[ Music ]
Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm your host Ann Marie Green and today we're going to be discussing
“the case of Justine Fander Shoot, who in 2003 went missing from her parents' home in Auburn,”
California. Now law enforcement quickly suspected Justine's boyfriend and his roommate. With me here to discuss this case is 48 hours correspondent, Natalie Morales, and producer a guy-ang, Cassession Mendez. Thank you so much for joining us again, ladies. Good to be with you, Ann Marie. Thanks for having us. So listen, as usual, everyone to remind or to you that if you haven't listened to this 48 hours
episode, you can certainly find the full audio version just below this episode in your podcast feed. So go take a listen or go watch it wherever you get 48 hours and then come on back for this conversation. You start the hour with a conversation with Matt Scribner. He's the
a question who had actually first spotted first a freshly dug hole in the ground and later he
goes back and it looks a lot different. You're on a horseback and I think that something that maybe might be missed is that this is an area that's actually kind of hard to get to. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And Matt Scribner, you know, he was key to the testimony in this case by giving investigators that timeline of when he saw this freshly dug hole and then going back later and then seeing a mattress and debris covering that hole. Now, what was really intriguing
about this is that, you know, had he not been eight or ten feet above ground on a horse, he probably might not have seen that, but I loved being able to do the interview on horseback
“because, you know, that's how he saw it and it also provided for us a little bit of a different”
element in a way into this investigation than we normally do. A key element of the case is that this location was so hard to get to at least the prosecution argued and brand and being able to lead detectives right to it without any hesitation in the dark through sort of rugged terrain, even the investigator, the original investigator, in the case didn't know how to get their Matt was the only one who was able to lead us every single time because he just grew up on these trails.
And so he knew it like like the back of his hand. There's a couple of road signs, but once you're there to actually get to the spot where the burial site is, there is nothing marking it, it's just sort of feeling your way and knowing where to go and he couldn't really give us verbal directions. We had to have Matt as a guide every time and he was just very generous in doing that. And I learned something about you, Natalie. I did not know that you were at a
question yourself and the horses are pretty interesting as well. Yes, oh my gosh, the horses
“are incredible creatures. They are, I think both of them were wild moustangs that had been”
you know, tamed or broken. And the horse that Matt Scribner was riding, his name is Astro and they
were so amazing to to be on, but also so relaxed and chill, surprisingly given that we had
camera crews all around them and also we used drones and we were a little concerned using the drones because I don't know if you know this but when they round up wild moustangs, they fly helicopters over them. And so there was some concern that the drone and that sound that they make, you know, that buzzing noise might freak the horses out a little bit. Thankfully, you know, we kept the drones far away from them. The horses seem to be pretty fine with it. And so we got the footage that we
needed and we were able to do the interview and it all came out great. When I saw kind of the image of the debris, I thought, is that Matt for what is that? And then I thought, how do you even get stuff out there? What was this place like back then? From what we've been told and also from some of the evidence photos we've seen back in the early 2000s and this crime happened in 2003, it was really a dumping round, you know, where you would have maybe unhoused populations coming
through. There was an abandoned trailer there. So just all kinds of debris. And so a mattress was really not out of place. Wow. So let's talk about the suspects because police, you know, identify them pretty quickly. Danny Besamer and Brandon Fernandez, it's not uncommon for investigators
To look immediately to a boyfriend or a partner.
the roommate. You know, tell me about these two guys. The sheriff's detectives tell us that they
“zeroed in on these guys early on. And one of the reasons being is that they did everything together”
according to the people in the inner circle in the know who knew Danny, Brandon, and Justin. And they found out that they were lying about their alibi that night. So that was sort of a big red flag right away that led them to look at these guys. But as they looked at them, they discovered that they had this fascination with violence with murder. They talked about being able to kill people and get away with it. They looked into beating polygraphs. Brandon was said of a website that sort of
rang to levels of violence and based on the, you know, the witness accounts of what they had seen.
It was pretty startling disturbing stuff. Yeah. They were very close friends. They lived together
“as you said. And according to investigators, you know, there was some history there with Brandon”
not liking Justin. And also, according to Christine, Justin, sister, Justin had believed that Brandon had been cheating on his girlfriends in the past. So she didn't like him either. So, you know, there definitely was this tense and toxic relationship in this sort of triangle between Danny and Brandon and Justin being the one in the middle. According to Danny's testimony, he at one point was so heartbroken because he believed that Justin was cheating on him.
