50,000 and directing the money to a Denver bus depot. To prove he has Susie, he describes a barely visible quirk in her index fingernails — a congenital detail so minor her own parents had forgotten to mention it to police. Authorities scramble to set up surveillance and gather dummy bills, but the kidnapper never appears at the drop point. Around the same time, 20-year-old nurse Donna Lemon goes missing 30 miles away; her body is later found in Idaho, and while locals wonder about a connection, investigators keep the cases separate and focused on finding Susie.
Claims made here
The kidnapper proved his identity by accurately describing that Susie Jaeger had slightly humped index fingernails — a congenital detail not included in any missing-person bulletin.
The kidnapper initially demanded $25,000 but raised the ransom to $50,000 in a follow-up call, providing details about Susie's deformed fingernails to prove he had her.
To prove he was the real kidnapper, the caller described a barely-noticeable physical quirk about Susie's fingernails — one her own parents hadn't thought to include in any missing-person bulletin. No random stranger would know that.
Chapter 5 · 14:40
As summer fades with no solid leads, the Jaegers — who have been living at the campground, sustained by kind locals — face the heartbreaking drive back to Michigan with one child missing. Marietta barely leaves the house; the phone has become her post. When she slips out for just 10 minutes to pick up her youngest son from catechism class, the kidnapper calls. Her 16-year-old son Dan presses record before answering. The two-minute recording — now lost, but preserved as a transcript — shows the kidnapper stringing the family along. He again references Susie's fingernails to prove himself, then tells Dan they'll be contacted again in 'a week, a month, maybe two months.' It is sustained, deliberate cruelty dressed up as ambiguity.
Claims made here
FBI agents traced the September 1973 ransom call to a payphone at a gas station diner near Cheyenne, Wyoming, but could not obtain usable fingerprints because many people had used the phone.
When Marietta stepped out for 10 minutes, the kidnapper called. Her 16-year-old son Dan hit record before answering. The two-minute call — now only a transcript — shows the killer stringing the family along with vague promises of contact 'in a month or two.'
Chapter 6 · 20:30
The FBI lab results come back a dead end: no fingerprints, blood samples unsuitable for further testing, and hair consistent only with Susie's own. The case limps through the winter holidays, and by early 1974, Susie's investigation has no active leads. Then in February, Sandy Dykeman — a 19-year-old waitress in Manhattan, Montana — disappears, her small white car missing too. When deputies fan out across the county, they stumble onto an abandoned ranch with a bloody whip, melted candle wax, a nailed-shut closet full of feces, and Sandy's car hidden under hay. And then, in a burn pile, they find over 1,000 bone fragments. Forensic experts determine the remains belong to at least two people — including a girl aged 5 to 8. Susie.
Claims made here
Forensic experts determined that bone fragments found at an abandoned Montana ranch belonged to at least two people, including a girl between the ages of 5 and 8.
A search for missing 19-year-old Sandy Dykeman led deputies to an abandoned ranch where they found her car hidden under hay — and over 1,000 bone fragments in a burn pile. Forensic experts determined the remains belonged to at least two people, including a girl aged 5 to 8.
Investigators collected over 1,000 pieces of bone fragments at an abandoned Montana ranch, which were later determined to belong to at least two victims.
Forensic experts confirmed that bone fragments found at the abandoned ranch belonged to at least two people — Sandy Dykeman and a girl between 5 and 8 years old, consistent with Susie Jaeger.
Chapter 9 · 30:00
Attending routine FBI training at Quantico in the spring of 1974, Agent Dunbar wanders into a session run by agents with psychology backgrounds who are developing a then-radical idea: that a crime scene encodes information about who committed it. With nothing to lose, Dunbar asks them to look at Sandy and Susie's cases. The resulting profile is eerily precise — a white man in his 20s, local, military background, unmarried, physically fit, a loner who likely kept souvenirs from his victims and would insert himself into the investigation. But local investigators are skeptical; polygraphs are the known science, and Meirhofer passed one. The profilers push further: they predict the killer will call the Jaeger family again, and they think it will be on a significant date. Agents prepare Marietta for the one-year anniversary.
Claims made here
FBI behavioral profilers predicted the Jaeger kidnapper was a white male in his 20s, a loner, unmarried, with military experience, who was physically fit, likely had killed before, and would insert himself into the investigation.
FBI profilers predicted the killer would call the Jaeger family again on a significant date, leading agents to prepare Marietta for an anniversary call.
