The Jaeger family were excited to be on their first big family adventure. Bill had taken a month of work to travel, along with his wife Marietta, her parents and their children, then went camping. On 24th June 1973, they spent their last night in Missouri Headwaters near Three Forks.

The family retired to bed, ready for an early start and a new location in the morning. Their eldest son slept in the van whilst the other four slept in a tent. The youngest, Susan, snuggled down in her bed with her stuffed animals after a goodnight cuddle from her Mumma. It would be the last time her mother held her.

Missing

The night was cold; at 4 am thirteen-year-old Heidi Jaeger woke up to a draft. When she got up, she noticed that a hole had been cut into the side of the tent and Susan was missing.

She went immediately and woke her parents. Any thought that she had wandered off vanished when they saw the hole and discovered her abandoned stuffed animals a short distance away. Bill drove to the closest phone and rang the police. As violent crime was scarce in the area, the police also thought that Susan had wandered off. But, again, when they saw the cut tent, they knew something more sinister had occurred.

The FBI was contacted, which is common in these cases as kidnappers often travel across state lines. Special Agent Dunbar was the first to respond and put in place a search that would be the largest in the history of Montana. The national guard was called in, boats and helicopters looked for the missing little girl, infra-red searched the local mine shafts.

Nothing was found. The only evidence the police had were footprints leading away from the tent to the car park. They also had a similar case from the 5th May 1968 when a twelve-year-old scout had been stabbed and beaten to death in the night; no one had ever been found guilty of the crime.

The investigation into missing Susan Jaeger.

The first task was to track any likely suspects that could have been in the area at the time. Police interviewed registered sex offenders in the area. Those that had no alibi were asked to take a polygraph test.

At the end of this, they had four serious suspects. One of these suspects stated he could not remember what he was doing at the time of the kidnap. He was offered a polygraph which came back as inconclusive. He was then sent to a mental hospital where he was put under sodium Amatole, a truth serum. Under this, he remembered what he was doing; this provided him with an alibi. So the police were back to the beginning.

With no leads, the police appealed to the public. They received many tip-offs and followed every one of them.

One week after the kidnap, a man called the deputies office claiming to be the kidnapper. He demanded a $50000 reward dropped at a Denver bus station. To prove he had Susan, he described a minor nail deformity that she had. When the police checked with the Jaegers, they confirmed that this was the truth. Despite this, the man never called back to arrange the money drop.

Returning home

After a month, the Jaegers had to return home to Michigan. Bill needed to return to work and the other children to school. However, the FBI felt that the kidnapper would contact them, so they asked whether they could install a recording device in their home and trace phone calls coming to their house.

In addition to this, the family established the Susan Jaeger reward fund for her safe return. Despite the police being convinced that Susan was dead, they believed the killer would taunt the family through phone calls.

For months Marietta stayed by the phone, hoping the kidnapper would call. Then, one day, Marietta had to pop out to collect her son; his lift from school had fallen through. In the five minutes she was away from the house, the kidnapper rang.

He would call again a short while after; this time, Susan’s brother answered the phone and hit record.

The man complained that the FBI was involved in the crime; he felt he could no longer return Susan. When the call ended, the brother’s quick thinking meant that police could trace the call to a Wyoming diner. When the police arrived, the suspect had vanished. No one in the restaurant recalled anyone using the phone.

Another body

Eight months after Susan went missing, a nineteen-year-old, Sandra Smallegan, was kidnapped from the area. The police discovered that the victim’s car was missing. They started by initiating a search for the missing vehicle.

One policeman discovered an abandoned farm with tire tracks leading to it. Stopping the car, he noticed something even stranger, a pair of women’s knickers. Nearby he noticed a barn and decided to see what it contained.

Inside he found a car under a tarp with no license plate. Being a local man, he recognised the car as Sandra’s. The police conducted a five-mile perimeter search of the barn, where they found a fifty-five-gallon drum which showed evidence of something being burned inside. Both in the drum and surrounding area, they found human bone fragments. Dental records confirmed they belonged to Sandra. Was it the same man who had abducted Susan?

The interested lunch guest

Detectives from both cases would meet regularly to discuss the progress of the cases and share details. They then started being joined by a local man David Meirhofer, those who knew him said he was a strange character. Meirhofer constantly asked the detectives about the case and asked to help with searches.

Dunbar recognised that he knew all the locations for both cases well and he had dated Sandra previously. He was asked to sit a polygraph, to which he agreed. He denied any knowledge of either crime. The polygraph came back as conclusive, he was telling the truth. The Sodium Amitole provided the same results.

FBI profile

In the Spring of 1974, Dunbar met with an FBI profiler to see if they could help solve the case.

The profiler looked at all the documents about the subject and asked to see all the interview tapes. The profile returned, describing the suspect as a strong man, possibly with military training, who had trouble with women and was a loner. It also stated that this individual might have schizophrenia.

All details once again pointed towards Meirhofer.

