Our card this week is Jacquelyn Brown, the King of Spades from Ohio. 38 years ago, Jacquelyn left a bar to head back to her place for a casual night with friends, but she would never make it. Not even 10 minutes away from her apartment, she was shot and killed. Her case has left investigators with more questions than answers, but the right person could have the information police need to unlock this case and all all of its secrets. I'm Ashley flowers, and this is The Deck.

In the early morning hours of July 12th, 1985, the residential neighborhood along Brooklyn Avenue on the west side of Dayton, Ohio, was quiet. Most of its residents were still asleep in their beds. But at 3:00 AM, a sound rang out that began waking the neighbors. One resident, who we'll call Amy, sat boltright up in her bed, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. It was a car horn, but not just a single honk. It rang out over and over again. At first, she thought maybe someone was picking up a neighbor and they were just being loud, but the honking didn't stop. So She got out of bed and made her way to the window to see what was happening outside. Here's retired Detective Doyle Burke, who was originally on the case back in 1985.

She said that she heard the horn blowing, finally looked out the window, saw the lady still in the car, blowing in her horn. The lady then got out, laid over the hood of the car, yelling, Help, I've been shot. And then the lady walked over to the sidewalk where she fell down, still yelling for help.

Amy and several of the other neighbors rushed around the woman in her car, trying to make sense of what was happening. Amy hadn't heard a gunshot. No one had, actually. But the woman in front of them was bleeding profusely from the lower left side of her abdomen. Another woman called for an ambulance, and while they were on the phone, they tried to some more information about what happened while she was still conscious.

So she actually said, I've been shot and robbed. She then asked to complain it by who, and the complainant acted as if she knew but wouldn't say.

While they were waiting for an ambulance, the injured woman on the ground began repeating a phone number asking someone, anyone there around her, to call it. Another neighbor in the growing crowd ran to dial. Now, I'm not sure if they described the woman or just said the name that was embroidered on the smock she was wearing, Jackie, when that person on the other end picked up. But that person they were now talking to claimed that they had no idea who this Jackie was. By the time paramedics and police arrived, the woman was barely clinging to consciousness. They acted quickly, though, trying to stop the bleeding and preparing to transport her to the hospital. And as they worked to save her, they actually found an ID in her pocket. Jackie was 26-year-old Jacquelyn Brown. Once she was loaded into the ambulance and on her way to the hospital, investigators took stock of the scene.

The car is parked, rolled to a stop, catty-cornered into the street. It's an old '72 Pontiac Catalina. Car doors open, of course, when she's found, but the window was down on the driver's side.

Investigators got a full view of the interior of the car, and there was a menagerie of items inside, but the only thing they didn't see was a purse or a wallet. Since Jackie said she'd been robbed, though, that was almost expected. There were a few other notable things in and on the car, though, like a few strands of hair, some beer cans, and a spent '45 caliber casing found sitting in the gap between the hood and the windshield. They collected that along with numerous fingerprints found all over the car. There was a lot to process, and we actually have a picture from Detective Burke showing what the crime scene looked like and just how chaotic it was. You can find those photos in the blog post for this episode of The Deck podcast. Com. As detectives were bagging everything, they got word that their aggravated robbery and assault case had officially become a homicide. They were told that Jackie, who'd been clinging to consciousness en route to the hospital, was pronounced dead at five 19:00 AM. Investigators then had the difficult job of notifying her family. Her mom, Frances, was devastated. But the raw truth of investigations is that there isn't much breathing room in those first few moments.

Before you can even process the grief, you're being asked questions that need quick answers because those first few hours are so critical. What can you tell us about Jackie? Why was she on Brooklyn Avenue this morning? Who would want her dead? Frances wasn't able to give them much insight into why her daughter ended up on Brooklyn Avenue. She didn't work or live in the immediate area, so as far as she knew, she didn't have a reason to be on the West Side. Her interview did answer one mystery, though, and that was about the phone number that Jackie had been repeating before she died. It was Francis's number, almost. But somehow in her panic or confusion from the blood loss, Jackie had gotten one digit wrong, so Francis never got the call. Jackie's autopsy was conducted later that same day on July 12th, and the pathologist found that the bullet she was shot with was still lodged in her torso. It traveled at a slight downward angle, which combined with the lack of what's called tattooing, told investigators a lot.