FBI agents with psychology backgrounds sketched a profile of the killer: white male in his 20s, local, military experience, loner, likely kept souvenirs, and would insert himself into the investigation. They also predicted he would call again on a significant date. Every box pointed to David Meirhofer.
FBI behavioral profilers concluded that Susie Jaeger was likely murdered within two days of her abduction, despite the kidnapper maintaining for a year that she was alive.
FBI behavioral profilers predicted the killer would call the Jaeger family again on a significant date, specifically warning of a call around the one-year anniversary of Susie's abduction.
On the one-year anniversary of Susie's abduction, Marietta Jaeger kept the kidnapper on the phone for a full hour, negotiating and pleading for her daughter's return.
Chapter 10 · 33:23
June 25, 1974. Exactly one year to the minute after Susie was taken, the kidnapper calls Marietta. She is prepared. For a full hour, Marietta sobbed, pleaded, negotiated, and called his bluff — at one point demanding proof that Susie was still alive, which he could not provide (claiming he'd used 'psychotherapy to wipe her memory'). She asked how he knew Susie was even in the tent; he said he had been lurking, heard the sisters talking, waited for them to sleep, and then took her. She told him no court would force a child to testify, removing his stated reason for not returning Susie. The kidnapper even became emotional on the phone. No trace was successful — but a few days later, a Montana rancher's disputed phone bill would hand investigators the break they needed.
On the exact one-year anniversary of Susie's kidnapping, the killer called Marietta. She kept him on the phone for a full hour — sobbing, negotiating, calling his bluffs — even telling him no court would force a child to testify against him. It was a masterclass in keeping calm under the most unimaginable pressure.
A Montana rancher noticed a mysterious hour-long call on his bill made at 3:25 AM and went to dispute it. A phone company employee recognized the Jaeger name as the recipient and called police. Investigators then traced distinctive Goodyear tire tracks near a tapped phone line to Meirhofer's truck.
Chapter 11 · 35:35
A Montana rancher disputing a mysterious 3:25 AM phone call to the Jaeger house inadvertently hands investigators their biggest break: the call was placed from a phone line adjacent to the very ranch where Susie and Sandy's remains were found. And tire tracks in the soil match the specific Goodyear tires on Meirhofer's truck. Agent Dunbar visits Meirhofer again and convinces him to submit to a second polygraph — this time administered with truth serum. He passes again. Local investigators are once again tempted to move on. But FBI profilers deliver a blunt warning: true psychopaths can pass any test on any day. They push Dunbar to stay the course.
Claims made here
A Montana rancher identified Goodyear tire tracks near a tapped phone line that matched the specific tires on David Meirhofer's truck.
David Meirhofer tapped into a neighboring rancher's phone line using telecom skills from his military service to make the one-year-anniversary call to the Jaeger family.
David Meirhofer passed two polygraph tests — including one administered under truth serum — before finally being arrested.
A rancher's observation of distinctive Goodyear tire tracks on his property led investigators to identify Meirhofer's truck as likely having been used to tap into the rancher's phone line for the anniversary call.
David Meirhofer passed two separate polygraph tests — including one administered with truth serum — leading local investigators to repeatedly dismiss him as a suspect.
Chapter 12 · 39:20
Agents search Meirhofer's property and find a damning cache: bloodstained sheets, a necklace, lipstick, a girl's blouse, newspaper clippings about the very investigations he's central to, and — most chilling — a hand-drawn map of Camp Silver Cloud, the site of an earlier attempted strangulation. A to-do list labeled 'Things to do today' itemizes camp access routes with a checkmark beside Silver Cloud. A newspaper photo of 5-year-old Karen Smith, cut out from a fishing story, identifies what appears to be his next planned target; the FBI immediately assigns her a round-the-clock bodyguard who sleeps on her family's couch. But Meirhofer talks his way out of all of it, and investigators don't feel they have an airtight case. The voice lineup with Marietta and Bill — who separately identify Meirhofer's voice — and a face-to-face meeting in Montana still aren't enough for an arrest. He walks free.
Searching Meirhofer's property, investigators found bloody sheets, a little girl's blouse, a necklace, lipstick, a newspaper clipping of a target child, and a written to-do list of girl scout camps with checkmarks. He talked his way out of all of it. His arrogance was total — he seemed to feel untouchable.
After investigators found a newspaper clipping of 5-year-old Karen Smith in Meirhofer's possession alongside a marked-off camp to-do list, the FBI assigned an agent as her around-the-clock bodyguard.
