Hennepin jury convicts Jerry Westrom in cold case killing
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A Hennepin County jury found Jerry Westrom guilty Thursday in the 1993 murder of Jeanne Ann Childs. The jury deliberated for approximately two hours following closing arguments by the prosecution and defense attorneys.
Investigators reopened the cold case and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension sent old DNA samples to forensic genealogists that eventually implicated Westrom.
The 56-year-old from Isanti, Minn., was charged with first-degree premeditated murder of Childs, who was stabbed more than five dozen times in the apartment in the Horn Towers complex she used for sex work.
In his 90-minute closing argument, Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Darren Borg said forensic evidence introduced during the week-long trial proves that Westrom left his footprints in Childs' blood near her body, and that semen in Childs’ bed and bathroom belonged to Westrom.
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Jurors had the option of convicting Westrom of second-degree murder, but Borg said the defendant’s actions were premeditated, and he urged the five women and seven men to find Westrom guilty of the more serious charge.
“What else are you intending to do to another human being when you cut, stab, and slice them 65 times?” Borg asked.
Describing the crime in graphic detail, Borg said Childs suffered a stab wound to her chest that broke her breastbone and destroyed her heart, and in a “gratuitous parting shot,” the attacker slashed her abdomen even after inflicting fatal wounds.
The case lay dormant for decades until Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators processed crime scene evidence for DNA and sent it to forensic genealogists who have access to millions of samples sent in by people interested in tracing their family history.
Former FBI Special Agent Chris Boeckers testified Tuesday about getting a call from a genealogist at MyHeritage.com who reported getting a “fabulous match.”
Boeckers said the company connected the crime scene DNA to Westrom and his brother, but because the profile belonged to a person with brown eyes, which Westrom has, investigators soon ruled out his younger sibling.
To get a contemporary sample of Westrom’s DNA, Boeckers described how he and the late Minneapolis Police Sgt. Chris Karakostas followed Westrom for three weeks in early 2019, including to several college hockey games in which his daughter played.
Their patience paid off at an ice arena in suburban Milwaukee. After eating food from a concession stand, Westrom wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed it in a wastebasket. A child with a half-finished slurpee was headed for the same trash can, so Boeckers moved quickly to retrieve the napkin.
According to prosecutors, BCA investigators matched the DNA left on a shirt, washcloth, and blanket in 1993 to the sample the detectives collected nearly 26 years later.
In their closing argument, defense attorneys Steve Meshbesher and Andrew Tyler tried to dismantle the government’s case. They noted that DNA evidence from several other people found in Childs’ apartment was never identified, and that the state did not produce evidence indicating when Westrom left his DNA there.
“When were those deposited?” Tyler asked. “An hour before she was murdered? A day before she was murdered? A week before she was murdered? We don’t know.”
Tyler also questioned another key piece of the state’s evidence, bloody footprints in Childs’ bedroom that investigators linked to Westrom. Tyler said a fingerprint expert who testified for the government disagreed with Minneapolis police and was unable to identify three of the four footprints left at the scene.
Ever since prosecutors charged Westrom in 2019, defense attorneys argued that many men visited Childs’ apartment and any could have been her killer. In court documents, Meshbesher listed five possible alternative perpetrators, but Judge Juan Hoyos allowed the defense to mention only one of them, Arthur Gray, to jurors.
Gray, who’s deceased, lived in the apartment with Childs. Meshbesher reminded jurors that a DNA from hair found on Childs’ hand matched Gray’s DNA.
“Somebody sick, pathological murdered her,” Meshbesher said while pointing to his client. “That guy isn’t the guy.”
Westrom faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.