But when a gun fires, the flame effect, the explosion of the round, and the unburnt powders, the tattooing or stippling, none of that was found. So it's not a distant shot, but it's not close range shot, per se. Certainly consistent with her with the door open and somebody standing outside the car.

They believed Jackie had been sitting in the driver's seat when she was shot, but there was a lot they still didn't know, like whether the bullet they recovered from her body matched that '45 casing found between the hood and the windshield. So they sent it off for testing. After the autopsy, detectives went back to Brooklyn Avenue later that day to canvas the area and to talk to residents who may have heard something. They were especially hoping that someone might have heard the gunshot. And one person did, although he didn't actually get up to go see what had happened. He lived a block away from where Jackie was found and told detectives that he heard what sounded like a single gunshot at around 3:00 AM, followed by a car horn blaring. But that was it. No one else seemed to have heard anything other than the car horn. They searched the area around where the neighbor said he heard the gunshot, but there were no bullet casings or even blood to indicate exactly where along Brooklyn Avenue she was shot. They also didn't find the chain wallet that they were told Jackie always kept hooked to her belt loop and tucked in her pocket.

But based on what little they knew so far, a picture of what had happened that night was starting to come together. Jackie had been sitting in her car with her driver's side window down when she'd been shot. She tried to drive away, but only got a few blocks away before she realized she needed help. So she pulled over, laid on the horn, and tried to get the attention of the neighbors. After they got all the answers they could from canvassing the area, Detective's next stop was Jackie's workplace, which was a small factory less than 10 minutes of the scene. They learned from her boss and coworkers that Jackie had clocked out of the night shift only a few hours before she was killed. In fact, when they sat down to get her coworkers statements and put together a more concrete timeline, Detective's realized that her coworkers were likely some of the last people to see Jackie alive. Jackie's coworkers told investigators that their shift had ended at midnight. It was payday, too, and on payday, they had a routine.

International Fine Blading Corporation. It's a factory where they all worked. On payday, they would all go to a local bar, cash their checks, which we confirmed they did, every one of them. Then one of them would say, Let's go here, let's go there. To clarify one thing, IFC is very small, 15, 16 employees. It's all one group, not 500 employees or some massive production.

In the early hours of the 12th, the group bounced from one place to another, drinking and having a good time until about 2:30 in the morning. There was only a handful of them left by that point. Most everyone had already headed home, which detectives confirmed. But Jackie wanted to keep the party going, so she invited those remaining over to her place, three coworkers, Theodora, Donnie, and Roger. Those were the three that took her up on her offer, so they closed roused out their tabs and drove over to Jackie's apartment on the northwest side of Dayton. Theodora, who went by Teddy, was among the first of the little group to talk to investigators. She told detectives that she and Roger rode together, and Donnie and Jackie each drove separately. But as they were headed north to her apartment, she saw something strange.

They're following her, and she does not take the exit to her house. They say, Well, she was going to go get us some things, which at the time was crank. It's basically meth. It's the crack of methamphetamines. She was known by coworkers and friends to be able to go and get some marijuana and things like that.

Teddy said it was common for Jackie to deal small amounts of drugs to her friends. She even kept various paraphernalia in her apartment, specifically for the sale of drugs. Assuming that's what she was going to get, Teddy said that the group decided to just go wait for her at her apartment. However, after waiting for about a half an without her showing up, the group was over it, and the three of them left. And Teddy seemed like she was telling the truth, at least at first. But the more they spoke and the more she talked about Jackie and their group of friends, the more unclear her version of that night became. She even ended up backtracking and admitting that she wasn't really sure if the car she'd seen passing Jackie's exit was actually Jackie's at all. The more Teddy talked to detectives, the less sense she was making. For instance, she claimed that she'd overheard one of their coworkers talking to Jackie about going to get some pot that night. But when detectives followed up with that coworker, he claimed that never happened. In fact, he'd left the bar with his girlfriend and another friend, both of whom corroborated his story and claimed he hadn't gone anywhere with Jackie.