Chapter 13 · 43:35
FBI surveillance briefly loses Meirhofer — and the moment they do, the phone rings at the Jaeger home. Marietta answers and goes straight to it: 'Hello, David.' He tries to deny knowing who she means; she tells him she sat across a table from him. During the call, a small girl's voice comes on the line, claiming he is 'nice.' Marietta recognizes immediately that the voice is not Susie's. The call triggers a law enforcement swarm on Manhattan, Montana, but Meirhofer has vanished. When he calmly reappears 18 hours later claiming he never went anywhere, investigators find a receipt from a Salt Lake City motel in his pocket — the location of the final call. The county prosecutor has seen enough. An arrest warrant is issued.
When agents lost track of Meirhofer and the phone rang at the Jaeger house, Marietta didn't flinch. She answered, accepted the collect call, and said 'Hello, David.' He tried to play dumb. She told him she had sat across from him. Within 18 hours of going on the run, he reappeared — with a motel receipt from Salt Lake City in his pocket.
Chapter 14 · 47:40
Investigators return to Meirhofer's property for a second, deeper search. In the freezer, tucked among deer meat and frozen dinners, is a package wrapped in butcher paper labeled 'SMDS.' Inside: Sandy Dykeman's severed hand. Meirhofer has no answer for this. He tells his lawyer he will confess to killing Sandy and Susie — and in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty, he will reveal two more murders. On September 29, 1974, he sits down with Agent Dunbar and the county attorney. He admits to abducting Susie from her tent, strangling her when she fought back during assault, dismembering her, and burning her remains — leaving only her head in an outhouse they had never searched. He confesses to Sandy's murder in similar terms. Then he adds the Boy Scout stabbing from 1968 and the 1967 death of teenage Bernie Pullman, previously ruled an accidental shooting.
Claims made here
Investigators found Sandy Dykeman's severed hand, with nail polish still on the fingers, wrapped in butcher paper labeled with her initials in David Meirhofer's freezer.
David Meirhofer confessed to four murders on September 29, 1974: Susie Jaeger, Sandy Dykeman, Michael Raney, and Bernie Pullman.
Bernie Pullman's 1967 death had been ruled an accident — possibly a stray hunting bullet — before Meirhofer confessed to shooting him while still a high school senior.
Hidden among ordinary freezer items — deer, elk, frozen dinners — was a butcher-paper package labeled 'SMDS.' Inside: Sandy Dykeman's severed hand, fingers still wearing nail polish. There was no talking out of this one.
Investigators discovered Sandy Dykeman's severed hand — fingers still bearing nail polish — wrapped in butcher paper labeled with initials in Meirhofer's freezer.
Meirhofer agreed to confess to killing Susie Jaeger and Sandy Dykeman — and offered two additional confessions in exchange for no death penalty. His victims spanned from 1967 (teenager Bernie Pullman) to 1973, and included the 1968 Boy Scout stabbing that had been cold for six years.
David Meirhofer confessed to four murders: Susie Jaeger (age 7), Sandy Dykeman (age 19), Michael Raney (Boy Scout, age 12), and Bernie Pullman (a teenager, 1967).
Chapter 15 · 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.
Claims made here
David Meirhofer died by suicide in his jail cell just hours after making his four-murder confession on September 29, 1974.
Items found at Meirhofer's home — including a blouse, necklace, and lipstick — were shown to the families of Susie Jaeger and Sandy Dykeman, who confirmed the items did not belong to their daughters, suggesting additional unidentified victims.
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.
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.
Chapter 16 · 56:20
Ashley wraps up by placing the case in historical context: the FBI's profiling predictions were so accurate they forced the hand of skeptical local investigators, paving the way for behavioral science to become a serious tool in criminal investigations. The case is now considered one of profiling's founding moments. And then there is Marietta Jaeger — a woman who planned a family camping trip worrying about bears and snakes, and who instead encountered a predator of a different kind. She kept a killer on the phone for an hour, called him by name, and faced him across a table. In the end, she forgave him. She became a vocal advocate for forgiveness and an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. The episode closes with source information and an Instagram follow prompt.
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.
No indexed bits in this chapter.
When agents lost track of Meirhofer and the phone rang at the Jaeger house, Marietta didn't flinch. She answered, accepted the collect call, and said 'Hello, David.' He tried to play dumb. She told him she had sat across from him. Within 18 hours of going on the run, he reappeared — with a motel receipt from Salt Lake City in his pocket.
FBI agents with psychology backgrounds sketched a profile of the killer: white male in his 20s, local, military experience, loner, likely kept souvenirs, and would insert himself into the investigation. They also predicted he would call again on a significant date. Every box pointed to David Meirhofer.
