[Snyder] Uh, she was frozen solid.
-[camera shutter] -Shot in the back of the head.
[Edgeworth] Everybody is a suspect.
I mean, who would do this?
It was very obvious that he was covering up something.
[Deeter] There was binding marks on her wrist.
I said, "Oh my god.
It looks exactly like handcuffs."
I'm Sheriff Gary McFadden.
I was a homicide detective for 20 years.
I've worked more than 800 homicides in my career.
But even for the most dedicated detective,
there's no one harder to stop
than a killer with a badge.
[Tatar] A call came in from a taxicab dispatcher,
of a alleged robbery that was going on
at the University of Toledo.
[Snyder] And the caller said there was an incident going on,
and there'd been some shots fired.
[gunshots]
[Snyder] The 911 dispatcher calls in the police crews
from the University of Toledo.
University officers found no cab driver in distress.
They decided that they were gonna go back
to look around a little bit more,
in the wooded area there.
They shined their spotlights out into a field.
And there's a body out there.
Was a white female.
Uh, she was frozen solid.
Her face was right down into the snow.
[Cousino] The victim was found behind the building,
lying in a prone position.
Her hands were straight down at her sides,
with her palms up.
I thought that was kind of unusual,
because that's not how you fall, usually.
She was wearing a blue sweater,
her pants were partly pulled down,
and her midsection was exposed.
I could see gunshot wounds
in the part of her skin that was exposed.
[Snyder] She had some gunshot wounds
into the back of her head, also.
[McFadden] The first thing you're going to think, it's sexual assault.
So, a lot of things go into play.
You have to be careful
of how you process the crime scene,
even walking on the crime scene.
Because we're always gonna look for fibers
or things that are left by the suspect,
but it heightens it,
only because it's a sexual assault.
[Snyder] There was no identification.
But the university police had a, uh, missing persons report on her
that had been filed by her roommate that evening.
[Tatar] She was identified as Melissa Herstrum,
a 19-year-old sophomore.
A member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority.
[Edgeworth] Melissa stood out.
She was absolutely beautiful,
with that long, curly, dark hair.
Probably one of the biggest things,
and I remember this well
because so many of the other students would talk about it,
was Melissa and her lipstick.
It was a pinkish red,
that just, her lips popped.
She had a smile that lit up a room.
The sorority knew Melissa
didn't come to meeting on Sunday night.
So they're talking back and forth, trying to find her.
[Snyder] I came into work the next morning
and was notified of the crime scene situation.
I was trained in the, uh, scientific investigations unit.
And I recruited officers for the unit,
trained them, and put together
one of the best crime scene units in the country.
Once we got daylight, I said,
we need to go out, back over the scene.
There was shell casings all over.
Some of the bullets had passed through her body,
into the frozen ground,
so we decided to excavate the ground.
We found a couple of the slugs.
We made note of one of the slugs,
which was sheared off.
It actually looked like it had been cut,
right in half.
Also at the crime scene, in the dumpster,
a set of keys were found.
They were to a Ford Taurus.
The officers found a '91 Ford Taurus.
Her car was found abandoned, a half-mile away,
in a parking lot.
[McFadden] When the detectives found her car,
that is point A.
Point B is where the key is found.
Point C is where she was found.
Determining how A, B and C come together,
that's gonna be up to the detectives.
[Deeter] She was removed by the coroner's office,
and taken for autopsy later that morning.
I was there to photograph at the autopsy,
and collect evidence.
[narrator] According to the autopsy,
Melissa was shot 14 times
with a 9mm gun.
[Snyder] She was shot in the back of the head. Fell onto the ground.
And then the suspect empties his gun into her body.
Shooting her in the back,
all the way down through her legs.
Very brutal.
It's an overkill situation.
The pathologist ruled out the possibility
that she had been sexually assaulted.
There's no sign that she'd had any forced sexual intercourse,
but she, you know, obviously, it was a sex crime.
Uh, she apparently had been touched by whoever had done this.
The pathologist also confirmed through toxicology
there was no alcohol or any drugs in her system.
She was completely sober when this all transpired.
There was actually some ligature marks,
or binding marks on her wrists,
that were signs that she'd been bound at one point.
