MUSKEGON, Mich. — A decade after the disappearance of Jessica Heeringa from a Norton Shores gas station as she worked an overnight shift by herself, we are getting a look at interrogation tapes of Jeffrey Willis, the man convicted of killing her, and his cousin Kevin Bluhm.
Willis was convicted of the kidnapping murder of Heeringa, the murder of Rebekah Bletsch and was identified as the man who attempted to abduct 16-year-old Madison Nygard.
According to information in audio and video recordings obtained by FOX 17, Bluhm had a personal connection to both Bletsch and Nygard.
He told police that one of his kids played soccer with Bletsch's, and that his children danced with Madison Nygard.
Bluhm was adamant that he did not "lead" Willis to either victim.
In June 2018, Jeffrey Willis was sentenced to life in prison for the abduction and murder of Heeringa, then 25-years-old.
Her body has never been found.
April 2013— JESSICA HEERINGA GOES MISSING
Heeringa was last seen working an overnight shift at an Exxon gas station in Norton Shores ten years ago, on April 26, 2013.
Police initially revealed they had found blood and Heeringa's purse on scene. Years later, it would come out during trial that a plastic piece and some small batteries from a 22 caliber handgun laser sight were also collected.
"There was very little distress at the scene. There was nothing from an evidentiary standpoint that tied this missing person to anything going on," Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson told FOX 17 in March 2023. "At that point in time, there weren't any solid leads to go on."
June 2014— REBEKAH BLETSCH IS MURDERED
On June 29, 2014, Rebekah Bletsch, 36, was jogging on a rural Muskegon County road when she was shot multiple times and killed.
Her body was discovered by neighbors in the area, with some of her personal items strewn across the road.
"It was a bizarre crime scene," Hilson recalled in March. "Investigators were able to find one spent shell casing, kind of in the middle of the road. On the other side, where the body was, they found Rebekah's things, the sports armband, if you will, the cell phone, and headphones and sunglasses all kind of piled up in a neat little pile."
Investigators were not able to link Willis to either the disappearance of Jessica Heeringa or the murder of Rebekah Bletsch until he was questioned in the attempted abduction of 16-year-old Madison Nygard in May 2016.
April 2016— AN ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION
Nygard had been walking home from a party on the morning of April 16, 2016, when she says Willis pulled up in his silver van to offer assistance.
After asking to borrow his cell phone, and getting into his vehicle, she has described Willis as saying his phone was dead and driving away.
She testified during the Heeringa trial that he then pulled a gun from beneath his seat and pointed it at her. She jumped from his van, ran to a nearby home and called 911.
The ensuing investigation into her attempted abduction would soon lead detectives to Jeffrey Willis and his cousin Kevin Bluhm.
THE TAPES
FOX 17 recently obtained several video and audio recordings from interviews police had with both Jeffrey Willis and Kevin Bluhm following Nygard's attempted abduction.
The contrast in demeanor between Willis and Bluhm during their respective time with detectives is stark.
Willis is calm, collected, and making jokes throughout his nearly 2 hours in an interrogation room.
The first thing he says to a female detective in the room is, "you look familiar... you look live a movie star."
After about an hour of somewhat casual conversation, another detective begins pressing Willis about Nygard.
“No more beating around the bush," he begins.
"Alright, what story you want to hear," Willis responds.
"I want to hear your side of the story, and you know what I'm talking about."
"No, I don't," Willis insists.
"I think you do, I know you do."
"Okay, you know I do.”
Willis doesn't budge.
Approaching two hours in the room, Willis begins asking if he can leave, sounding more frustrated each time.
“You know what, I'm done. If i get up and walk out are you gonna slam me down?," Willis asks.
"Just relax," the detective responds.
Willis is arrested and taken to jail that day for the attempted abduction of Nygard.
When they search his van, home, and computers, they begin to believe that Willis is responsible for what happened to Heeringa and Bletsch as well.
Initially, Bluhm was spoken to as a potential witness, but would seemingly talk himself into suspicion when he called a detective on the case about a dream he had.
"I had a very vivid dream Saturday night, I don't know if he handed me a handgun or not, I don't know if it was loaded or not. I keep closing my eyes and seeing a magazine with an orange top," he says in an audio recording of a meeting with a detective and a prosecutor.
"It's bothering me that, did he or did he not, and I'm sitting there trying to recall, and i don't remember, and that's why i called you."
This was immediately a red flag to investigators, who began taking a closer look at his possible involvement.
They found Bluhm had a personal connection to both Rebekah Bletsch and Madison Nygard.
He told detectives that his children played soccer with Bletsch's kids, and danced with Nygard.
We received over 15 hours worth of audio and video recordings with Kevin Bluhm. Throughout the recordings he is visibly and audibly uncomfortable, stressed, and often emotional.
On several occasions he appears to break into tears.
After hours of back-and-forth, he tells investigators that Jeff has in fact shared with him some aspects of his crimes.
He claims Willis took "souvenirs" from his victims, or "his girls" as Bluhm says it. Alleging that Willis kept Heeringa's name tag, shirt, and underwear.
Bluhm tells investigators he can lead them to Heeringa's body, and even leads them outside on a trip to see if they can locate a grave.
Officers search along an old railway in Muskegon County, but turn up nothing.
Bluhm later tells detectives that both he and Jeff did bury Heeringa in that area, but that Jeff moved her body on a later date.
He claimed not to know where she was taken from there.
During the interviews, he says Jeff called him one evening back in 2013, asking him to drive out to a home that used to belong to Jeff's grandpa.
Jeff was now taking care of the home, and according to Bluhm, told him he had girls at the house who wanted to have sex with them.
Bluhm describes coming to the home, walking down to the basement, and seeing the lifeless body of who he thought was Jessica Heeringa.
“I go down stairs, then I step to the bottom of the step, and I see that girl. At first I said cool, I've never done this before… and, she was dead," he explains.
"How did you know she was dead?," a detective asks.
"She was just... no movement."
"And what else told you she was dead?"
"Just her color."
The detective wanted more detail.
"Describe it for me."
Bluhm shifts his body, raises his hands to his chest, with his palms facing up.
"You don't ever want to see something like this," he tells them.
The detective continues to press.
"What did she look like?"
"White... really white."
Despite providing detailed descriptions of seeing Heeringa inside Jeff's Grandpa's house, and helping dispose of her body, he would soon change his story.
Hours after the previous exchange, he would tell the detectives that he had been making the whole thing up.
“I'm so tired, and my meds were down, and I lied about everything," he told investigators.
"I've never seen Jessica, Jeff never called me, I'm telling you right now.”
Bluhm was charged with lying to investigators, obstruction, and accessory after the fact in Heeringa's case.
He was never charged for Heeringa's murder, nor was he charged in the Bletsch or Nygard cases.
Prosecutor D.J. Hilson tells FOX 17 he believes Bluhm does know where her body is.
“Now, the good news is that, for murder, in the state of Michigan, there's no statute of limitations," he said in March.
"So we can be very patient, and trust me, on behalf of all of law enforcement and my office, if there's enough evidence to show that, he will be charged.”
On January 9, 2018, Bluhm was sentenced to time served after pleading no contest to accessory after the fact in the Heeringa case.
He had served 476 days in jail at that point.
Jeffrey Willis remains behind bars at G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson.
In emails with FOX 17 this month, Willis maintains that he is innocent and was wrongly convicted.
He is serving out a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
