Jason Vesper (10 of Diamonds, Nebraska)

If you're like me, diving into True Crime is about more than just the details of a case.

“It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines.”

And this is what Host Kylie Lo does each week on her podcast, Dark Down East. Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries, uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives, connects with families and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard.

From cold cases, to moments of long-awaited justice, Dark Down East is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them. You can find Dark Down East now, wherever you're listening. Our card this week is Jason Vesper, the 10th of diamonds from Nebraska. The year of 2008 had barely gotten started when 40-year-old Jason Vesper found himself

in the middle of a family argument with his wife and teenage son. In the early hours of January 2nd, Jason left the family home in Scott's bluff to go for a short drive and blow off some steam. It was his memo when he needed to decompress. As Jason walked into the dark towards his pickup with snow still lying thick on the ground,

no one could have predicted the horror that would unfold over the next few minutes. Jason's last moments were caught almost entirely on surveillance footage, except for a short window in which he was viciously and deliberately murdered.

What exactly transpired between Jason and his killer during that period never captured

on film?

“Why did Jason become a target during a spur of the moment drive?”

And why is it the killer or killers closer to home than anyone could have imagined? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. And I'm a woman where she says, "Hey, my darling, what is this?" "Hey, my darling, what's this?" "Hey, my darling, what's this?"

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“With Jason, still strapped into the driver's seat, bleeding out. As Danny waited for help in the dark, she frantically questioned what could have happened to her dad.”

Less than 30 minutes ago, Jason had left the family home after an argument between him and his wife Debbie. The couple had gotten to a heated conversation about their son, Josh, who had left a few hours earlier. Debbie wanted to spend the evening as a family. Josh wanted to go see his girlfriend, who was like a typical, teenager versus parent scenario. And Debbie ended up taking Josh's phone from him during the disagreement.

But Jason gave it back to him before Josh ultimately left, which as you can imagine only caused more tension between the couple.

So Jason decided to take a drive, like he always did when he needed to decompress.

What had started as a casual drive around the neighborhood had left Jason slumped in his pick-up, covered in blood, going in and out of consciousness. Danny, who was now waiting on emergency personnel, knew that her dad was running out of time.

Had Jason somehow crashed his vehicle on the way home, or had something more sinister happened?

“The initial call was the patrol officer responded to what they believed was an injury accident with the vehicle crashing or getting stuck in a neighbor's driveway.”

There was also some information that there was a possible assault involved. Officers arrived and found Jason in his vehicle pretty much unconscious while the time law enforcement arrived. I wasn't until EMS responded later and they found that there were multiple stab wounds to his, his upper body that eventually led to his death. That was administrative sergeant Andrew Suzy of the Scott's Bluff Police Department, who was assigned Jason's case in January of 2026. But back in 2008, when Jason's family heard that he'd been stabbed, they couldn't believe it.

How? He hadn't been planning to go out. He didn't even have any known enemies who were after him. This was a well-liked family man who worked hard at a local lumber store. Why would anyone want to hurt him? Almost 20 years later, his son Josh still cannot come up with an answer that makes any sense. My dad is a person growing up.

He was a man who lived by his values. He exemplified them in his life every day. And he was one that valued hard work. He was the rock of our family. He was the main breadwinner, the supporter of our family.

“And so work was very important for him and he loved what he did, but he valued his family over everything.”

So imagine the shock and devastation Josh felt when the first person investigators became suspicious of was him.

On paper, 18-year-old Josh had a motive, not a great one in my opinion, but I guess to them a teenage boy being mad at his dad over not being allowed to see his girlfriend was enough of a motive for murder. Or at least, enough of a motive to question him about it. I was sitting in a room by myself for what felt like hours upon hours. You know, and they would come in and check on me and talk to me and give me water and drinks and then after a very long period of time of waiting by myself, finally they called me back and wanted to talk to me.

And I remember going in and sitting down with the investigator and we were kind of going through a lot of the same questions and things that we talked about at the hospital. Recovering the story, what had happened that evening, I was very understanding of why they were calling us back in. But then there was this point in the interrogation where interrogator just kind of flipped from, I would say, a nice guy to very aggressive.

“At one point, he kind of flipped the script on me and just kind of started slamming his table on the ground and said, you know, how did it feel?”

And I said, what do you mean how did it feel? It did it again. He said, how did it feel when you were jabbing that knife and your father's chest?

Knowing that I would never do something like that.

There's no way I was going to let them think that. I was going to do whatever I had to do to show them that they're looking the wrong direction. Josh's quick cooperation convinced investigators fast that they were indeed looking in the wrong direction. Josh's girlfriend Hannah, who is now his wife, confirmed that Josh was with her and her family at the time Jason was found bleeding to death. The rest of the immediate family also had alibis, both Danny and Debbie were at home together during the time police estimated Jason was killed.