[Deeter] I was at the scene, and I'd seen the mark, it wasn't clicking.
But when I seen 'em at the autopsy,
I said, "Oh my god.
It looks exactly like handcuffs."
[McFadden] You have to ask the question,
who would use handcuffs?
First one? Law enforcement.
Second one? Someone impersonating law enforcement.
Handcuffs are mainly used for control,
so the person that you're looking for,
is a person who wants ultimate control over their victims.
I remember thinking, everybody is a suspect.
Who would do this?
Who would take a beautiful 19-year-old young lady,
and take her to a remote part of campus?
Everybody had a theory.
[McFadden] The word on campus is gonna spread very quickly.
And I guarantee you, everybody's gonna know this
within the hour.
[narrator] The campus is even more on edge
because one of the women's dorms, MacKinnon Hall,
was terrorized shortly before Melissa's murder.
[Snyder] Shots had been fired through the windows.
I think six shots were fired through.
[gunshots]
[Snyder] The projectiles were 9mm bullets,
and they were dug out of the walls.
[Cousino] The shooting and then this homicide,
being close together and being so unusual
for the University of Toledo,
had to be related.
Those kind of things didn't happen there.
One of the officers brought me empty shell casings
from MacKinnon Hall.
They looked exactly like what we recovered
at the scene with Melissa Herstrum.
[narrator] Detectives question Melissa's friends
about the night she went missing.
[Edgeworth] Melissa had been out with some of her sorority sisters,
and she decided to go home.
She got a phone call from someone.
They said that JR,
who was her boyfriend at the time,
was out with someone else.
Melissa probably got angry
and wanted to go to the parking lot
adjacent to where JR lived.
From that parking lot, she could easily have seen
when JR was getting home,
or anything that was going on there.
That was what I think led some people to think
he had something to do with it.
Jealousy is a motive a lot of the times in homicide.
A lot of times, the homicide investigation starts there.
With the people who are closest to the victim.
You have a lot of emotions in the case.
You have a cheating boyfriend.
And you know she went to look for him.
So the detectives need to find this boyfriend,
and they need to find him fast.
[Tatar] Melissa was a nursing student.
She was very popular, very well-liked,
had no issues with anybody.
[Edgeworth] She had so much she wanted to give to the world.
She was stopped from being able to do all of that,
in a senseless manner.
When we actually told the sorority,
I vividly remember young ladies screaming.
Lots of why's.
Lots of who's.
How?
Who would do this? How would this happen?
Just none of it made any sense.
Some girls immediately called their parents.
Parents came and picked them up. Took them home.
There were 30 young ladies who lived in that house.
Did they feel safe staying there?
[narrator] Melissa's friends worry they're in danger.
But investigators believe
the killing may have been personal.
Because of the brutal nature of the crime,
fourteen shots that were fired into Melissa.
This looked like a crime that may have happened
in a fit of rage.
Every homicide case has personal drama.
In this case, you've got a cheating boyfriend.
That will be suspect number one.
How much is JR involved with this,
and does he want to shut the victim up?
You also need to find out if JR
is taking criminal justice classes,
to become a cop.
Remember, handcuffs were used.
He's on campus.
We need to know what his major is.
[Snyder] According to her current boyfriend, JR,
he's with another girl.
They're over at his place,
and, uh, nobody ever hears from Melissa again.
[narrator] When investigators speak with JR,
they discover that Melissa's love life
was more complicated.
[Snyder] She's got a boyfriend.
She's got an ex-boyfriend.
And there, there's sort of a love triangle going on,
and she's trying to keep it, uh,
unbeknownst to her former lover
that she's got a new lover.
It's pretty complex.
Melissa and her current boyfriend, JR, were trying to hide it
from her former boyfriend, Kenny.
Kenny was known to have a very violent temper.
Fighting in bars,
and punching holes in the wall,
things of that nature. Threats made.
Kenny didn't know that JR
and Melissa had started dating.
So there was a lot of concern about,
what would he do if he found out?
[McFadden] So now we have a cheating boyfriend,
and we have an angry ex-boyfriend.
Sounds like a soap opera.
Like sands through the hourglass,
these are the suspects in our homicide.
[narrator] Detectives bring both young men in for questioning.
