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He Was Here: Don't Worry About It (Season Five) Exclusive Limited Series; Open Homicide Case
288 Plays4 months ago
In today’s episode, we continue the limited series “He Was Here” about an unsolved 2010 murder in Chicago.
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Music in this episode was licensed for True Crime XS by slip.fm. The song is “No Scars”.
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Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/june-2015/chicago-crime-stats/
https://footprintsattheriversedge.blogspot.com
https://fstoppers.com/education/biggest-dangers-photographers-face-299728#comment-thread
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Jay Polhill's Case
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
00:00:45
Speaker
This is True Crime XS
00:00:59
Speaker
This episode, I'm just telling you upfront, the murder of Jay Polhill is confusing. It's not confusing because it's not a murder. It's not confusing because he did anything. The murder is confusing because of how it's reported on. It's confusing because of how the police got information and how the investigation starts one direction and goes another direction.
Jay's Life and Personality
00:01:23
Speaker
There is no good way to tell his story, but we're going to try.
00:01:29
Speaker
It you know makes me a little nervous because it's an important story. But I think starting out with talking to his mom and having her tell you this part of the story as she told it to Meg and I, I think that's the most coherent and cohesive way to kick off Jay's story here. And that's what I'm going to do next. And if you go looking for this information online, it's going to feel like something is is missing. What's missing is while the media picked up and kind of ran with the story, I, for some strange reason, it does not stay in the spotlight as long as it should. And that's why we're telling it here to an audience in a way that's shareable so that people can hear what happened to Jay Polhill. So this is the second episode in the series. He was here in this episode.
00:02:30
Speaker
We're speaking with the mother of murder victim, Jay Polhill. This is Jane Polhill. Jane, are you there? Yes. You you lost the child. How long is has it been since you lost your son? ah Jay died in 2010. So it's been 14 years. He was 20 years old, is that right?
00:02:57
Speaker
Yes. When you lost him, were you guys living together, like all in the same house? Jay was going to college at Columbia College in Chicago. He was a photography major. How long had he been there? Two years. So he's a sophomore, like he's middle of a sophomore year? Well, actually he was classified as a junior because he stayed one summer and took some additional classes.
00:03:27
Speaker
If it's okay, can we go back to, since he's 20, tell me about the early years with Jay. Do you have any favorite memories? Jay was always a character. He loved to make people laugh. He always had, he was always telling jokes. Most of the time they were inappropriate. Jay was just a wonderful son. He was a great brother. He was a great friend.
00:03:53
Speaker
How many siblings did he have? ah Jay has one older brother. Were they close growing up? They were the typical brother rivalry, but their relationship grew closer towards the end of Jay's life. Either of the brothers play sports growing up? Yes, Jay was a wrestler and he also ran track. I can't tell from what I've read about him, like from the physical descriptions, how tall was Jay? Well, I would Maybe about five, nine. So a little above average height. Yeah. Was he, is he looks like a, you know, kind of a skinny college kid who's moved on to sophomore, like you said, junior year. Is he still athletic at the time that he goes missing?
Disappearance and Initial Concerns
00:04:39
Speaker
No, he wasn't in any kind of sports. He wasn't doing anything, you know, in intramural activities, but he was still awfully thin. Did he know how to swim? Yes.
00:04:52
Speaker
He did. In terms of physical and and mental capabilities, was there anything about Jay that like would have stood out as sort of either a potential impediment or was there anything unusual about him um physically or mentally? Physically, when Jay was five years old, he had a tumor removed from his sinus cavity and that left a scar on the top of his head.
00:05:23
Speaker
And also Jay had several procedures on his nose because of the tumor, but that did not stop Jay from living his life. And it didn't impair him in his later years at all. If he had found himself in an odd situation, was there something obvious? That doesn't sound, that sounds like a challenge, but it sounds like he had risen to it and sort of overcome it or incorporated it. Correct.
00:05:52
Speaker
I get the impression from like looking back at the internet around the time that he went missing and the people that were looking for him, I get the impression he was kind of social. He was very social. Maybe too much maybe too much sometimes. Well, tell me what you mean by a too much social.
