Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt.

And the story I have for you today is the shiny example of why you should never give up hope.

And why you should never jump to conclusions. Because in the span of multiple decades after a young girl's death, a number of people come on police's radar who you would think just have to be

the guy. But it turns out, the guy was hiding right under their noses all along. This is the story

of Wendy Jerome. I'm I'm I'm

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I'm It's about 8 p.m. November 22, 1988.4, when 30-year-old Marlene Jerome just like jolts away from a post- Thanksgiving

dinner nap on the couch. She doesn't know what it is that woke her, but immediately she

senses that something is wrong. And being a mother, her mind immediately goes to her kids,

specifically her 14-year-old daughter, Wendy. And so she kind of like pops off the

couch and starts looking all over the house for her. Like she just needs to lay eyes on her

and then everything will be okay. But Wendy isn't home. Marlene's husband, Wayne, tells her that

Wendy went to her friend's house a couple of blocks away to deliver a birthday card. And this is like

her best friend that she's going to see, her name's Sue. But that was over an hour ago and she has now missed her 8 p.m. curfew and she's about to miss having pumpkin pie, which is her favorite. And they'd all planned to eat it together after Marlene's nap. Now listen, she's only missed curfew by a few minutes at this point, but Marlene is

just like getting progressively more worried. So she calls Sue's house, though that doesn't exactly

help settle her fears because nobody answers over there. So then she tries other friends who live

nearby, but no one has seen Wendy. Now, despite her gut instinct, Marlene told our reporter that she was clinging to the hope

that maybe Wendy had gone somewhere with Sue's family.

And it's a thought that she holds on to for hours as she tries telling herself not to

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