Neither seems to be involved.
[Snyder] They both took a polygraph.
They were pretty clean about what had happened.
They're all locked in with pretty good alibis,
and, uh, were not involved in the homicide whatsoever.
So we're able to eliminate them.
[Edgeworth] Police cleared JR and Kenny.
But it wasn't solved, so it didn't give anyone any peace of mind.
It was just that, okay, that one's not on the table,
so who's next?
[McFadden] Usually, it's a boyfriend on a college campus.
But when both boyfriends are ruled out,
now you have more panic,
because it could be just a random killing.
This is gonna bring out fear at every level.
If a trash can is turned over, that's gonna breed fear.
A car broken into? That's gonna be fear.
Everybody believes that there's a boogeyman on campus.
[narrator] Detectives exploring their next move
realize there may be similarities
to recent serial killers.
[news anchor] In Los Angeles,
a killer the police are calling
the Hillside Strangler,
has murdered 10 young women
and left their bodies on the hillsides
along the highway.
[Snyder] Sometimes with serial killers,
they'll use handcuffs.
They'll impersonate police officers.
It's very common.
Put a red light on their car,
pull over people, stop vehicles.
The victim is abducted,
taken to a comfort zone,
then murdered.
This was always on the back of my mind.
Maybe we had a serial killer here.
[Edgeworth] For the first time in my life,
I was scared to go to the University of Toledo.
I remember looking all different directions,
in an area that I was, normally felt very safe,
and didn't think twice about.
[Snyder] It was a total panic on campus.
'Cause all the girls were afraid.
In the girls dorm, they were all petrified.
They were doing personal escorts,
to pick these girls up, take them to their classes.
[Cousino] The University of Toledo police officers
were having to do a lot more escorts.
They were getting a lot of reports
about different incidents.
[narrator] The fear on campus grows
in the days after Melissa's murder.
[Edgeworth] Before Melissa's body was found on campus,
there were the shots fired toward MacKinnon Hall,
which was the all-women's dorm.
[gunshots]
[Edgeworth] And then a couple of female students
in the same building reported getting
strange telephone calls.
[phone ringing]
[Edgeworth] That definitely contributed to the fear,
and the, oh my god.
Is there someone out,
after women?
[Tatar] Because of the random nature of this crime,
and no one really knowing who the killer could be,
a lot of these female students felt like
they could be next.
There was this sense that,
the killer was lurking around the corner.
With a crime like this, a college campus
is an easy hunting ground.
Everybody has to still go to class.
Everybody still has to go to work.
These detectives need to catch this killer
before another murder happens
on this college campus.
[narrator] With no clear suspects,
investigators go back to the beginning.
The original call to dispatch
that led to the discovery of Melissa's body.
This initial call came in,
it was a cab driver being robbed by three Black males.
[sirens in distance]
When the University of Toledo police got to the scene,
they didn't find a robbery of a cab driver.
No shots fired. Uh, no shots were heard.
The call was fictitious information.
We did a background search.
The call in that was made into 911,
the caller said they were on a cell phone.
We started looking farther.
They traced that call,
and they told me that
it did not come from a cell phone.
That call came from the Writing Center,
which was out at Scott Park Campus.
[Edgeworth] Scott Park Campus was locked on the weekends.
It had to be somebody that had keys to get in there.
The call came back to an area that was secured on campus.
The only way that you can enter to this area
is with a set of keys.
But also, you have to remember,
handcuffs were used.
Who has handcuffs,
and who has keys,
on the secure part of the campus?
The University of Toledo has a police department.
They are not rent-a-cops.
They're actually armed, sworn peace officers,
within the state of Ohio.
[Snyder] The picture of her laying in the field,
with her hands up, the palms up,
that's basic, uh, police 101,
handcuffing procedure, you know?
That the palms are out.
If somebody's hands are behind their back,
if they're handcuffed,
that's how their hands would fall.
It was probably not a serial killer imitating the police.
That looked like real law enforcement.
Hate to think that we've got a brother officer involved in a murder.
Uh, but we can't leave anything unturned.
[McFadden] You have to go back
to the original officers who found the body.