00:06:14
Speaker
ah Jay liked to have a good time. He was a college student. I know that he had been to some parties and I know he liked to hang out with his friends. Was that like carryover from high school? Was it new in the college years? No, it wasn't new in the college years. Jay was just more open about it with me. Gotcha. It was easier for you to keep tabs on him then in that way. Yes.
00:06:43
Speaker
but Jay is off at college during, I guess he had just come home for the holidays. Would that be about right? He was home with youth and then goes back to school in like January, like typical schedules that seem right? Yes. How were the holidays that year? They were good. They were good. ah When he went back to school and he was living on campus. Correct. resident He's back at school. The new semester is underway and and and something happens. In terms of Jay going missing, how did you find out that Jay could not be accounted for? It was a Monday evening and I'm a teacher and I was grading papers. I received a phone call. It was probably around seven o'clock or so. And it was from was from his girlfriend's mother.
00:07:36
Speaker
And she asked me if I knew that Jay was missing and his friends were worried about him. I immediately called one of Jay's friends and I had his phone number. I immediately called him. I asked if this was true. He said yes. And I asked him, his name was Ryan. And I asked Ryan, Ryan, do you think I should be worried? And he said yes.
00:08:05
Speaker
And so I, my husband worked early in the morning. So I went and woke him up and my husband went into Chicago that night to see if he could find him and to file a missing persons report. And Ryan thought that you should be worried because it was out of character.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yes. There was nothing suspicious about Ryan feeling like you should be worried. He just was like, this isn't normal for the time that I have known him here. Correct. I mean, Jay had left for a period of time, you know, how kids do, they do leave to go to classes or the library or the photography lab, but he had not come home and they had not seen him since Saturday. And so this was Monday.
00:08:56
Speaker
So it was out of character for Jay to be gone that long with no contact from anybody. At that point in time, did they have any ideas of where? Because everybody would think back and say, okay, well, you know, what was he doing? And was there any sort of consensus from anyone? I know that's really hard at 20, you know, when you're 20 years old, you can go and do whatever you want. You don't really have to tell anybody. And I wasn't sure if anybody said, oh, I remember he was going to go do this or that or anything like that at that point in time.
00:09:33
Speaker
The kid said that Jay had said that he was going to a party. However, that did not make sense as we got further into the investigation because our private investigator got ahold of some footage of Jay leaving his dorm and Jay had his laptop and his camera with him. And if he was going to a party, he wouldn't have taken those things with him.
00:10:02
Speaker
What time and what day was the footage seen? Not when it was seen, but ah when did it capture him on like, was it Saturday afternoon or do you know? Oh, like I cannot remember. I would have to go back and look at the time stamp.
00:10:21
Speaker
We asked because there's a little bit of conflicting information. Um, so my understanding was that technically he was missing February the 28th Sunday. And I think that you just said your husband was headed in and that was Monday, right? Correct. And and then, so we were wondering if it was really that ah the The sort of point of last contact in the footage was Saturday night, which would have been the 27th thinking you know party, or as you said, because he took certain items with him, maybe something else going on. The speculation I've heard is maybe he was going to photograph Bridges. Does that ring true for you? I know that there was a class assignment
00:11:15
Speaker
to photograph something. I'm not quite sure what the ah requirement was, but and Jay did like to photograph architectural elements. So was he going to photograph a bridge? I don't know. There's also um reports that he was supposed to meet a person um to take pictures of him in his military uniform so he could send out to his friends. And he was supposed to meet this person in Chinatown. And do we have any idea if that happened? It did not happen. As far as I know, it did not happen. I don't have any proof that it didn't happen because when they found Jay, Jay did not have his computer or his camera and we've never found those.
00:12:13
Speaker
So I don't know if that happened or not. I guess somebody knew that. Did he tell somebody he had, like, I guess like a gig lined up, like, because that would have been him taking this guy's portrait or picture. Right. Right. He had told me he had told me that he was going to take this photograph because we were going to go up and visit him that weekend. And he says, no, mom, I've got, you know, a job to do and I can make some money.