And unlike many of the pre-digital ericases that we cover on this show, there was a lot of technology police could use to piece together where people were and when. In fact, this case is unusual in that nearly every moment of Jason's time after leaving his house is caught on camera starting from when Jason pulled out of his driveway in his pickup truck at 1246 a.m. One minute after Jason vest per pulled out of his driveway, cameras down the road captured him pulling up to a sit-co gas station. The timestamp was 1247 a.m.

The image we got from law enforcement is grainy, but you can see Jason walking away from his truck towards the entrance. Then a camera captures him inside. So when Jason arrives at the at the gas station, he walks in and he's observed on video footage of being on his phone. But he had called his son to kind of check in on him to make sure he was fine and to tell him, you know, maybe you find a place to stay for the night until your mother cools down.

She was interviewed and remembers him coming in.

He uses a restroom real fast.

“He went to get a soda, which he remembered because she was cleaning the soda machine at the time and actually sprayed some soda on him.”

And then he purchased some cigarettes and he left. And totally he was probably only at the gas station for about four minutes. Josh remembered that phone call well. He was so glad to hear from his dad after the argument. The whole thing wasn't worth fighting about.

They were a close family and neither Josh nor Jason wanted the new year to start with anyone mad at one another. When the process of our conversation, I had heard a doorbell ding or go off. Kind of like when you enter a business or some story, you hear that little ding or go off. So I knew he was out and about somewhere. And then as we continued to conversation about, you know, the next day and how we were going to handle this and fix this going forward,

I could hear in the background like an ice dispenser. And so in my mind, I just assumed that he went out, he'd left the home, went to local convenience store that was kind of his drink stop to get his doctor peppers. And so I'd heard all that and knew he was out. I may have asked him to confirm that, but I don't recall if I did or not. I don't think I heard him leave before hanging up, but was finished up the conversation.

“And I think we talked about maybe just keeping the space and we'd handle things the next day.”

And then we finished up the conversation and, you know, I'm very thankful that, you know, he made that call that he reached out to me. Because I was able to tell him, you know, I was able to hear him tell me that he loved me.

And I was able to tell him that I loved him and that, that was one thing that he was always very good about.

According to the footage, Jason exited the store at 1250 AM and gotten to his blue Dodge pickup in the gas station parking lot. The store clerk remembered seeing Jason get into his truck and drive left onto the main road. Now there's about five minutes of time that's unaccounted for after this. But then, at 1256 AM, another camera picks up Jason's truck driving by. We don't really know what Jason was doing or where he was exactly at.

But we do know, at 1256, as it was caught on video footage, that he stopped at that stop sign facing southbound. And this would have been, you know, half a block from where he lived, where his house was.

“But at that same time, a vehicle pulls in front of him.”

It's hard to make out much from the grainy footage captured in the middle of the night. But you can see this other vehicle come into view from the left. Jason's car is still stopped at the stop sign. But this mystery vehicle pulls in front of Jason and to the side of his vehicle and just sits there. For a few seconds, both vehicles are sat alongside each other.

And then Jason's truck pulls away, turning left and then disappearing off camera to the right. But then, that mystery vehicle does a U-turn, and also heads in the same direction as Jason to follow him. Now, both vehicles were headed in the direction of Jason's home. But to investigate or surprise, just a few seconds later, Jason's truck is back on camera, like he looped around the block. He's driving at normal speed, and his truck comes straight toward the camera and turns left again,

and disappears right off screen. Then, just as his truck disappears off camera, that mystery car reappears and follows the exact same path. At 1257 AM, a nearby camera at Community Christian School captures Jason's truck again. But right behind him is that mystery vehicle. That follow vehicle began flashing his headlights, essentially at, we believe Jason probably trying to contact him,

get him to pull over. We're unsure of the exact motive of the reasoning for that. About a minute later, Jason, for reasons investigators could not understand, did pull over for the mystery vehicle. When he pulled over, based off of the investigation, we know that Jason rolled down his window

for this first-to-have physical contact with him and leading to his death. Jason was stabbed 16 times in his driver's seat. The attack lasted about 50 seconds.

Unlike his previous movements, though, this critical part of the night wasn't captured on film.

Jason's murder happens just beyond the camera's view.

He somehow found the strength to drive away even as he was bleeding to death. And you can also see the suspect vehicle driving off too. That is the last image investigators have of it. Law enforcement were racking their brains trying to find a connection between Jason and the other driver. So many little things had added up to the idea that maybe he knew them.

What was that brief interaction? Had they exchanged a wave or words?

“Why had Jason pulled over when the other driver flashed its lights?”

And when he did, surely he didn't think he was in danger.

We know that Jason never took a seat belt off.

