In a stunning case of deception, Daniel Bartelt comforted the grieving parents of 19-year-old Jessie Blodgett just hours after he raped and murdered her — even sitting in their living room, sharing hugs, tears, and stories of the girl whose life he had taken that very morning.
Jessie, a passionate theater student from Hartford, Wisconsin, had just returned from a cast party for Fiddler on the Roof in July 2013 when she was brutally strangled in her bed. Her body was carefully staged to make it appear she was peacefully sleeping.
But it wasn’t until Bartelt, her classmate and ex-boyfriend, let one damning detail slip to police — a fact not publicly known — that suspicions turned into certainty.
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The Deception
As news of Jessie’s murder spread, friends and family struggled to make sense of the tragedy. Bartelt, who had once been close to Jessie, was among those who seemed the most distraught. He mourned with her family, consoled her parents, and even reminisced about their memories together.
“He was welcome in our home,” Jessie’s father, Buck Blodgett, said in the ID series A Killer Among Friends, which aired July 21 and is now streaming on HBO Max. “The day after Jessie’s murder, he was there, crying with us. Then his phone rang, and he said he had to go in for questioning.”
No one suspected a thing — not even the friends who gave him a ride to the police station. “He told us, ‘Maybe you can come pick me up in 30 minutes?’” one friend recalled. “But when we came back, the officers told us, ‘We can’t release Dan. He’s being detained.’”
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A Chilling Discovery
Police had already connected Bartelt to a separate violent attack just days earlier. He had tackled a woman in a nearby park and held a knife to her throat. He confessed to the assault, claiming he only meant to scare her.
But during questioning about Jessie, Bartelt made a critical error: he mentioned she had been raped and murdered — before authorities had released any information about a sexual assault.
Investigators quickly began connecting the dots. A search of the park where Bartelt had attacked the other woman turned up a cereal box in a trash can containing rope, bloody wipes, tape, and other materials. Both Jessie’s and Bartelt’s DNA were found on the evidence.
A 16-day investigation led to Bartelt’s arrest. For Jessie’s murder, he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and later convicted. For the earlier park assault, he was sentenced to five years — to be served consecutively with his life sentence.
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A Father’s Grief
The betrayal devastated Jessie’s family, but they responded not with anger — just sorrow.
“Our first reaction wasn’t, ‘We hate this kid,’” Buck said. “It was, ‘Oh my God, what happened to Dan?’”
Even after his conviction, Bartelt maintained his innocence. At sentencing, he faced Jessie’s family in court and said, “I can’t give you the answers you’re looking for. I pray for you, and I believe that one day we’ll stand before a court that will see my conscience is clear.”
He was sentenced in August 2014 to life in prison without parole.
New episodes of A Killer Among Friends air Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on ID and stream afterwards on HBO Max.