He was thinking of taking his own life. A Brandon said, why kill yourself? Why don't you kill her instead? So that's sort of where this plan came about. But the defense denies that Brandon
“ever said anything to encourage him. So all of that stuff kind of goes to motive, right? A fascination”
with violence. Have they been in trouble with the law before? Because that is quite a leap to go from having a fascination with murder and actually committing one. Prosecutors tell us that there was nothing serious, criminally serious in these guys' backgrounds. But they both had brushes with the law as juveniles. Danny reportedly had been involved in some burglaries and possession of stolen property. Brandon had been prosecuted for hacking. He was a computer was. So we don't have access
to their juvenile records, obviously. But again, prosecutions says nothing that would lead you to believe that they could be dangerous on this level. So initially Danny and Brandon say they're each other's allies, right? And that doesn't work out for them. So then Danny claims that Brandon was the mastermind of Justin's murder and Brandon claimed that he had just participated in the cleanup and you know the cover-up in the weeks afterwards. So let's talk about this four and a half
hour interrogation between Brandon and the FBI. First he says he saw Justin after she was dead.
And then he describes her breathing which would indicate that she was actually alive as she was breathing. So he must have seen her while she was alive as well. And then at the end of this interrogation, he writes one letter to Justin and one letter to her parents and reads it to investigators. "Did not make it into the hour? I want to play some of that right now." This is the parents' time winner. I want you to know that your daughter's death has not been
been. I want you to know that I made promises to Justin, that I prayed for her. I didn't know what any of this had happened. I didn't know that it was going to happen. I like you because I kept offering my promises to Justin. I promised her I would encourage my her death. I have... I protected those she loves. I was so scared. I wanted to let you know everything. You knew I knew it on. It hurt you. You knew I was scared. I lost two cranes in one night.
I lost Justin and I lost Danny. I was left with protecting everybody else. I care. I do. I'm sorry. It had to be this way. Wow. As you heard, their Brandon sort of casting himself as a hero. The prosecution felt this was sort of a telling reaction because if Brandon was truly so fearful of Danny, that he felt powerless
To be able to stop him or to go for help, he should have cast himself as the ...
His narrative was sort of like, "I'm the Avenger and her death." I'm going to do right by you,
“but yet he was witnessing or take her last breath. He did nothing to stop that from happening.”
Absolutely. What did the FBI agents who interrogated him think? Jeff Reineck, I mean, he is a skilled interrogator. He told us that he usually has people right a letter to the victims at the end or to their families. And so this is sort of part of his strategy, I guess, in a way, it may be see what they reveal, you know, in writing. And he said that, you know, it was almost as if he was trying to rewrite. As if Brandon was trying to rewrite his role in what happened.
Welcome back, everyone. Danny Bezamer and Brandon Fernand is ultimately
took plea deals and are there currently serving life sentences in prison? What was it like for Justin's family to realize that this young man, that they welcomed him to their home, was nothing like who he had presented himself to be to them? The vanerschutz did everything to include Danny. He had a key to the house. He was welcome into their home whenever that he wanted to come in. Don gave him a job at the Mercedes-Benz dealership where he worked. So that he hooked him
“up and this is what happened to them. I think their emotions have really run the gamut over the”
last two decades, having to kind of relive this over and over again every time that they have
to face these guys at a parole hearing or, you know, now with Brandon, the second go around for
the petition to be resettin. So it's just really hard to encapsulate what they're feeling, because it's just a range of emotions, you know, obviously anger in there, but a determination to make sure these guys don't get out. You guys use a lot of the local news coverage from when she initially was missing. I thought it was so unnerving, because you see him, right? You see Danny and we've seen this before, you know, appealing to the cameras for help, but he's not just doing that.
He's trying to throw investigators off and he does it flawlessly. He doesn't look nervous. Absolutely, chilling. It's chilling. It is chilling. And I said to Guy Anne, like, I kept looking at his eyes, trying to read his body language, trying to get a sense of, you know, where was his mindset? Like, what was he possibly thinking, being able to do that, going front of the media the way he was holding up her picture and saying, I did everything for that girl.
