The Trail Went Cold - Episode 266 - Jocelyn Hickenlooper

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

Tv & Film, True Crime

4.5 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

June 11, 1955. Salt Lake City, Utah. 22-year old Jocelyn Hickenlooper, who suffers from developmental disabilities and scoliosis, vanishes without explanation from her home. Over two weeks later, Jocelyn’s decomposed body is discovered in a shallow grave located near Parley’s Canyon. After a two-year investigation, a suspect named Bernt Murphy, who also has developmental disabilities, confesses to killing Jocelyn. Even after Bernt recants his confession and the murder charge against him is dropped, a district court judge rules Bernt to be legally insane and he is committed to the Utah State Hospital. When the Utah Supreme Court overturns this decision in 1988, Bernt is released from the hospital, but due to a number of troubling inconsistencies in his own original confession, there is a lot of doubt about whether he was actually responsible for Jocelyn’s murder. Did Bernt Murphy kill Jocelyn Hickenlooper, or was he nothing more than a convenient scapegoat while the real perpetrator got away with it? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” marks the first time we have covered a cold case from Utah, which means podcast has now officially explored at least one unsolved mystery from all fifty American states. Additional Reading: https://www.abc4.com/justice-files-2/the-justice-files-the-murder-of-jocelyn-hickenlooper/ https://www.abc4.com/news/top-stories/the-justice-files-the-murder-of-jocelyn-hickenlooper-pt-2/ https://www.abc4.com/justice-files-2/the-justice-files-who-really-killed-jocelyn-hickenlooper-pt-3/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/456177920/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/598639766/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/598639775/ https://apnews.com/0c13258c4edf6eec2aa761a1fca11684 https://law.justia.com/cases/utah/supreme-court/1988/19824.html https://apnews.com/article/c899f55b284c7edc97ec677d48040585 https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/08/us/man-who-was-judged-insane-is-held-in-attempted-break-in.html https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/iscz2h/who_killed_jocelyn_hickenlooper/ “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon 2022: Vegas” at Paris & Bally’s in Las Vegas from April 29-May 1, 2022. To get a 10 % discount off a standard badge, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.com/. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” at the Leonardo Royal Hotel & Spa in London on June 11-12, 2022. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD22”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.co.uk. “The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	June 11th, 1955. Salt Lake City, Utah. 22-year-old Jocelyn Hickenlooper, who suffers from developmental
0:09.2	disabilities and scoliosis, vanishes of that explanation from her home. Over two weeks later,
0:15.0	Jocelyn's decomposed body is discovered in a shallow grave located near Parley's Canyon.
0:20.5	After a two-year investigation, a developmentally disabled suspect named Burt Murphy confesses to
0:26.0	killing Jocelyn, but after he recants his confession and the murder charge against him is dropped,
0:31.2	a judge rules Burt to be legally insane and he is committed to the Utah State Hospital.
0:36.4	When the Utah Supreme Court overturns this decision in 1988, Burt is released from the hospital,
0:42.0	but there is a lot of doubt about whether he was actually responsible for Jocelyn's murder.
0:46.2	After that, the trail went cold.
1:16.4	Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the trail went cold.
1:28.4	I'm your host Robin Warner and on today's episode we're going to be exploring a very sad and
1:33.5	unusual cold case from Utah, the 1955 murder of Jocelyn Hickenlooper. This is officially the
1:40.1	first episode of our seventh year as a podcast and the main reason I'm covering this one now is
1:45.6	because Utah is the last remaining state from where the trail went cold has yet to cover a case.
1:51.2	So now that this episode has been released, I'm happy to announce that our podcast has hit the
1:55.4	milestone of featuring at least one cold case from all 50 American states. When I was searching for
2:01.4	cases to cover, I came across a very interesting post at the Unresolved Mystery subreddit written
2:07.1	by a poster with the username Jewels in Utah who once co-hosted a true crime podcast of her own,
2:12.8	whether sister titled Zion's Lost, which did their own episode about this story and is a great
2:18.5	resource to learn about lesser known cases from Utah. The story of Jocelyn Hickenlooper really stood
2:24.4	out to me because it involved a victim and an accused killer who both suffered from developmental
2:29.8	disabilities and since this took place back during the 1950s when the world wasn't exactly in
	...

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