On the exact one-year anniversary of Susie's kidnapping, the killer called Marietta. She kept him on the phone for a full hour — sobbing, negotiating, calling his bluffs — even telling him no court would force a child to testify against him. It was a masterclass in keeping calm under the most unimaginable pressure.
This episode
7-year-old girl abducted from a Montana campsite in June 1973 and murdered by David Meirhofer; her case became central to the early development of FBI criminal profiling.
Serial killer who abducted and murdered Susie Jaeger, Sandy Dykeman, Michael Raney, and Bernie Pullman in Montana in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Mother of Susie Jaeger who kept the kidnapper on the phone for an hour on the one-year anniversary of the abduction, helped identify Meirhofer, and later became an advocate for forgiveness.
19-year-old Manhattan, Montana resident murdered by David Meirhofer in February 1974; her remains were found at the same abandoned ranch as Susie Jaeger's.
FBI Special Agent based in Bozeman, Montana who led the investigation into Susie Jaeger's disappearance and ultimately brought Meirhofer to confession.
12-year-old Boy Scout stabbed in his tent at the same Montana state park in 1968 — a case that went cold until Meirhofer confessed to it in 1974.
20-year-old nurse who disappeared 10 days after Susie Jaeger and 30 miles from the campground; her body was found in Idaho and her connection to Meirhofer remains unconfirmed.
Teenager shot on a bridge in Manhattan, Montana in 1967; his death was ruled an accident until Meirhofer confessed to shooting him.
A 5-year-old girl photographed fishing with her father; Meirhofer cut out the newspaper photo and marked her as a potential target, prompting the FBI to assign her a bodyguard.
Author of 'Shadow Man,' a book about the David Meirhofer case; interviewed for this episode and cautioned against applying logic to a psychopath's actions.
The FBI coordinated the investigation into Susie Jaeger's kidnapping and deployed its newly formed behavioral profiling unit to build a psychological profile of the killer.
Local law enforcement agency that responded to Susie Jaeger's disappearance and worked alongside the FBI on the Meirhofer investigation.
The setting of all four of Meirhofer's confirmed murders and the campground abduction of Susie Jaeger.
Small Montana town where David Meirhofer lived and worked, and where several of his victims or their connections were located.
A girl scout camp marked off on Meirhofer's handwritten to-do list; the site of an attempted strangulation of two girls that was never officially linked to him during his lifetime.
Stats
This episode
Factual claims made this episode, and whether a source was named.
12-year-old Michael Raney was stabbed in his tent at the same Montana state park in May 1968, five years before Susie Jaeger's abduction, and that case was never solved.
The kidnapper proved his identity by accurately describing that Susie Jaeger had slightly humped index fingernails — a congenital detail not included in any missing-person bulletin.
FBI agents traced the September 1973 ransom call to a payphone at a gas station diner near Cheyenne, Wyoming, but could not obtain usable fingerprints because many people had used the phone.
Forensic experts determined that bone fragments found at an abandoned Montana ranch belonged to at least two people, including a girl between the ages of 5 and 8.
FBI behavioral profilers predicted the Jaeger kidnapper was a white male in his 20s, a loner, unmarried, with military experience, who was physically fit, likely had killed before, and would insert himself into the investigation.
FBI profilers predicted the killer would call the Jaeger family again on a significant date, leading agents to prepare Marietta for an anniversary call.
David Meirhofer tapped into a neighboring rancher's phone line using telecom skills from his military service to make the one-year-anniversary call to the Jaeger family.
A Montana rancher identified Goodyear tire tracks near a tapped phone line that matched the specific tires on David Meirhofer's truck.
David Meirhofer passed two polygraph tests — including one administered under truth serum — before finally being arrested.
Investigators found Sandy Dykeman's severed hand, with nail polish still on the fingers, wrapped in butcher paper labeled with her initials in David Meirhofer's freezer.
David Meirhofer confessed to four murders on September 29, 1974: Susie Jaeger, Sandy Dykeman, Michael Raney, and Bernie Pullman.
Bernie Pullman's 1967 death had been ruled an accident — possibly a stray hunting bullet — before Meirhofer confessed to shooting him while still a high school senior.
Items found at Meirhofer's home — including a blouse, necklace, and lipstick — were shown to the families of Susie Jaeger and Sandy Dykeman, who confirmed the items did not belong to their daughters, suggesting additional unidentified victims.
David Meirhofer died by suicide in his jail cell just hours after making his four-murder confession on September 29, 1974.
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