Maybe they forgot to tell you something
that they didn't think was important,
but you do need to go back,
and look for particular things,
and for particular evidence,
that they may have missed,
that's important to this case.
[Edgeworth] They were talking to Joseph Green
and Jeffrey Hodge,
because they found the body.
Joseph Green was the first one to find the body.
Joseph Green was one of my favorite officers.
I used to talk to him all the time.
He just always seemed to be very friendly,
he used to tell silly jokes.
Joe was just a good guy.
[Cousino] I did know Officer Green pretty well.
I knew him from working special events
at the university.
He was a very good guy.
Couldn't say anything bad about him.
This is not the typical, "He wouldn't do that."
This is very heinous, this is...
Only a monster does that.
[narrator] Detectives focus on Green.
As the first officer on the scene,
he wrote the primary police report.
[Snyder] That evening Melissa came up missing,
it had snowed about seven o'clock.
And it was a real wet snow.
And I knew that she had went out that evening
at three o'clock.
So, the snow had to be on the ground
before she got there.
[Cousino] Where the body was located,
there is literally no foot traffic back there.
With all this fresh snow,
I thought there should have been footprints going to the body
and the killer's footprints leaving the body.
[Snyder] Officer Green wrote a report
and he made it very clear that there was no footprints
there at the scene.
[McFadden] Now, we all know when it snows,
you're going to leave footprints
even when you leave a body.
Why is his report inconsistent?
Did he have something to hide
or he was just sleeping on the job?
[Deeter] At the scene, Joseph Green
started talking about how the snow was pristine
and there was no tracks.
Okay, then what are you doing looking around the corner?
What're you gonna find? There's nothing here.
"Oh, and by the way, here's the keys."
"Where did you find these keys, right?"
"We got them out of the trash."
There was something else that Green said.
He says, "When I seen the body,
I knew she was dead."
And I said, "Well, how would that be?"
He said, "Well, I'm involved in a funeral home business,
it's a family business, and I've seen a lot of dead bodies."
Struck me as being, "Oh, this is weird."
The air just wasn't right.
[narrator] Suspicious of Officer Green,
the detectives dig deeper.
We decided to process the cars that the officers were using that night.
We're looking for physical evidence
that would link Melissa to one of the patrol cars.
We were unable to find any fingerprints from her.
But, we were able to find green woolen fiber
that matched Melissa's coat.
Also, we found some long hair in the front seat.
At the time, we couldn't do DNA from hair samples.
But, it did match color and consistency with her hair.
There was some circumstantial evidence.
It couldn't be positive, but it was some good evidence.
Officer Green wrote a inconsistent report
about the crime scene.
Now, the officers and the detectives
had found evidence, hair and fibers,
that looked like things are now stacking up against Officer Green.
At that time, he became a suspect in this investigation.
Detectives were keeping tabs on him, watching him.
We were at his home in-- in the middle of the night,
picking his garbage
to try to find something that will connect him
to this case even farther.
[Snyder] He was so emphatic about no footprints on the scene.
It was very obvious from that report
that he was covering up something.
Oftentime, officer make mistakes in writing a report
or touch something and try to cover it up.
But, in this case,
you have to ask yourself,
"Is this person writing the report our killer?"
[Snyder] It was eventually determined that
we would ask all the law enforcement officers involved
if they would be willing to take a polygraph.
I trained as a polygraph examiner interrogator
for the, uh, scientific investigations unit.
The first officer
uh, that was brought in was Officer Green.
The one that had discrepancies in his police report.
[McFadden] We needed to ask Officer Green
why was his report inconsistent
with the physical evidence on the crime scene.
But, we're also gonna have to ask him
during the polygraph
how did these fibers and hairs,
possibly from the victim, get into the car?
Polygraphs are not definitive,
but it will tell you if there is some deception.
[Snyder] He passed it, uh, with, uh, flying colors.
So, we were able to clear him.
The only thing that bothered me was, uh,
why he was so emphatic about no footprints at the scene.
[Cousino] A lot of times when a police officer sees
a person in distress,
they rush to the person
not thinking about footprints and shoeprints and stuff.
And I-I believe that's what Officer Green did.
[Snyder] And I think he was, uh, persuaded into saying
that there was no footprints on the scene when he wasn't positive,
and made himself a suspect in a murder.
