Naman Shrestha
The episode titled ‘They’d Never Find the Body’ of Hulu’s ‘How I Caught My Killer’ profiles the disappearance and murder case of 19-year-old Jodi Sanderholm in early 2007. While her loved ones were wishing for her safe return, a nightmarish thought about her demise was constantly running through the back of their minds. The entire community was left shell-shocked when the latter came true. As the murder investigation progressed, the detectives were led to Justin Thurber, a predator who had been lurking and stalking girls for several years.
Stalker Justin Thurber Was Responsible For the Rape and Murder of Jodi Sanderholm
On January 5, 2007, a 19-year-old college student named Jodi Sanderholm vanished into thin air from outside of her house in Arkansas City, Kansas. A few days later, her body was discovered in the Kaw Wildlife Area after the authorities found her drowned car in the nearby Cowley County State Fishing Lake. Straight from the jump, Justin Eugene Thurber had been one of the suspects in Jodi’s disappearance. Their suspicions were fueled further when the victim’s friends claimed that he had been stalking other members of her dance team at college as well. So, just a day after Jodi went missing, the police took Justin into custody over suspicion of criminal trespass for being on the college campus, an unrelated charge.
They even obtained a search warrant for his residence, where they found a pair of Adidas sneakers whose prints matched the footprints found in the Kaw Wildlife Area. Further investigation also proved that the prime suspect was in the area where Jodi’s body and belongings were found. On the fateful day, 23-year-old Justin allegedly abducted Jodi from outside of her home and drove her to the Kaw Wildlife Area, where he raped and strangled her to death with a piece of clothing or a chord. Reports suggested that he had also been violent with her ex-girlfriend. Moreover, the detectives found out that before targeting the 19-year-old student, he used to stalk her sister, Jennifer Aldridge, from the time she was 13.
When the police had gathered enough evidence against him, they arrested him and charged him with the rape and murder of Jodi Sanderholm on June 9, 2007. More than one and a half years later, the stalker stood on trial in February 2009. The jury returned with a guilty verdict and convicted him of first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances, aggravated rape, and aggravated kidnapping. Considering the gravity of his crimes, the court gave him the death sentence in connection with Jodi Sanderholm’s rape and murder in January 2007.
Justin is Serving His Sentence at a Kansas Prison While Awaiting News About His Appeal
While on death row, Justin Thurber and his defense attorneys did not rest easy as in July 2012, they filed an appeal with the court and claimed that multiple errors were made at his trial. When that didn’t go in the favor of the convict, they appealed the death penalty on several other occasions. In 2018, the defense claimed that Justin was developmentally disabled and had an IQ between 70 and 80. However, his school report cards proved that he was in good standing academically. So, after considering both sides of the coin, the decision went against the convict as the court decided that he could not be considered intellectually disabled and sent the case back to the Kansas Supreme Court for review.
Although the decision was unfavorable to Justin Thurber, the Kansas Supreme Court reviewed the case and postponed his death sentence. When the Kansas high court decided to return the case to a lower court, Jodi’s family members expressed their frustration. Her sister, Jennifer Aldridge, told KSN, “They did not overturn his (murder) conviction and we do not have to go through another trial. But the fact that they want to look at his mental ability again is pretty upsetting because this is something we’ve already gone through. And it was determined that he was not mentally handicapped (previously) so I don’t understand why we have to do it again… Some frustration but we have kind of learned to live with that.”
Jodi’s father, Brian Sanderholm, also stated, “Yeah, I’m upset with the whole system, entirely. I really… I can not for the life of me believe our system has gotten to the point you can actually go out and do a crime like this and not have to pay for it with the ultimate sentence.” A few years later, in 2021, the Kansas Supreme Court allowed the convicted killer to pursue DNA testing as litigation surrounding his appeals was ongoing at the time. About the postponed death sentence and claims of Justin being intellectually disabled, the judge in April 2024 wrote, “The Court finds that, given the entire record here, that there is not a sufficient reason to believe that the defendant has deficits in intellectual function, confirmed by both clinical assessment and individualized standard intelligence testing.” Currently, he is incarcerated at El Dorado Correctional Facility at 1737 US-54 in El Dorado, Kansas.
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