00:12:41
Speaker
And at the time it was $500 and that is a lot for a college kid. We did not go up. Well, do you feel like that, I i will call it a lead. It may not be a lead, but do you feel like that was you know adequately explored at the time? No. With regard to that, I remember when I was a sophomore junior in college,
00:13:04
Speaker
I had set times of the week that I sort of called home. i i would be I was about four or five hours away from my parents. and so Typically, I'd have like a midweek check-in, and then I would usually talk to them on Sunday. Did you guys have a routine that sort of developed around his schedule? or Oh, yeah, we did. I mean, we didn't have a set day to call, but I would check in with him at least once a week, and we would text back and forth. In fact, that Monday, I had received a text from him that Monday morning, and um it said, sorry, Mom, way behind, love you. And that's the Monday after his friends hadn't seen him?
Media Attention and Police Involvement
00:13:50
Speaker
That was, yes, correct.
00:13:55
Speaker
Interesting. You got the text from him, and then is that the same day that you ended up getting like the sort of worried call? Yes. and you know At the time of the text, I had a real funny feeling.
00:14:14
Speaker
and um I was with my parents at the time. My mom was going through some medical issues and I had said to her, something's not right. you know I hadn't talked to Jay and I said something's not right. Was that text in response to a text you had sent him or was it out of the blue? Do you remember? No, I had tried calling him um because like I said that we were going to go up that weekend and he had said that he had that photography appointment to do and so I tried calling him i probably on a Sunday.
00:14:53
Speaker
Do you think it's possible the text wasn't from him? Yes. And because, you know, a text in response to someone calling is, you know, a way to conceal the fact that they can't use the phone, right? Right.
00:15:11
Speaker
just this is more my curiosity than it is anything else. Are you guys like, what is your but cultural background? Are you guys just straight up Americans? Are you a mix of a bunch of stuff? Like, um I'm asking kind of from a race perspective, because that's something that's playing into an idea. I want to ask down the road, not necessarily a view with maybe ah some statistics with the Chicago Police Department,
00:15:38
Speaker
is Are you guys considered white or is there white? Hispanic. Hispanic, okay. Yes. I couldn't tell from the last name, so that's why I wanted to clarify that. How old is the picture of him with that sport coat on? like Is it like really February or January that year? Yes, I would say that's pretty recent. That was a recent photo of Jay.
00:16:05
Speaker
Okay. You said that you call him and he texts you back. So he has a cell phone. Yes. Was his cell phone ever recovered? No. Cause I've read it both ways. I've read that his cell phone is missing. And then I think Meg brought up that like she wasn't sure of the sourcing and wanted to know if that was something which plays into my next question. If it was in his dorm, that sounds kind of silly. Cause I've never seen a teenager even in 2010 or a young 20 something without their phone. Like.
00:16:35
Speaker
would you guys have known like what else was missing? Because my understanding is his wallet was missing. Most of his items of clothing were missing. his So that would make his phone, his laptop, and his camera, which I assume he either strapped his camera or had a case for it. All that's missing, right? Correct. OK. So this Monday, you guys get a call. Your husband goes into Chicago. What happens?
00:17:06
Speaker
Well, my husband, Rick, he went to the dorm. Of course, Jay wasn't there. He then went to the police station and filed a missing persons report. So this is just the Chicago Police Department, the the precinct closest to, or is this the campus police? No. Well, i why my husband was driving into Chicago. I did get a hold of the campus police.
00:17:34
Speaker
And her first name was Martha and I'm, i I can't remember her last name, but I was very frantic. I knew that Jay had a night class on Monday night. I insisted that she go in there and see if Jay was in his night class.
00:17:53
Speaker
And Jay was not in his night class. I then um asked her to check the the lab where they developed the photos and see if Jay was in the lab because that was another place he often you know went for school and he was not in the lab. So the campus police were contacted because I did that while Rick was in um Chicago with the police.