But, that was our prime suspect
and I was-- I was sure that he wasn't involved.
At that point there, we really had nowhere to turn.
Another officer had come in with Green
and uh, that was his partner, Officer Hodge.
Lieutenant asked me, would-- would I be willing to run Hodge through.
"We don't think he's involved,
but uh, you know, we just wanna get him cleared up."
And I said, "For sure, yeah, yeah, I'll do him."
[Lori] Jeffrey Hodge was a young policeman.
He worked, um, a lot of student events.
Prior to becoming a police officer,
he was a 911 operator.
Nice guy, very passionate officer.
Everyone had described him as a very, kind of, cordial
uh, quiet person.
Kind of like a Boy Scout type mentality.
And he was very eager to try
and contribute to the investigation.
[narrator] A couple of officers from Toledo PD
actually saw Officer Hodge before the body was found.
Previous to coming into work that night,
Officer Hodge was at a Super Bowl party
uh, with a bunch of police officers.
Jeff was really nervous.
[Cousino] Hodge was asking about ballistics,
about how long a body can stay
in certain conditions prior to decomposition,
what it's like seeing bodies and stuff like that,
I-I-- it was just weird stuff.
[Snyder] And the TU officer who was hosting the party
had a radio there and he turns on the police radio
and he's listening to all the police calls
and they go, "What're you doing, Jeff?"
He says, "Well, I just wanna hear what's going on
before I go to work."
And everybody thought this was pretty unusual.
[Deeter] Awaiting the results of, uh, Mr. Green's polygraph,
I happen to be talking to Hodge in the detective bureau.
Just chit-chat.
He said how neat it was to see all the girls come running out
at uh, MacKinnon Hall when the fire alarm was pulled,
in their little flimsy, uh, night gown.
Which I thought was kinda strange
and just pretty inappropriate.
He's not talking about the guys
running out the dorm in his boxer shorts.
He's talking about the women running out in their night wear.
And it's the same dorm that got strange phone calls
and also shots fired.
So, it's time now to interview Officer Hodge
to see what else he knows about.
[Snyder] I went in, met Officer Hodge.
Part of the polygraph process is pre-test interview and stuff.
I ask him, like, you know, what-- what's one of the greatest things
ever happened in your life and he told me that was
uh, being a police officer.
Apparently, he had applied in Toledo Highway Patrol,
several other departments and uh,
then eventually got, uh, hired with the university.
And he he said his grandfather had bought him a gun for graduation.
I said, "Well, really? What kind is it?"
Uh, "5906 Smith & Wesson."
The bullet that we recovered at the crime scene,
firearms examiner determined
that it came from a model 5906 Smith & Wesson.
[McFadden] He mentions the make and the model of the gun that he owned.
Just so happens it was the same caliber, make and model
of the gun that was fired on the scene.
That is what we call a silent "Aha" moment.
You can't act it out, but in your body and your soul,
you are saying, "Aha!"
[Deeter] The type of tests that Sergeant Snyder was administering,
peak-of-tension tests,
they ask questions and-and then they react
to the-- the answers that only the suspect would know.
[Snyder] Jeff was at the crime scene.
[indistinct police radio]
[Snyder] He knew what she was wearing,
he knew her--- position of her body,
he knew there was nine millimeter shell casings there at the scene.
So, I had to be creative.
So, I formulated a bunch of questions
and uh, "Do you know, she was bound with rope,
do you know she was bound with wire,
do you know she was bound with panty-hose?"
And one of the questions mixed in was handcuffs.
"Was she bound with handcuffs?"
He hits the handcuffs very hard.
It's-- unbelievable response I get.
Uh, very deceptive.
I'm just, like, shocked, you know,
'cause I-- nobody was even looking at Jeff as a suspect.
Everybody said he was such a model officer.
[Michael] I think a light bulb went off
in the investigators' heads
thinking, "We may be looking at the wrong guy this entire time."
[McFadden] When the question comes up about the handcuff,
the polygraph went off the charts.
Now, do you stop him at that point? No.
You continue to ask your question.
Always allow him to have enough to rope to hang himself later.
[Snyder] What is the most important thing,
what has Jeff got that I really need?
