This story originally aired on May 17, 2025. Minnesota crime scene investigators captured footage when they got their first look inside a high-rise apartment in Minneapolis. According to police reports, at around 5:30 p.m.
on June 13, 1993, a tenant reported water seeping into their apartment. A building caretaker and a security guard were called to check it out, and discovered the water was coming from apartment 2104. Bart Epstein | Retired forensic scientist : They went into the apartment and they found that the shower was still running and causing all this flooding next door.
After the shower was turned off, they came upon a gruesome scene in the bedroom. The body of 35-year-old J eanie Childs was discovered partially under the bed. That's when police were called to investigate.
Bart Epstein : This was a violent, bloody crime scene … this is … one of the bloodiest that I'd been to. Retired forensic scientist Bart Epstein says carefully documenting that scene was crucial. Erin Moriarty : Blood stains and blood spatter tell a story.
Bart Epstein : Yes … they sure can … in this case we could establish that Jeanie Childs was hit … in front of the bathroom door. Epstein says Jeanie then moved into the bathroom. She was stabbed and slashed dozens of times.
Bart Epstein : She was down on the floor smearing blood along that area. While the shower had been turned off earlier, investigators noticed water was still running from the sink faucet. Bart Epstein :There was a lot of activity going on there.
… Why was the sink faucet still dripping? Was he trying to clean up? Jeanie apparently made it back to her bedroom where her body was found.
Julie Rendelman : The blood wasn't … confined to just the area where she was. … the blood was on the walls, the blood was on the comforter, the blood was on the floor. Julie Rendelman is a defense attorney and a legal consultant for "48 Hours." Julie Rendelman : It leads one to believe … that a struggle happened, that she was fighting to save her own life.
The living room appeared untouched. A sitcom was still playing on the TV. There was no evidence of forced entry.
If Jeanie knew her killer, what could have prompted so much violence? Julie Rendelman : This to me seems like more rage … someone who got upset … at the time the crime … was committed. Jeanie's mother, Betty Eakman, was watching television news when she saw a report about a woman that had been murdered.
Betty Eakman : I called my husband at work … I said, I just seen them on the news taking a stretcher out of that building that she lives in. Eakman soon got the news no mother wants to hear; the victim was her eldest child. Betty Eakman : I just wanted to hold her.
(sobbing) … I couldn't believe it. (sobbing) Erin Moriarty : What were her plans that weekend? Betty Eakman : She went to the emergency room … she was in so much pain … Jeanie always had problems with her teeth, and I don't know why, so I said "let me come and get you." … No mom, stop worrying about me.
Jeanie was dead by Sunday afternoon. As the crime investigation continued, authorities focused on gathering evidence: a blue washcloth, a red T-shirt, a bath towel, blood scrapings from the sink, along with a comforter were collected and taken for DNA testing. Investigators observed dishes in the kitchen sink and a knife in the drying rack.
Erin Moriarty : Did you take that knife in? Bart Epstein : I did not take that knife in. I looked at it and there was no apparent blood on it.
… we never found any, uh, actual weapon there … that, uh, was … a murder weapon. Investigators were able to identify some blood stains found in the stairwell near Jeanie's 21st floor apartment. Erin Moriarty : Did any of the blood … belong to the victim?
Erin Moriarty : Jeanie Childs? … Do you think it's possible that the person who stabbed her was also cut? Bart Epstein : Well, it — it could be.
That's why we took samples. Epstein says whoever murdered Childs unknowingly left behind something investigators rarely encounter: bloody bare footprints under the bedroom window. Bart Epstein : That drew my attention right away … and right next to it I see the socked foot of … Jeanie Childs.
The footprints were dusted with black powder at the crime scene. Erin Moriarty : When you first saw these, you said, because she's wearing socks, this — these belong to the killer. Bart Epstein : Yeah, that would be my feeling … that's most likely the perpetrator's footprint.
… If there's friction ridge on the feet … like the friction ridge on your fingers, there's potential to identify the person's foot that made that … that was very, very significant. Betty Eakman : I knew that God was gonna make sure that I was gonna know what happened. Cindy Blumer remembers the deep loss she felt after the murder of her big sister Jeanie.
Cindy Blumer : A lot of sadness when you wanted to pick up the phone and call your sister … I needed my sister. I wanted to talk to her … wondering what actually took place. … who did this?
Although her sister was 12 years older, Jeanie's playful spirit made an impression on Cindy growing up. Cindy Blumer : Lionel Richie was one of her favorites and as soon as she would hear him play, I mean, her fingers would start snapping and … she would dance around. But those good times were few and far between.
Betty Eakman says she first noticed a change in her eldest daughter when she was a preteen. Betty Eakman : She kind of lost her way when she was probably around 12, 13. Eakman says it wasn't until decades later that Jeanie claimed she had been abused by a male relative.
Jeanie started running away from home. Betty Eakman : I took my life in my own hands many a times to track her down … I could have been killed … but I had my Great Dane and a gun. Erin Moriarty : Would you sometimes find her?
Betty Eakman : Oh, yeah … when she would come home, she was like a cat on a hot tin roof. She was so antsy. She couldn't stay very long.
As the time passed, she feared her daughter was using drugs and soon learned how Jeanie was making ends meet. Erin Moriarty : And what did your daughter do? Betty Eakman : Prostitution … I just hoped and prayed that she would stop.
At one point, it seemed she settled down long enough to get married, but her family says it didn't last long. Soon after, she married again to a man with children and Jeanie became a stepmom. Betty Eakman : And they depended on her.
She was the only mother they really knew. Even when Jeanie split with their father, she remained in the children's lives. Cindy Blumer : If they needed anything, they knew how to get ahold of her.
… She was really good that way. At the time of her murder, she was living with a man named Arthur Gray at that apartment complex. After Jeanie's murder, he became a person of interest.
Retired FBI agent Chris Boeckers would later join the investigation. Chris Boeckers : Investigators immediately looked at whether Arthur Gray was involved in the murder. According to police reports, Jeanie—who was a sex worker—claimed she worked for Gray, and there was a history of violence between them.
At the crime scene, authorities found hairs stuck to Jeanie's left hand and one of those hairs matched Gray. But Boeckers says the case against Gray started to fall apart pretty quickly. Chris Boeckers : Arthur Gray as a resident of that apartment, it makes sense that his hairs would be throughout the bedroom.
And Arthur Gray said he wasn't even in town — but on a motorcycle trip in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the weekend Jeanie was murdered. Chris Boeckers : He had a really solid alibi that he was out of town that weekend that was corroborated by others. Authorities compared the unknown bloody footprints in the apartment to Gray's footprints and determined they weren't his.
Erin Moriarty : Do you know how many other possible suspects, persons of interest whose footprints were compared to those left in Jeanie's apartment? Chris Boeckers : There were multiple people whose...