00:18:25
Speaker
They were just assisting, they were basically being your eyes on some common places. Yes. That you felt like Jay could potentially be. And since the results there were, you know, he wasn't there, so the results were negative. Then, so the Chicago police, the local precinct, they take a report from Rick, your husband. Yes. What happens after that report is filed, both from the perspective of you know, your point of view and what you could see a Rick or has told you he saw or what the police actually approached you and and talked about. Well, Rick had come home late and the next morning we had received a phone call asking us if we had reached out to the press to report Jay missing.
00:19:20
Speaker
And we said that we had not, the police discouraged it. And then they were ah told my husband that somebody had put it on Reddit about Jay missing. And they seemed, Rick said that they seem to be upset about that. Yeah, it was a, it was a user named Captain James West.
00:19:50
Speaker
who posted that. I have never seen the post. like i'll I'll be glad to share that with you after we're done recording. He was actually one of my first stops, because from what I can tell, what I can tell on the Reddit post is it gives us a really good place and time. um Even now, if I pull it up, it tells me it was 14 years ago, and I can go on and see how long he was on there and when people were responding um in time.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I can see that there are you know there were responses, ah March 2nd, March 1st. It's really frozen in time and it's very interesting. They had put it on Reddit and someone called you to ask about talking to the press. Do you remember who made that phone call? It was someone from the police department. i I don't know who it was. I did not speak to them. My husband did. Were they saying like, you know, we told you not to do that. Did you do that? Like kind of chastising you? I guess I'm just confused, like,
00:20:49
Speaker
I'm confused like what context that has. They were not happy that it was okay. Okay. That's what I was wondering. They were not happy. And at the time, you know, it's like, well, keep in mind I'm frantic. I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I don't know where Jay's at. I didn't know what to do.
Family's Dispute and Investigation
00:21:15
Speaker
And of course my instinct,
00:21:17
Speaker
you know, is is to trust the police and do what they tell you to do. right So no, we we never put anything out there, but then it got on the news. It got on the noon news about Jay being missing. And that, from that news, that's how Jay's body was identified.
00:21:41
Speaker
Okay, so March 1st is when you get the first worried call. Your husband goes into Chicago. then So that's a Monday. Okay, so then on March the 2nd, someone called and said, hey, did you reach out to the press about this? And you guys are saying no. And they explained that it's come to their attention that somebody on Reddit has posted about it. Take us forward from that point in time ah what of what you remember happening.
00:22:09
Speaker
Well, it was a long afternoon. We got a phone call, probably about, I don't know, five-ish or so, um asking about the scar I had told you about with Jay.
00:22:30
Speaker
My husband said, you know, where is he? Where is he? What hospital is he in? What hospital is he in? And ah the detectives at the time says, you know, we'll come out to the house. We'll come to your house. So. And you're not living in Chicago. No, we lived about two hours west of Chicago. And so then, you know, We knew.
00:23:02
Speaker
And that was this that was on March the 2nd? No, this is going to be the 3rd. The 3rd. OK. I'm sure that Tuesday into Wednesday, particularly with the calls about the press and the news carrying the statement that he was missing, I'm sure that's kind of a blur in time. Yeah. Were you were you at home at that time? We were home trying to figure out what to do next.
00:23:30
Speaker
and i I remember at the time thinking about the Natalie Holloway case. And I just thought, oh my gosh, you know, am I ever going to find him? So yeah, we were trying to figure out what to do. I mean, what do you do? So then they come to the house, the police come to your house and they notify you that they have found him. Yes. They showed us.
00:24:01
Speaker
They showed us a picture. Um, we identified Jay and then because of where Jay was found, they asked me if Jay was depressed. If he had suicidal tendencies because they felt that Jay had jumped from the bridge committing suicide. I said at the time that that was not Jay.
00:24:29
Speaker
That was not Jay. He was not depressed. He did not commit suicide. Absolutely not. He did not.
00:24:40
Speaker
And after that, I honestly, I don't remember what was said or how they left. All I knew is that we had to go in the next day to get Jay and bring him home.