Well, I need the gun and I need his handcuffs.
He hit on the handcuffs in the test
so, I-I wanna see these handcuffs.
So, I-I ask Jeff,
"I'd like to see your gun."
He goes, "No, no, no, no problem at all."
I said, uh,
"Where is it?" You know,
and he says, "Well, it's uh,
it's in my locker over at the university."
[Deeter] I recall him looking in the locker
and saying,
"Somebody's trying to set me up. The gun's missing.
In my head, I'm automatically thinking,
"If I was gonna set you up,
that gun would've definitely been there. [chuckles]
So, that didn't make sense.
[narrator] Officers do find handcuffs in Hodge's locker.
[Snyder] We take 'em over to the lab
and look at 'em under-- under a microscope.
[Deeter] You can see on one of the edges,
a bullet had struck that.
You could see actually the lead
that was in the bullet
and the copper jacketing was actually melted
onto Hodge's handcuffs,
where this bullet had struck at velocity.
There was one bullet that was sheared.
So, that means it hits something hard
on the way through.
So, it was not hard to figure out
that the bullet had struck a handcuff.
[Deeter] And then there was also some tissue
that was found within them handcuffs.
[Snyder] The next morning, they had Medical College of Ohio
actually analyze the sample.
But, they said, "No, no, not enough tissue.
You don't have enough, not enough to do DNA."
DNA was... Man, it was really new.
Uh, not like today.
They had to grow this tissue
so that they would have more substance
for testing purposes.
So, back in 1992, DNA was a nude banana for law enforcement.
You had to wait for the analysis.
You don't wanna make any mistakes.
The evidence is stacking up against Officer Hodge,
but DNA will seal the deal.
[McFadden] So, we have to look at what evidence they have against Officer Hodge.
The suspicious activity on the scene,
the handcuff with the indention,
owning a gun that is linked
to the type of gun that we use on a murder,
and also the lies and inconsistencies
that he was telling.
Now, we have enough evidence
to allow him to be hanged with his own rope.
[narrator] Officer Jeffrey Hodge is arrested
on February 1st, 1992,
six days after Melissa Herstrum was killed.
[Michael] People were a little more at ease
that someone had been arrested.
But, the fear
was still there
because of who it was.
It was a police officer.
It shocked everyone.
[Lori] I was so angry,
because this is somebody
that is supposed to protect and serve.
They're not supposed to be taking a life,
they're supposed to be saving a life.
I remember the morning the body was found.
Jeff came to the sorority house.
It just seemed like a very caring move to make.
[Snyder] Soon as Melissa's body was found,
all the girls were petrified.
When they were doing personal escorts,
Hodge was actually part of the escort team.
And he would pick these girls up, take 'em to their classes,
and a couple of the girls complained that, uh,
Hodge said, "I'm working on this and making you safe",
and hitting on these-- these young girls
and-and uh, trying to make himself a hero.
[McFadden] So, what Officer Hodge did
is taking advantage of these women
in situations that they believe that they need an officer,
and it would be Officer Hodge coming as the knight in shining armor.
[Lori] After Jeff Hodge was arrested,
other women came forward
and said that Jeff had-- had stopped them
and accused them of drinking.
There were several people who I spoke to in my reporting
uh, who, when they first saw Hodge's face
come up on the TV,
their heart just completely sank.
Anna Kolin, she had been stopped by Hodge
in the 24 hours before Melissa's murder.
I was pulled in, um, it was the second parking space,
you know, directly in front of the tennis courts
because when he pulled in, he pulled in directly behind me
and blocked me in.
She hadn't been drinking, so she didn't know
why he was questioning her for that.
Anna believes if her boyfriend had not shown up,
she would've been Hodge's first victim.
[Anna] Seeing his face in that mugshot,
that was probably the moment that scared me the most,
when I realized how close I had actually come
um, to potentially losing my life that night.
[Lori] I think that was one of the other really scary things was,
could he have killed more?
[narrator] The case against Hodge remained circumstantial.
Until the DNA results come back three weeks after his arrest.
The tissue on his handcuffs is Melissa Herstrum's.
[Deeter] And that links that handcuff to you and her.
Game over.
