He Comforted Her Family After Her Murder — But a Slip of the Tongue Gave Him Away By Christina Coulter

Jessie Blodgett was found strangled in her bed, her body carefully staged to look like she was still sleeping — and the boy who killed her sat in her parents’ living room that afternoon, sharing memories and pretending to grieve the very life he’d just taken.

In July 2013, Jessie, a 19-year-old Wisconsin theater student, had just returned from a cast party for Fiddler on the Roof when her life was cut short. The news of her death sent shockwaves through the town of Hartford — and through her tight-knit group of drama friends. Among them: Daniel Bartelt, a classmate and former boyfriend.

A recent episode of Investigation Discovery’s A Killer Among Friends — which premiered on July 21 and can be watched on HBO Max — reveals how Bartelt mourned alongside Jessie’s loved ones — inserting himself into their grief, sitting with her parents, and reminiscing about the young woman he’d raped and killed just hours earlier.

“At this point in time, nobody knew who the killer could be,” Jessie’s friend Ian said in the show. “It became tough to conceptualize who could have done this thing.”

Another friend, Jackie, recalled that when Bartelt was called in for questioning, no one was alarmed. “We expected him to be questioned because he was close to Jessie,” she said.

Bartelt’s deception was chilling. After spending time with Jessie’s family, he asked his friends to drop him off at the police station. 

“And when we dropped him off, he said, ‘Okay, maybe you can come and pick me up in 30 minutes?’” one of them recalled. When they returned, officers were waiting outside. “We can’t release Dan,” they were told. “He’s being detained.”

“We couldn’t picture Dan being the type of person who did this,” Ian said.

Jessie’s father, Buck Blodgett, also found the arrest hard to believe. “It’s not Dan,” he said in the documentary. “He’s never been in any trouble at school or the law, that we know of.”

Buck added, “Jessie and Dan sit together at school; he was a straight-A student… they would write songs together and sing together, he was welcome in our home, He was just over, the day after Jessie’s murder, sharing hugs and memories and tears with us until his phone rang and he was called in for questioning.”

The turning point came when police connected Bartelt to a recent attack. Just days before the murder, he had tackled a woman in a nearby park and held a knife to her. 

He admitted to that assault, claiming it was a spur-of-the-moment decision and that he only meant to scare her. 

For that attack, Bartelt was convicted of first-degree reckless endangerment and sentenced to five years — served consecutively with his life sentence for Jessie’s murder.

But when questioned by police about his ex-girlfriend’s killing, he denied his involvement — although he told investigators that he still had feelings for Jessie.

A search of the park’s trash cans gave investigators the evidence they needed to tie the teen to Jessie’s killing — a cereal box stuffed with ropes, along with bloody sanitizing wipes and tape. Both Bartelt and Jessie’s DNA was later found on the discarded evidence. 

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After a 16-day investigation, Bartelt was arrested and charged with Jessie’s murder. Evidence at trial revealed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled with makeshift restraints.

Despite the devastating betrayal, Jessie’s father didn’t respond with rage — just heartbreak and disbelief.

“Our first reaction wasn’t, ‘We hate this kid,’” Buck Blodgett said. “It was, ‘Oh my God, what happened to Dan?’”

In August 2014, Bartelt was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He has continued to maintain his innocence.

In court, he addressed Jessie’s parents directly: “I can’t give you the answers that you’re looking for,” he said. “I pray for you, for all of you, and I hope that — I believe that — someday we will be before a court that will know that my conscience is clear.”

New episodes of A Killer Among Friends will air weekly on ID on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET through mid-August. Each episode will be available for streaming afterwards on HBO Max.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.