00:24:57
Speaker
Did they ask you to make a list at that time of like Jay's acquaintances and friends that you knew of? No. They were, they were already set on him having jumped then. Absolutely. Did Jay have a girlfriend or a boyfriend at this time? Jay had a girlfriend at the time. And were they in Chicago with him? Yes. And I assume that, that,
00:25:26
Speaker
there I assume that there were interactions between you and them um after you notified. Yes. Did they have any insight beyond what you felt like you had gathered information-wise at that time that was helpful? His his friends or his girlfriend? I think specifically the girlfriend for this.
00:25:49
Speaker
hard No, she didn't. I mean, you know, she was just a kid too. She wasn't close to her family. So she's trying to deal with this all by herself, basically. And of course, you know, she's running through things in her mind, but nothing ever panned out. In terms of next steps, do you guys get Jay back and you hold a funeral or do you have to wait for the autopsy?
00:26:19
Speaker
The autopsy was already done. Like the neck, it was done the same day or next day, right? Like before it was done before we even knew it was that it was happening. It was done. It was cause there for a period of time, Jay was a John Doe and autopsy was already done. We brought Jay home. We had a private viewing, just the family. And then, um,
00:26:49
Speaker
Jay wanted to be cremated, so we cremated him and then we had his funeral. How long was he a John Doe before he, like how how long was it between being found and identified? Do you have any idea? Well, I'm looking at the police report or the hospital report is called and it's dated March 2nd. Time, 1400 hours. So two o'clock on March 2nd.
00:27:18
Speaker
And that's when he's a John Doe? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I know by March 4th that the news had run a article, the noon news had run confirmation that it was him. So it's less than 48 hours. Is that what you're looking for, Meg?
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, I was just curious because I hadn't thought of that as far as you guys being notified. And I guess the other thing I would wonder is, was the autopsy done before they told you that they thought he had committed suicide? Yes. It was, but it was that was not the manner of death, right? No. Okay.
00:28:01
Speaker
That seems, it seems like that would have been, you know, relevant in the autopsy, but I understand that that's sometimes the easiest way for, you know, investigators to close a case, even though it's not the case. You guys are, you have the private viewing and you have Jay cremated, and I assume you get the results of the autopsy report after that, because usually that's, or you have it already.
00:28:31
Speaker
No, it was after. My understanding from the paperwork in this case is that there was basically an undetermined mode of cause put on him or manner cause. So the the initial report basically said, we're not quite sure what happened from the perspective of the medical examiner, the the pathologist, right? Correct. So you took some interesting steps there.
00:28:58
Speaker
when did you When did you look at that? Do you remember it kind of in time? Like, because I know that time can be a blur right after these things are happening to a family. When did you go, that doesn't sound right. And I would like someone else to help me. Well, that's kind of a long story. About two weeks after Jay's death, I called the detective that was leading in the case.
00:29:27
Speaker
And I asked him for updates and he told me at that time, quote unquote, Jay's file was at the bottom of his stack. Oh wow. Yeah. I was infuriated. You know, it had only been two weeks and I just lost Jay. You know, Jay was my, my whole heart.
00:29:55
Speaker
At that time, I wanted to hire a private investigator. My husband made some phone calls and he found our private investigator. And actually based upon the autopsy report that our private investigator had, he's the one that said we need to have someone else take a look at this. This is not right how they determined or how they classified the cause of death.
00:30:26
Speaker
Did you get the feeling from those conversations with the investigator, but did you get the feeling that maybe this had just been a pretty rushed to the bottom of the pile? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, for the last, oh gosh, years, I had been a i had been afraid to say what I really thought because of the ramifications of the investigation. I was afraid if I made too much noise with the with the press, with the media, that they the police department would do nothing with Jay's case.