She also mentioned she knew of two men that Jackie typically bought drugs from, these guys named Blue and Bob. And maybe she was trying to be helpful, just give them any information she knew to try and help them solve her friend's murder. But spoiler alert, no one else they talked to ever mentioned these two people. In fact, I don't think investigators could even corroborate if they existed. So it didn't quite come off as helpful. Rather, it seemed to me like Teddy wanted to get police to stop looking at her and her friends. But as you can imagine, her deflection had the opposite effect. Detectives also talked to Roger, and they were hopeful that he would be able to provide some clarity. Because remember, Roger's the man that Teddy said she was in the car with when they all headed to Jackie's. And Roger's story was the same as Teddy's. He told detectives that he, Teddy, and Donnie all waited for Jackie, and I'm assuming he waited for the same reason that Teddy did because they thought she went to pick up drugs for them. But by about 3:00 AM, they decided to give up, and he left with Teddy to just drive around for a bit.

He told detectives that he finally took her home at about 4:15. Now, where did they drive to or what did he and Teddy do in that hour and 15 minutes? Great question. He wouldn't tell detectives. Now, the last of the trio was Donnie. Before detectives even got around to speaking with him, they learned that he had actually called out of work on the 12th. The first sign that maybe something was up with him. Second sign, that would be when they connected with him the next day on the 13th, and he pretended like he didn't even know who Jackie was. Literally. I mean, they asked him his version of events for the night leading up to Jackie's death, but his first response was, Jackie who? Now, they had numerous people placing Donnie with Jackie and the group that night. Roger had even on them a chart of where everyone had been sitting while they were out at the bar. And according to him, Jackie spent most of the night between Teddy and Donnie chatting with both of them. Then Donnie drove to her apartment. So what do you mean Jackie who? When When the detectives finally managed to jog his memory, he didn't seem all that concerned about Jackie's murder.

But he did back up Teddy and Roger's story about Jackie not showing up to her apartment, and then he said he left when they did. Also, like Teddy and Roger, though, he said he didn't go straight home. He wanted to drive himself to another bar, but he told detectives that he got lost along the way, and so he, too, just drove around. When detectives asked why he'd called out of work, he told them that his mom's car broke down in Kentucky, and he had to go pick her up. At first, he wasn't very forthcoming. He insisted he didn't know what happened to Jackie after they all left the bar together, but detectives pressed him a little. You know, if you had to guess, what do you think happened? And that's when he nonchalantly replied, Oh, her husband probably did it. And if you're thinking, Wait a minute. Jackie had a husband? Hold your horses. Because Jackie didn't have a husband. She was rumored to have dated someone recently, but as far as detectives knew from family and friends, that man was living with his ex-wife and hadn't been with Jackie at all that week. So Donnie's comment about a husband was off-putting, to say the least.

I mean, the whole interview was off-putting, but it wasn't actually proof of anything other than the fact that he was a liar, which was further confirmed when detectives interviewed another coworker that day and found out that Donnie tried having sex with Jackie prior to her murder but was rejected by her. The rejection plus his behavior was super suspicious. But there wasn't any physical evidence or witness statements that could connect him with Jackie's actual murder. But while physical evidence was lacking, polygraphs were abundant. Almost every person detectives asked to take a polygraph agreed, and most of them passed with flying colors. That is, all but three people. Two of those were Teddy and Donnie, which may not be all that surprising. And the third person was actually the man that said he left early with his girlfriend. But before we spiraled down that rabbit hole, investigators don't believe that he was actually involved with anything that evening. He had a strong alibi, and his failed polygraph could have just been a fluke. With nowhere else to turn, detectives went to Jack Jackie's apartment thinking something there might give them a clue, even if everyone swears up and down that they never made it there that night.