[McFadden] The ultimate satisfaction of any homicide detective,
when you can present a solid case to the district attorney's office.
[Cousino] This is the type of heinous act
that the death penalty is made for.
[Deeter] There was a kidnapping,
uh, and-and there was a murder
and the commission of other-other felony.
If anybody deserves, he does.
[narrator] In 1993,
15 months after Melissa's murder,
Jeffrey Hodge pleads guilty
in exchange for life in prison with the chance of parole.
[Cousino] When he made his plea deal,
he took a cowardly way out
and said, "I don't remember anything about it." I'm sure that's not true.
I'm sure he remembers every detail.
[narrator] Even without a confession,
detectives have pieced together
what they believe happened to Melissa that night.
[Cousino] Hodge was out on patrol
and it was not an unusual thing
for him to stop pretty girls.
Unfortunately, Miss Herstrum
was out late at night.
[Snyder] She hasn't got her driver's license with her.
So, he drives her back to her apartment
and she goes in and gets her driver's license for him.
You know, he's got her in the car,
so he-- he makes her take her coat off
and puts it in the back seat of the car.
You know, he wanted to get a closer look at her body.
He was probably making advances to her in the car.
She's not gonna take this
abuse from some cop.
[Deeter] Something triggered him.
My best guess
is that she questioned his authority.
"I will have your job."
"My dad's gonna see that you'll never work again."
[Deeter] "Oh, he's gonna ruin his career".
Someone like Officer Hodge
who always dreamed about being a cop,
he could never live with himself
not being a cop.
[Snyder] I think he took her out, terrorized her,
handcuffed her and walked her out into that field.
Pulled her clothing down, humiliated her,
and just brutalized her.
He came to a point where, "God, you know, look what I've done.
My only out is now is to kill her."
You know, and then, I think that's when he shot her in the head.
[gunshot]
[narrator] Hodge later called into dispatch,
so he and his partner could respond to the call
and find the body.
[Snyder] He manipulated Green into thinking
he was the one that found the body.
He didn't wanna be the lead.
He wanted to sit back and let Green do it.
[Cousino] I think Jeff Hodge was intentionally
messing up the footprints.
He did know those are his shoeprints in the snow
and he had to ruin them.
And he used Officer Green to help him do that.
Hodge also confessed to the threatening phone calls
that ensued after
and to a shooting that had happened
at MacKinnon Hall
sometime before the murder.
So that he could respond to it,
and again, be this type of superhero cop.
[McFadden] His violence was escalating,
and it ended up with him taking a young girl's life.
[Lori] Melissa is remembered
as that beautiful photograph of her,
19-years-old with a beautiful smile on her face.
Her sorority sisters,
they've never forgotten her.
They raised money several years ago
at the University of Toledo to put a bench
um, with Melissa's name on it
and a rock, a place that students could go meditate
and Melissa would be there with them.
[narrator] Jeffrey Hodge's first parole hearing is in 2021,
29 years after Melissa was killed.
[Lori] I wrote a letter to the parole board.
He is a monster and he should never see the light of day.
He shot her 14 times at close range
and her clothes were partially removed,
like, he wanted to see the impact of the bullets.
And I have to relive all these things,
but they never leave my memory anyway.
But, um...
he's-- he's dangerous.
[narrator] The push is successful.
Hodge will remain in prison until his next hearing in 2031.
[Cindy] I can't forget what she looked like laying there in the coffin.
I can't forget it.
I won't forget it. I don't wanna forget her memory.
But, I won't forget what he did
and I will spend the rest of my life making sure
he stays where he needs to stay.
[Snyder] I have no qualms
about putting him away and locking him up.
He should be treated worse than any criminal
because he's-- he knows better.
I really believe that, uh,
we-we stopped a serial killer.
The Jeffrey Hodges are very, very, very
few and far between. Thank God.
It's a black eye on all of us.
And it makes our jobs harder.
Nobody wants to get rid of bad cops more than good cops do.
♪
He says that she threatened to commit suicide.
MAN: If there's a rumor it spreads like wildfire.
WOMAN: It rocked the town.
A lot of people didn't believe the official story.
MAN: Who would know how to stage a crime scene
better than someone who investigates crime scenes?