00:31:13
Speaker
They wouldn't continue to investigate it. They would do nothing. It would, it would become lost in the shuffle while it was lost in the shuffle. Anyway, I was going to say, did you get that impression from the way they interacted with you or did you like go in with that impression? Like it was a concern that that grew into reality. I knew right away after two weeks,
00:31:39
Speaker
when that detective said that Jay's case was at the bottom of his pile. I knew then. I knew then. Was he saying that in a way like, leave me alone, lady? Or, I mean, like, what was, I guess here's my thought on it, like,
00:31:59
Speaker
Especially if they carried on that, oh, we believe this kid committed suicide. His cases his case file is on the bottom of the pile on my desk. what For one thing, even if that's the case, I find it very hard to believe that you would tell a victim's mother that. That that seems very abrasive. yeah Yeah. I mean, did anybody ever say to you, like We're not going to look into that because this is what we believe happened like from the suicide angle or anything like that. Well, after after we had had our own pathologist take a look at everything and we got the cause of death changed,
00:32:48
Speaker
That kind of an attitude didn't happen until much later. The, hey, you know, this is what we think it happened. We don't have any proof, but but this is what happened. And, you know, pretty much we just think you should just let it go. This is what happened. We can't prove it. There's no proof, but this is what we think. Was his cause of death changed on the death certificate? Yes, it was. To homicide?
00:33:18
Speaker
Yes, due to blunt force trauma. Okay, and so there was never any indication, or maybe there was initially, did drowning ever come into play? We've seen an interesting quote about this where it has a very unique line that says, drowning secondary to blunt force trauma caused an assault.
00:33:46
Speaker
And we're not sure if that's a real quote. That's why Meg, I think that's why you're phrasing it the way you are, right Meg? Well, I'm just curious because there's actually some significance there. If you think about a an assumption that someone has jumped to their death versus fallen to their death versus been thrown to their death with regard to drowning, right? If they're dead when they go into the water,
00:34:15
Speaker
they probably didn't jump, right? And that's what this is kind of making me think of as far as Because if if he wasn't alive when he was in the water, then that's something different, right? If he went into the water and drowned in the water, that's something different. And so to me, that's really relevant, but I'm not really sure. a cant Like John was saying, I've seen several different things said. and you know
00:34:46
Speaker
to everything's a narrative because you have to get this complex information into a bite-sized form that someone can you know comprehend, right? And so I'm trying to go through all the little details because one big thing I do think is that from the jump, it seems like initially they were like, well, this is what it is.
00:35:09
Speaker
And you know you miss out on so much in that first little bit of time, right? Where people actually have good memories of things that are happening. And so if they said, well, this kid committed suicide, and I feel like people who jump off a bridge and commit suicide, they drown.
00:35:33
Speaker
um I don't have the the updated death record right in front of me. I am looking, however, at what our pathologist said in his report. Now this was, you know, our pathologist was just going on information that was already, already done. Our pathologist stated, and I'm quoting here from our report, drowning may be considered a
00:36:04
Speaker
as a possible um factor, but clearly the head injuries were sustained first. Okay. And the idea I think is what what he's going with there is he's seeing something in the head injuries that indicate that they're paramortem as opposed to post-mortem. And that's why if he had drowned,
00:36:23
Speaker
the head injuries, do you know what I'm saying? that They look different in terms of circulation, blood and condition. I have heard that. Yeah, I've heard that. So, all right. My understanding of how you put all this together is sort of for a family doing this, you guys are acting kind of lightning fast. Like by adviceseced at the time right but by September of 2010, if I understand everything correctly,
00:36:53
Speaker
You guys had convinced the pathologist to either take a look at it or they had already changed their report based on the new pathologist report. Does that sound about right? September, October? Correct. So when that happened, um so you guys clearly had your own private investigator in on this pretty early.
00:37:17
Speaker
Two weeks in. Yeah. So we're talking like mid-March. Do the police come back on board between then and October or do anything like based on anything the private investigator is doing ahead of the pathology report? The police didn't really come back into it until sometime later when they classified Jay's case as a cold case.
00:37:47
Speaker
And that is when two other cold case detectives came in on it. so So do they come and talk to you at that point and they say, Hey, just so you're aware. um yeah Yes. Yes. Okay. But that's years later, right? Oh, I would have to go back and look at the timeline. I'm not for sure, maybe a year.