But once they searched it, they didn't really find anything. Though not actually finding anything was something in and of itself. Because remember all that paraphernalia that Teddy was so sure Jackie kept in her apartment? Well, there was nothing there, nothing to suggest that she was this small-time drug dealer that Teddy made her out to be. But finding nothing meant they still couldn't tie the trio to Jackie's murder in any way. So investigators put out a statement asking the public to come forward with any details they had. And that's when a tip came in from a man who said that he thought he knew who killed Jackie, and it wasn't someone in our sketchy little trio. It was a guy named Donnell. The tipster said that Donnell was a known drug dealer in Trotwood, which is a city northwest of Dayton. Actually, that's where Jackie's mom lived. The tipster claimed that Donnell was also known to frequent drug houses on the West Side around Brooklyn Avenue, and he'd actually been fired recently from his job for allegedly selling drugs through the drive-through window. Here's what retired Detective Burke had to say about Donnell. And just a heads up, we've removed Donnell's last name.

We did talk to a Detective in Trotwood. He had seen the victim, Jackie Brown, with a black male in the passenger side, and it matched for me with a general description, and that she had driven up in her vehicle with this male two or three different times.

Before we keep going, I want to give a quick side note about Dayton in the '80s. At the time all of this was going down, racial tensions were high in several areas, one of which being the West Side. According to another statement, if a white person wanted to go buy drugs around Brooklyn Avenue, they had to be accompanied by a black person. And it was common knowledge to detectives that Donnell was willing to help out his white friends like Jackie. So if Jackie needed to pick up something over on Brooklyn Avenue on the West Side for her friends, presumably she would need Donnell or someone like him, another black friend, to go with her. Despite witnesses placing Donnell and Jackie together at some point, no one came forward and explicitly said said that they'd been seen together on the night that Jackie was murdered. And it turns out they couldn't have been because Donnell was actually in jail at the time of her murder. Now, at some point, detectives were also told that Donnell was seen driving Jackie's car on one occasion. But investigators weren't too sure about this. As Detective Burke put it, back in the day, Tean Pontiac Catalina's were about as common as a white Ford today.

So all in all, detectives had no idea if was even connected or not. Teddy and Roger and Donnie were still high on their list of potential suspects. So this whole Donnell thing was maybe just one more piece of the puzzle that they were trying to put together. They were really hoping that forensic and ballistics results would help some of those pieces fit. And just six days after Jackie's murder, on July 18th, detectives got those results. First, the bullet recovered from Jackie's body wasn't from a 0.45 caliber gun like the shell casing found in the gap between the hood and the windshield. Rather, it turned out to be a 0.38 caliber, which is used in revolvers. And since investigators couldn't find a casing, it led them to believe that the line of revolver was most likely an Arminius or Taurus, which, according to Burke, doesn't expel casings. They put the casing and bullet into Niben, but got no hits linking either to other cases. In addition to the ballistics results, they also got an analysis of the fingerprints that were collected all around the inside and outside of Jackie's car. It turned out that the majority of those prints belonged to Jackie, unsurprisingly, and the remaining prints had limited value, so there wasn't much they could do with them.

Just when things were looking down, there was this other person that came forward and requested to talk to the police about what he knew regarding the night of Jackie's murder. This is a man that we'll call Wayne, and he said that he heard from people, people he didn't want to name, that what detectives knew about Jackie's last night wasn't all true. Yes, she'd gone out. Yes, she'd invited people back to her place. But She didn't leave in her car alone. According to this person, Jackie actually left the last bar that night with someone. Wayne told detectives that the person that left with Jackie was allegedly known to her and her friends, and those friends with her that night knew she left with this man. But Wayne didn't actually have a name for detectives, although he told them he might be able to get one. So they were just left hoping he would come through, and they were left wondering if that original trio or maybe all of Jackie's coworkers, were all covering for one of their own. So they went back through their witness statements with a fine-tooth comb to try and corroborate Wayne's statement.

But detectives just couldn't. And that's where the influx of information to detectives stalled out. Things went quiet, and Wayne never ended up circling back with that name. But Jackie's mom, Frances, wasn't going to let her daughter's case just stall out like that. Not without a fight. According to Dayton Daily News, over the next several months, Frances got friends and family together to help hand out over 6000 flyers in August of 1985, and they posted over 350 posters with information about a reward, hoping that that would motivate someone to come forward with useful tips. But by May of 1986, Frances was tired, tired of waiting for detectives to dig up a new lead, and tired of trying to fight for her daughter on her own. So she decided to turn to private investigators who were former Dayton police detectives themselves. She hoped maybe a fresh set of eyes would turn up something useful. And one month into the PI's investigation, they actually landed on who they believed was a strong suspect. During their investigation, they were tipped off by an inmate who overheard a man claim that his brother was responsible for Jackie Brown's death. That informant, who we won't be naming, heard that the brother of this man had fought with Jackie just before her murder.