If Jason didn't know this person, it was expecting some sort of confrontation. We just don't understand why. All those things would have occurred in that process. One thing we knew, we were asked several times, was there anybody that he had a lifelong conflict with? Or was there anyone that in the recent days, months, years that had threatened him or that he's had significant problems with?

And for us, we couldn't think of anybody. For as many oddities that would make you think Jason knew the driver, there are just as many that make me believe he didn't. And then another handful that don't make sense in either scenario. Why did Jason circle the block? Did he know that this person was following him and he didn't want to lead them back to his house?

I mean, there were no other cars on the road at this hour.

It would have been obvious when the car did a U-turn to follow him. Well, we just don't understand this thing.

“You know, if he knew this vehicle was following him, why did he pull over?”

Why didn't he call 911? Why didn't he drive to the police department? We knew Jason had a cell phone with him because he was talking to his son at the gas station. As for why Jason didn't call 911 after he was stabbed, it's very possible he was in shock.

Based on how long his truck isn't seen on the footage, we know that in the span of just about 50 seconds someone got Jason to pull over,

got out of their car, got Jason to roll down his window,

and threw it stabbed him 16 times. It was excessive. It was overkill. But it also meant that his killer had to get up close and personal. And that left investigators some hope,

“that maybe there would be physical evidence left behind in Jason's pickup.”

They did at the time collect swabs of several of the different types of blood located in around the pickup, as well as some hairs that were located in the area, stuck to the vehicle. Unfortunately due to the degradation of some of them, the technology at the time, not all of them were able to come back with the positive result.

And then the ones that we have gotten back so far have mainly been linked to Jason's unique characteristics. Even though Jason's death had been ruled a homicide, the day that he'd been found by Danny in his truck. By the time law enforcement narrowed down the location of where the attack on him happened, it had been blanketed with fresh snow,

so any potential evidence was lost. But that didn't mean they were left completely without clues. Between the surveillance footage, Jason's injuries, and his final words, there is a pretty compelling picture of what might have happened. Jason was still alive when his wife and daughter found his car crashed

in a neighbor's yard three doors down from theirs. And in the frantic moments where they were trying to help him and call 911, of course they asked him what happened. When Debbie and Danny make it to the pickup, and they find their dad and husband, you know, slumped over in the driver's seat.

Debbie goes to the driver's side door, and tries to, you know, support Jason's head. Danny ends up going around to the passenger side opening up the door. That's when there's a little bit of interaction between Jason and Debbie and his daughter, where Jason was able to make his final words that he spoke was that two guys jumped to me.

Now, Sergeant Susie said it's tough to know how much to rely on Jason's account. After all, he was bleeding out and unable to call 911 himself when he referred to multiple attackers. But Josh told our reporters that past investigators put at least some stock in Jason's last words.

I know when a conversation is with law enforcement between us and the family,

there's some discussion about some of the injuries that he had had, and because of,

“I think because of some of the bruising on the side of his face,”

there would be the passenger side of the vehicle. It seemed like he had been, like, assaulted or maybe punched from the opposite side of his truck, which made them believe that there may have potentially been more than one person. And I don't know, I can't say that that's been something that they've released to the public, but that is something that they've kind of told us.

When our reporter Laura Frieder asked Sergeant Susie about Jason's injuries,

specifically the knife wounds, Susie said that he couldn't comment on them.

If he provided too much detail, he might compromise the investigation. Our team did, however, find out more about the specific knife injuries Jason endured. And what I'll say is that they were incredibly specific and very intentional. It was almost like the killer or killers were sending a message. Now there is no way to tell from the video footage if there is more than one person in the mystery car seen following Jason.

But investigators were able to extract some other important information about the car itself. It was possibly an old Cadillac or oldsmobile with very distinctive lights. Investigators searched multiple states and national databases looking for this car model to see if anyone either locally or beyond Scott's bluff owned it.

And shockingly, Sergeant Susie told Laura that they had located and even done testing on a number of cars as a result.

But nothing relevant to the case has ever come back. So investigators don't believe that they have ever located the suspects car. Today, Jason's case is an exactly cold. When Sergeant Susie talked with our reporters, he understandably didn't overshare. But what he did say gave me some hope.

Over the course of the years, there has been multiple suspects that have popped up. Some of them have been cleared and some of them haven't been. We obviously don't have any type of defended proof to arrest anyone at this time. But we have continued to do some work on this case and even conducted interviews even this last summer in a polygraph that was associated with this. So we have a couple suspects that are still on our list that we're trying to keep an eye on.

And we're hoping that we can find some new evidence or some new technology that will lead us to confirm or deny those suspicions or that are those people. You know, decide to do the right thing and come forward.

“But who are those suspects and do they have any connection to Jason?”