00:38:13
Speaker
That's what I was thinking. I thought it was either 2011 or 2012 that um they picked it back up, but I wasn't sure when they notified i notified you that that was happening. The police eventually, do they take another look at this and they go, okay, this is probably a
Cold Case Review and Remembrance
00:38:30
Speaker
homicide. Is that what happens with the cold case guys? I'm not sure, but they did go back, take a look at a few things. I know that they said that they went back and interviewed this Chinatown person. Jane, I was telling John earlier that I had looked, I looked through some of the statistics on the Chicago area on things that happened there, like a sparse homicides go. And I feel like this was, uh, they have a lot of gun violence that's gang related, according to their reports that they put out, especially in the year 2010.
00:39:11
Speaker
So I feel like this would have been like really far outside of the normal thing that they deal with, right? who And that can sometimes really throw off investigators who have a stack on their desk, right? They're just going through the motion of things. And that is my inclination for, I feel like it was,
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't want to say like incompetence, but I guess like inexperience in this area of seeing because it wasn't straightforward, like gang related gun violence. they They were sort of like, well, it's got to be a suicide, right? I mean, which is very sad and unacceptable, but also, I mean, I i guess I tell myself that so I don't think that they're being like,
00:40:03
Speaker
you know, they're not necessarily being, they're not incompetent, but they're also not trying to be um avoiding it or mean to you or, you know, underserving this case in favor of something else. But to me, I think it was just outside the realm of what they, the context that they were used to dealing with. Yeah. Just the,
00:40:28
Speaker
put those sort of in words, the statistics that Meg is referencing. In 2010, Chicago had 437 homicides on the books. There were some missing persons in addition to that that may or may not factor in. 354 of those homicides were carried out with a firearm. um Three of those 354 had additional weapons that were included, but we don't know what the, they're still listed as firearm deaths for the purposes of me saying this. They only cleared um At the time of their crime ah stat reports, the com stat reports, they had cleared 148 of the 437 at the time of that report. That would have been about 33, almost 34% of a closure rate. and Unfortunately, for 2010, that closure rate does not rise very high. It actually only ever gets to about 38%. That means they basically closed a third of those cases.
00:41:27
Speaker
and Jay falls into, if he's recorded as a homicide, he falls into the other two thirds. And there's got to be something that we can do about like highlighting how significant that statistic is. But I don't, I can't tell just in terms of 2010 and I'm not, that's why I was asking about the September and October stuff. I can't tell when they actually assign a detective and declare this case a homicide yet. I'm getting there. My concern was, was there a point in time where they asked you about like him enough or opened up enough, let's say before 2013, where you felt like they might be looking at like, is this an accident or is this a full fledged homicide? Or did you feel like you they just left you in the dark?
00:42:26
Speaker
They left us in the dark until the case was turned over to the cold case detectives. And then, all of a sudden, it was great communication. I was able to get ahold of them. I was able to call you know the Chicago Police Department and talk to the two detectives that were assigned Jay's case. um My husband and I were able to meet with them.
00:42:52
Speaker
in person. They never indicated that Jay's case you know was at the bottom of the stack. Right, because when it gets delegated over to the cold case investigators, it's a whole new perspective like from the initial investigators or whomever it ended up with at different stages. The cold case investigators, they usually review the leads and then they start remaking the case from scratch the best they can at the point they're at.
00:43:22
Speaker
and I don't want to get off of John's timeline too far here, but you said that you had thought about Natalie Holloway when you realized that Jay was missing. Was it his friends' reactions or impressions or maybe his girlfriend's reaction or her impression that made you think that like it was that kind of situation? No.
00:43:52
Speaker
No, that was just the complete helplessness, the feeling of not knowing where my son was. Back to the essay about Jay by Ryan Buell. Jay may have possessed the largest mental library of one-liners on this earth to date, but his sense of humor didn't stop there.
00:44:17
Speaker
Whenever I found myself caught in some weird joke that in the end would probably take itself too far, Jay was nearly always either standing right next to me or the cause of it. I used to figure the guy's life was a living sitcom. Every joke Jay told seemed pre-rehearsed. It fit so perfectly in the conversation, and he never hesitated to take humor to an uncomfortable level.