The profiler stated that some criminals with schizophrenia could disassociate from the crime, meaning that when they lie, they do not become stressed and can pass polygraph tests. The profiler also went as far as to state that on the anniversary of Susan’s kidnap, the perpetrator would ring the family.

To encourage this, Marietta gave a media interview where she said that she had a strong religious belief and felt sorry for the kidnapper. She went as far as to say that she would greatly like to speak to him.

Contact

Marietta stayed by the phone for the day on the anniversary of the kidnapping, but no call came. She retired to bed but was woken at 330 by the phone ringing. One year to the minute the kidnapper had made contact, he told her this information and hung up. The call was too short to be traced. Then he phone again; Marietta let him lead the conversation, anything to keep him on the line.

He boasted that he was too smart to be caught. Although she asked several times, he refused to let her speak to her daughter. Instead, he said he was travelling with her and that she was not far.

Marietta started to control the conversation, showing him compassion; she managed to keep him on the call for an hour. In the end, the kidnapper hung up the phone crying; Marietta had found her inner strength as a mother to move the case forward. Hearing taped interviews with Meirhofer, she confirmed the voices sounded alike.

The police traced the call to Florida but couldn’t trace it any further due to system failure. Then one month later, a local ranger showed the police that someone had tapped into his phone line when the call to the Jaegers had occurred. Technicians confirmed the call had been to their home number. Next, they asked the ranger who knew the area, and one name came back, the odd man who had worked for him, Meirhofer. He had been a communication specialist in the Marines, so he had the skills to tap into another phone line.

David Meirhofer

Dunbar confronted Meirhofer with this information; he stated that he was unimpressed. He blamed his relatives, who all sounded like him.

A voice lineup was arranged where several relatives and Meirhofer would ring the Jaegers give them a number and read a small passage from the phone conversation. Marietta identified number two as the same voice, Meirhofer.

The police felt that all this information could be circumstantial, especially by the highly prominent lawyer Meirhofer had hired; they needed a confession. So, once again, they called on the strength of Marietta.

Face to face with a kidnapper

The police flew Marietta back to the abduction scene and asked her to meet with Meirhofer. On 12th September 1974, in an office, Marietta came face to face with him. She started by telling him that she knew he had taken her daughter. For one hour, Meirhofer did not crack and gave nothing away. At the end of the meeting, he shook hands with her and left.

To keep the pressure on Meirhofer, the police put him under surveillance, a fact he found very amusing. On the 24th of September, he slipped his surveillance and vanished. The police searched in vain for him.

Another call

During this time, the Jaegers received a phone call from a man calling himself Travis. Marietta recognised him as Meirhofer straight away. He tried to convince her he was in Salt Lake and told her she could speak to her daughter. He put a child on the phone with her; as soon as Marietta talked to the child, she knew it was not her daughter. The child called her mummy, whereas Susan always called her Mumma. Where had Meirhofer got a child to pose as Susan from? Was this child in danger?

Marietta kept her cool throughout the call and referred to him as David, despite him telling her he was called Travis. The more pressure she put on him, the more Meirhofer unravelled. He started to reveal details that only he would know from the meeting with Marietta. When he realised he had been caught, he hung up the phone, telling her she would never see her daughter alive again.

With the addition of another possible victim, the police knew they had to act, as soon as Meirhofer came back into town they arrested him.

Confession and conviction

The police traced the call to the Jaeger’s to a Salt Lake Motel. When Meirhofer was arrested, he was found in possession of stationery from the motel with Travis written on it. A search warrant was issued for his house, as the FBI had a feeling this sort of perpetrator would keep souvenirs.

In his freezer, they discovered meat packages labelled with Sandra Smallegan’s initials. They contained a human hand with two fingers clutched in the palm; when Meirhofer was told this, he confessed to this murder and three others.

Thirteen-year-old Bernard L. Poelman was shot to death on a bridge in Three Forks on 19th March 1967. Whilst in school, a student, had angered Meirhofer; he murdered his brother for revenge.

His second murder was that of the boy scout, found beaten at the campground, Michael E. Raney, who was twelve. The scouts had cancelled his volunteer membership, so he killed one of them for revenge.

Sandar Smallegan had been his fourth victim; she had rejected him. He stated she suffocated by accident whilst he tried to abduct her.

His third victim was Susan Jaeger; he gave no reason why he had abducted and killed her. Her bones had been burned and scattered in the exact location as Sandra’s; she died shortly after the abduction.

Meirhofer never made trial; he hung himself four hours after his confession with a towel. Marietta Jaeger, the mother who worked tirelessly to find her daughter’s kidnapper, says her faith helped her forgive the man who murdered her daughter.

Twenty-seven years later, Marietta works with family members of murder victims and lectures at universities, schools and churches on forgiveness and reconciliation. “Those victims who will not relinquish a vindictive mindset end up giving the offender another victim — themselves,” she says.