That's the question we really pressed Sergeant Susie on. And you could tell that he wanted to pick his words carefully. He took a long pause and drummed his fingers on the table before answering. All I'm going to be able to say at this point is that the suspects that we do have on our list don't really have any real connection to Jason. And, you know, there's there's a couple different people that we have that we'd like to to really rule in a rule out as being involved.

There was this feeling I couldn't shake while we were reporting on this case. Like we were missing a piece. Yes, it's totally possible that Jason was attacked by a complete stranger. People have thrown out the idea that it could have been road rage or some kind of gang initiation. Police say they could find no evidence that Jason had any connections or was involved with anything criminal. So that would lead you to believe it really was just totally random.

But I don't know something keeps annoying at me inside and I can't quite put my finger on it.

“But I keep coming back to Jason's phone. Why hadn't he called someone for help?”

Even before he was attacked, if he thought that he was being followed, why hadn't Jason called someone for help? And even before he was attacked, if he thought that someone had been following him, like wouldn't he have called someone? So I had a reporter go back to Sergeant Suicy and ask him about Jason's phone records. I know he didn't call 911 that night. But had he called anyone else besides his son in the time that he was out of the house?

What about in the hours before he was murdered? And his response was interesting. I'm still kind of going through the phone records. And I haven't found anything and there hasn't been any reports that I've located that have noted anything significant in any of Jason's phone records or text messages that would have lead us down to believing that with a suspect would have had any type of prior contact with him.

Which is why he hadn't finished that work several months after being a signed Jason's case. We know for sure that Jason talked to his son Josh at around 1 a.m. the night that he was killed. And when we talked with Danny, she said that she was not in contact with her dad via his phone after he left the house. But Danny also said that she couldn't remember enough of that night to quote "speak on behalf of anyone else" when it came to what might have happened. It is unlikely that the truth of what happened to Jason is buried in his phone records like some hidden clue waiting to be unlocked.

“But I do think that unlocking the truth is possible.”

Even if this was the most random, unprovoked and unplanned murder, and that hope is what's driving family and investigators and our team. Jason's case began with the words of his daughter Danny. She witnessed her father dying in his pickup, bleeding to death, something no child should ever have to see. Danny recently had a baby so she is a parent herself now. She didn't feel up to participating in this episode because parenting a baby is hard. But she did decide to write something about her dad and record it for us.

My dad was so funny. He always showed up for my events and he just wanted to take care of and be with his family.

We were a regular family with regular problems. He went to that close by gas station often as he liked cigarettes and soda.

“He was New Year's Day. My dad did not deserve to die so cruelly.”

His death has left a hole in all of our lives as he's always missing from every moment big or small. I had to be a teenager and grow up without the guidance of a loving father all while processing a tragedy and trying to survive. While I've had many blessings in my life like family and those who've helped me in different ways, the horrific death of my father has given me treatment resistant crippling anxiety to levels that are unimaginable to most people. Even I didn't know someone could experience and live with such anxiety.

So this tragedy continues to steal from me to this day in many ways.

I was the first to find my dad in critical condition when my mom and I noticed a weird light shining in the window, which we later discovered was a headlight from his truck.

The other headlight was blocked by a house. It is a horror no one should ever experience, little on half to be tortured by emotionally for the rest of their life.

“By a memories, PTSD and reminders of how their life is messed up as a result of this murder.”

Even dealing with law enforcement is traumatic. The questions, the retelling of events, the searches, the mind gains, the worrying about other family members who are also just victims in this. The ups and downs and mostly downs of the case throughout the years. My new I was 14 at the beginning of this. A death is bad enough, but it also has so many ripple effects that people don't realize. There really is not enough understanding or support and resources for people who have gone through tragedies like this.

And I hope that can be something that changes in this world. I would really like to understand how and why this murder happened and for all of my family members near and far to have clarity, closure and healing. This has generational consequences.

For me, I don't know that justice can ever be served. The damage is already been done. The years of hardships, the traumas in our minds and bodies and my dad will never be alive again.

So living with unanswered questions probably doesn't help any of these issues. I hope that answers to this crime could provide healing in many ways besides my own. I hope people think hard about hurting others like this and the ever rippling consequences. And I hope the rest of society thinks more about and actively cares more about helping people through tragedies like this. It lasts a lifetime and it feels like it just never ends. It's like a moving shadow always in the background.

The Scott's Bluff Police Department wants to hear from anyone who knows anything about the person or people involved in Jason Vesper's murder. Specifically a person who owned a vehicle matching the suspect vehicle description around the time of the homicide. The vehicle was possibly a 1985-1988 Cadillac to Ville and Fleetwood, including a 1985-1987 Fleetwood 75 Limousine, or a 1985-1990 Oldsmobile, 98. If you have any information, you can call the Scott's Bluff Police Department at 308-632-7867.

To learn more about the deck in our advocacy work visit thedeckpodcast.com. I think Chuck would approve.