00:44:42
Speaker
This often meant the removal of clothing, the stroking of hair, or the out of nowhere telling of an obscure Alaskan sex move that takes several days to administer upon one's partner. So, Jay's life became a legend before he even died. Afterwards, on the night we found out, my roommates and I sat in our apartment as a host of friends trafficked in and out to speak with the counselors, provided us by our school, as well as to share memories.
00:45:11
Speaker
One girl remarked at some point, without any mocking in her voice, but instead confusion, that it doesn't make sense that Jay's dead. He's always been like just a cartoon character. But think about it, my roommate said wisely. Jay Polhill has entered into the great beyond. That cartoon character is the only one of us who knows what comes after.
00:45:34
Speaker
I think I probably shook my head in awe. J. Paul Hill, the man who sometimes referred to himself and his body as the Diesel Beast, was gone. It didn't make any sense. Never again would I hear the door to our apartment dorm kicked open and the inevitable O that he yelled to announce his arrival. All of the comical wisdom and absurd catch-raisings he'd given us would now be reserved to memory.
00:46:01
Speaker
among these sand immortal teachings that you may someday pass on to your grandchildren, forgetting where it was you first heard them. No fatties are allowed in the palace of wisdom, Jay often said, lowering a pair of downturned wrists along his body in a behold gesture. Or, when speaking on his preference for redheaded only red only redheads and no faux reds allowed. I only deal in natural reds with real pasty white skin.
00:46:30
Speaker
And of course, the most practical advice yet, something that would go on to be tattooed across the feet and wrists of my grieving friends. The simple phrase, don't worry about it. It was a joke we used to say to anyone who asked a question that we couldn't answer, or maybe didn't want to. For example, how old is that milk you're drinking? Don't worry about it. This was the standard formula for our interactions with Well, anyone. But Jay took the phrase and made it famous. The way history takes the reigns of originally anonymous aphorisms and tacks one well-deserved master speaker of the phrase beneath it, the words, don't worry about it, will always belong to Jay Polhill within our group of friends. Jay never allowed the comic origins of the phrase to slip away, but he began to use the thing I once thought, the joke, as actual advice. And well,
00:47:26
Speaker
It came out of his mouth sounding not only funny, but wise, intelligent, and the only natural course in which to pursue. The phrase, don't worry about it, is, after all, a calming and thoughtful piece of advice, and a hard one to follow, too.
00:47:47
Speaker
Next time on True Crime XS. Can we just like pause? I mean, you don't have to stop the recording, but like this isn't really for air. Like i I was completely unaware that there had been this interaction with a person wanting their picture taken. Was it somebody that he knew? Well, he had met this guy when when he was in Chinatown and Jay thought it was unusual to see this white guy in Chinatown when the population was mainly Asian. And so this guy stuck out.
00:48:26
Speaker
And so being Jay struck up a conversation with him. I feel like someone would have known that he could have possibly committed suicide. The other thing is I know that he was found in just a t-shirt and that would seem unlikely to be the way that a young man would jump off a bridge. We were told that Jay had very deep cuts in his legs and that as far as his his pants, we were told that a current maybe had pulled the pants off or maybe the cuts were from a boat or propeller that cut his legs and then ripped the pants
00:49:22
Speaker
i don' and I don't really want to bury this lead, but I don't think I can talk about it a whole lot. I'm just going to say it and the two of you can tell me how you'd like to handle it. My understanding is there is a top of the list person of interest in this case. I would say that if, especially if he was going to meet someone that like was an acquaintance, someone he that he crossed paths with, that's like, I mean, that's a big deal.
00:49:51
Speaker
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00:50:15
Speaker
You fall like the stars I break things like guitars Thick skin, no scars We're in trouble, we took it too far
00:51:03
Speaker
True Crime XS is brought to you by John and Matt. It's written, produced, edited, and posted by John and Meg. You can always support True Crime Access through patreon.com, or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at truecrimeaccess.com. Thank you for joining us.