Jaleayah Davis’ puzzling death in the early hours of Nov. 19, 2011, is highly debated among the true crime community. Unfortunately, and beyond tragic to her loved ones, it may never make any further progress. Her untimely passing was ruled as an accidental death. However, there are one too many unanswered questions, and even contradictions, for some people to take that conclusion completely at face value.
One of those people is Jaleayah’s mother, Kim. Unconvinced by the police findings, her mother, who hasn’t stopped fighting for her, filed a Freedom of Information Act and got hundreds of pages of official police reports. These have only served to corroborate her doubts as to what might truly have happened to her daughter. She has shared this information on the Facebook page “Justice for Jaleayah.”
Recently, thanks to popular true crime YouTuber Bailey Sarian, online interest in the over-a-decade-old case was revived. On a post made by Jaleayah’s mother on Feb. 8, 2024, a comment read:
“Bailey is the reason I found your page and heard this case! I would 100000000% sign ANY petition to reopen your baby’s case or blow up some emails and phone numbers to have it reopened. Let us know what we can do Mama, and I feel like you will have so much more support now since other people have heard about this from Bailey and hopefully others will follow.”
If you still haven’t made up your mind as to the most probable cause of Jaleayah’s death, whether drunk driving accident or homicide, this article may help you reach your own conclusion.
Accident or murder?
Jaleayah’s case is also known as the Mile Marker 181 case, named for the road marker where Jaleayah’s body was found in Marietta, Ohio, near the border with West Virginia. Emily Nestor’s podcast was titled after it, but she decided to end it after 23 episodes and eventually agreeing with the official ruling (per The Independent).
Jaleayah left home at around 5 pm on Nov. 18 to spend the evening with 4 friends. One of these friends was Kristin Bechtold, with whom she was supposed to stay the night. But at 3:28 am Jaleayah would call her sister Taubi to come pick her up at a gas station. According to Taubi, Jaleayah turned to someone and said “Give me the keys” while still on the call. Only minutes later Jaleayah would call her sister again, this time she was significantly more distressed and upset, asking to be picked up somewhere else. In this call, she vented that Kristin was “a bad friend”, calling her a slew of insults. When Taubi asked what happened, Jaleayah told her she would tell her once they were together. That also would not take place.
Taubi attempted to call Kristin but she was unable to. Three 911 calls were thereafter placed. In the second one, at about 3:48, a truck driver reported seeing Jaleayah’s car, motionless but still running. The motorist told the operator he had passed by a corpse that he thought, and hoped, was a deer. It wasn’t. It was Jaleayah’s mangled body, her head partially decapitated. She was naked from the waist up; her bra and bloodied white coat were “neatly” draped over the guardrail.
The car was found a tenth of a mile away from her body. It was bloodstained, the doors were locked, the driver’s side airbag was deployed, and the passenger’s side window was smashed, with investigators believing that’s where Jaleayah was ejected from the car.
Unanswered questions and lingering doubts
Every indication that Jaelayah might have been murdered is circumstantial – unless you count the objectively odd crime scene. That being said, the indications are enough to make many people, including Jaelayah’s family, question the official ruling.
The evidence seems to suggest that someone else was at the scene before the caller who reported Jaleayah’s body. Acceleration marks were leading away from a pool of blood. However, investigators have deduced that Jaleayah, already deceased at that point, was run over by a driver before being discovered.
Jaleayah’s toxicology report showed that her blood alcohol level was .19. Although that’s over twice as much as the legal limit, that doesn’t reflect the over 25 shots of vodka Kristin said she took only during the pre-game phase of the night, and the more drinks she downed when they went out to a club at about 1 am (wherein, allegedly, Jaleayah flirted with one of the friend’s, Katie, ex-boyfriend). That might’ve been an unintentional exaggeration, though. And Jaleayah’s demands for her car keys could have been the result of the people who were with her not wanting her to drive.
All friends’ testimony is more or less consistent. Freddie, one of the friends, was indeed seen at the McDonald’s drive-through at the time of Jaleayah’s death like he said he was. However, there’s no way to confirm who was with him in the car, though it’s clear at least two people were. Three of these four friends had family in law enforcement, including Kristin’s grandfather who had been a sheriff.
When she was questioned the first time, Kristin decided voluntarily to offer her interpretation of Jaelayah’s probable cause of death (which wouldn’t match). Afterwards, not half a day after the tragedy took place, she lawyered up (that alone doesn’t prove anything). Kristin kept Jaleayah’s keychain, a cherished gift from her sister, until after the case was closed. Jaleayah’s family retrieved the keychain through her lawyer. It doesn’t help when you see the above tweet Kristin posted about the case.
A portion of a statement made by Kim Davis on Nov. 19, 2023, reads:
“With conflicting statements from the people last known to be with her, in particular Kristin’s statement, my daughters case was closed. The fact that there was blood under her car, blood in a broken headlight, a second persons dna inside the car on the shift plate, my daughters case was ruled an accident. The sheriffs department claimed my daughter was driving her own car and with moves that are physically impossible, somehow went out a passenger window. There isn’t a single piece of evidence to support their claim, not one. Did the fact that the people with her were children of former cops, have anything to do with that? My guess would be yes.”
No matter what we might personally believe, we should all hope that Kim and the rest of Jaleayah’s family, one day find closure. If you’d like to help, there’s a Change.org petition you could sign.
Published: Feb 19, 2024 10:24 am