And let's not forget, he had dinner with the vander shoots on the night that he was planning to then take their daughter into that forested area and kill her, the level of depravity and sickness
“is just so outrageous. I think it's important to point out to that the defense kind of uses”
Danny's commitment to this lie and just the way that he's able to do it so flawlessly and to say that, you know, this is the guy. This is the real danger here and trying to use that as an argument to say that Brandon was dupped by him just as much as Justin was. But that is the argument that Brandon Fernandez is still using that his sentence should be adjusted, which brings us to the of the other part of this hour, right? A change in the law, you mentioned in the hour in 2018,
the California law was changed to reduce the fault of defendants who didn't actually commit the murder, do the killing. Let's just explain, you know, the change in the law. We're told that the law was intended to give relief to people who were inadvertently unintentionally involved in a murder where they neither intended to kill and they didn't actually do the killing like a getaway driver in a robbery gone bad. And then those people used to
be prosecuted at the same level as the person who actually pulled the trigger. This law was intended to fix that. And unfortunately, according to, you know, prosecutors and Justin's family, the way
That the law was written allowed someone like Brandon, who they say absolutel...
and doesn't fit the bill on this to apply and to be given a chance to actually make his case
“to a judge. If you listen to Brandon's defense attorney, he's exactly the kind of person”
for whom the law was intended because he says Brandon didn't commit the crime that he saw Justin as Danny had already killed her. And then was so scared that he did what Danny told him helped dig the grave bury her and then proceeded to lie to cover it up for over two weeks. I mean, he serving a life sentence now. He wanted his life sentence thrown out and to be resentance
does what they call an accessory after the fact. So basically saying, you know, I didn't mean to
do this. I didn't take part in it. I just was there and it happened. Right. And so as a result, the the vanishutes have had to kind of like reopen this wound over and over and over again seven times in seven years. They've been to court. You know, they took a plea deal because they thought that would be the easiest way to not have to relive the horrific details of their daughter's murder and yet now they're having to do that over and over again. So how is Justin's family doing
today? I mean, they're incredibly brave and I would say the vanishutes are among the strongest family. I've met because they are taking what is such a horrific loss and their pain and they're turning it into something positive and good. They have along with the prosecutor's office enacted Justin's law to help educate teens and high schools across the state of California on teen dating violence, which unfortunately is becoming more prevalent as we know with social media.
They're really trying to to turn the page on something that was so tragic in their lives and
and really doing something powerful with it instead and really hopefully making an impact in a
“positive way to remember their daughter. The judge, when he issued the ruling in this case,”
pointed out that, you know, it can seem unfair. The law, the justice system can seem unfair to victims families and they definitely, that resonates with them because they feel that it's only the rights of people like their daughters, murderers that are being protected with the constant, you know, evolution of these laws that provide more protections and more relief. And so they've been advocating for victims rights and they've been working with, you know,
the sheriff's office as well as the DA's office from the beginning to raise money and just to raise
awareness. We're all parents of teenagers, tweenagers even here and you know, you have daughters. I have a son who's 16 and an older son as well and and it is something that, you know, you don't necessarily really think about, you know, them getting into a toxic relationship like this that could lead to something so horrific. But there are telltale signs and there are red flags and in hindsight, justine's family, they're trying to point those out because there were signs
of controlling behavior. It really made me kind of question myself, have I had these conversations with my daughter? Should I? What's the language I should be using? I just and I thought, you know, it's not a conversation that my mom ever had with me about toxic relationships and red flags, but it may be time to have that conversation. We really wanted to give people something to think about and to also, you know, spread the word on what the family's trying to do, but, you know,
doing these murders, I have an almost 13-year-old daughter and I tried to shield her from some of the really horrific stuff. You know, and this definitely is at the top of the list, but she knows justine van der Shoot's name, she knows her story and even though she's too young to be dating,
“it's just, you know, it seemed like a natural thing for her to be aware of. I think Natalie and I”
and obviously justine's family, they just want to be able to help even one person, one family, from having to go through what they have gone through with this just by paying attention to the signs that were right there. Absolutely, and it absolutely will. Natalie, Guy in, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. If you like this series, post-mortem, please write and review 48 hours on Apple Podcasts
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