Now, by the time the PIs were hearing this, it was like third-hand information, but they felt that it was strong enough to at least turn the man's name over to the active detectives on the case. But when Detective Burke and his superiors looked at their evidence back then, they didn't put too much stock in it. He told our reporter that although well meaning, the tip itself was more redundant than anything. So this became the theme investigators were seeing. Someone would come forward. They would say they know something about Jackie's murder, sometimes even give them a name of the person they thought did it. But when detectives actually tried to dig into the tips, they couldn't substantiate anything.

We got all the, Oh, he did it because I don't like him. But we never got anybody said, Yeah, this guy, I believe this guy. He showed me the gun. He told me about it. He described her, the car, whatever. You know, anything. Yeah, it was a white girl in a big tan Pontiac. Anything. I think you can see from this, everybody has something that's just out there with no basis for it. So what do you do? And if it's anybody that says, Well, I think she went to this house, or I saw her in a car with... I did this, I did that. If it's something you can say, Well, let's see if that's the truth. Most of them were truthful in what they're saying, but it's, I heard, I think that was her car. I mean, you could pass a polygraph on a lot of things if you believe it to be true. I mean, you know how that works.

I do know how that works. I know that polygraphs are not a reliable piece of evidence when it comes to convicting someone of a crime. But in this case, the polygraphs Jackie's coworkers took were pretty much all detectives had. But those polygraph results collected dust, as did all the statements and leads that took them nowhere. And that's why Jackie's case went cold. It was reopened once in 2008 when advances in DNA technology allowed investigators to test things like the beer cans in her car, but the lab submissions produced negative results. They also tried pursuing old leads, the same ones I just laid out for you. But by 2009, they were back to square one. In 2014, Frances passed away without ever getting the answers she was looking for in her daughter's case. But I think she would be happy to know that Jackie's case is open once again and getting re-investigated. They're ready to solve this mystery once and for all. Retired Detective Burke returned to the DPD on a part-time basis in 2022 to help out the cold case unit, and he has been working on Jackie's case in particular for the last year.

He told us that he's ready to track down some pretty promising leads.

I've worked homicide for 22 years, that's all I know. To come back and get to still do that and maybe get a second shot at some of these cases is just a godsend. You have some familiarity with it, and you're able to go through Don't waste our time on this. Let's focus on this. We never really had time to follow this as far as we would have liked to at the time, or this is something I wish we had DNA at the time. Let's look at this. I like that. So this is going to take something fresh. I believe this is one. It's going to take somebody to just say, All right, I'll tell you.

Almost 40 years have passed without any answers to the many questions that still haunt this case. Jackie's missing wallet still has never been recovered. As far as police know, no one in her friend group can be tied to the 38 that killed her. And while they were all close, no one can be sure if they were so close that she would have been willing to take her killer's name to the grave. Ultimately, Ultimately, we believe it will all come down to someone knowing or remembering something unusual during the early morning hours of July 12th, 1985. It was a night like any other. Payday had come, coworkers cashed their check and what started as a casual night out turned into a tragedy that left Jackie Brown begging for help on the west side of Dayton.

That's what's going to solve this case, I really believe, is word of mouth information. Tell us where the dope house was or where you thought it was. Did they have a car? Was there one person, two person, black, white, male for you? We don't have any of that.

If you were with or remember seeing someone in the car with Jackie Brown as she was leaving Jay and Jean's bar to go to her apartment, please let police know. That may be the key to figuring out what exactly happened that morning. If you have any tips or remember someone acting suspicious around or after Jackie's death, please call and let detectives know that as well. No lead is too small. You can call the Dayton Police Department cold case tip line at 937-333-7109. Case Tipline at 937-333-7109. The Deck is an audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast. Com. Do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?