A Missouri teenager who was brutally beaten in what officials called a “deranged display of violence” by another teen is out of the intensive care unit but has limited speech and trouble walking on her own, an attorney for the family said.
Kaylee Gain has been hospitalized since a March 8 fight near Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis that was captured in a viral social media video.
The footage shows several people brawling in the street near the intersection of Norgate and Claudine drives, the St. Louis County Police Department said in a March 11 Facebook post.
Kaylee Gain.Courtesy Bryan Kaemmerer
One person is seen repeatedly punching Gain and slamming her head to the ground. A 15-year-old girl was arrested a day after the fight on assault charges, authorities said.
Police said the victim was found “suffering a severe head injury” and was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
In an update Friday, an attorney for Gain’s family said she was out of the intensive care unit and “has been able to engage in limited verbal conversations.”
“Kaylee also recently began speech therapy, and has gone on a few short walks with the assistance of hospital staff as she is still unable to ambulate on her own,” attorney Bryan Kaemmerer said. “However, Kaylee does not have any recollection of the altercation that led to her hospitalization.”
Kaemmerer addressed several social media rumors about the altercation, denying reports that Gain’s mother drove her to the location of the fight.
He said Gain’s mother was at work and was driven to the hospital by a co-worker after police informed her of what happened.
The attorney, however, did confirm reports that Gain had been involved in a fight on March 7 with a different teenager. Both girls were suspended after that incident, Kaemmerer said.
He said it was unclear whether the March 8 brawl was retaliation.
Gain’s parents are calling for the 15-year-old to be tried as an adult. Kaemmerer said in his statement that “the family believes trying the accused as an adult is the most appropriate way to provide the justice that Kaylee deserves.”
Authorities have not said if the 15-year-old would be tried as an adult.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said in a post on X that the fight was “sickening” and the video was “difficult to watch.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey called the actions in the video a “deranged display of violence that must be punished to the full extent of the law.”
On Thursday, police announced that eight more teenagers were referred to St. Louis County Family Court for consideration of assault charges, NBC affiliate KSDK of St. Louis reported. They include a 17-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy, two 16-year-old girls, three 16-year-old boys, and one 14-year-old girl. None of the teens have been taken into custody.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard announced on her private Facebook that she and her husband Ryan Anderson have separated three months after she was released from prison for her role in the murder of her mother. The announcement came just weeks after Blanchard deleted her highly-followed TikTok and Instagram accounts.
Blanchard was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, who was stabbed to death by Gypsy Rose’s then-boyfriend Nick Godejohn in 2015, a crime that inspired the Hulu mini-series, “The Act.” Godejohn told police he committed the crime at Gypsy Rose’s request when she learned that after a lifetime of being told she had several debilitating illnesses that required constant care, it was all a lie and she was a victim of child abuse. After pleading guilty, Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison.
Ryan Anderson and Gypsy Rose Blanchard attend “The Prison Confessions Of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” Red Carpet Event on January 05, 2024 in New York City.
/ Getty Images
Gypsy Rose, who was sentenced to 10 years, was released from prison after seven years on Dec. 28.
It was during her sentence that she met her husband, Ryan Anderson, a special education teacher from Louisiana. The pair wed in July 2022.
But on Thursday, she announced the two have broken up.
“People have been asking what is going on in my life. Unfortunately my husband and I are going through a separation and I moved in with my parents home down the bayo,” she wrote on her private Facebook account in a statement obtained by People magazine. “I have the support of my family and friends to help guide me through this. I am learning to listen to my heart. Right now I need time to let myself find… who I am.”
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in January, Blanchard said she felt a connection with Anderson when he started contacting her while she was in prison. She said she was immediately attracted to the fact that he lives in Louisiana, where she is originally from.
“I wrote him a letter back and we became friends, and of course more than friends, and then now we’re married,” she said.
Immediately upon her release from prison, she told ET she and Anderson moved in together and were “learning about each other.” They had also discussed having kids, but were unsure of when they wanted to do so.
“With us getting married [while she was still in jail], she was able to come live with me straight out of prison,” Anderson told ET. “So, that was important. It’s what we both wanted.”
“We’re just trying to take it day by day,” Gypsy Rose added. “We’re just trying to start off the marriage on a good foot before we bring kids into this situation right now.”
Earlier this month, Gypsy Rose – who was determined to have suffered from a form of abuse that involves a guardian inducing illness for sympathy, leading to her decision to kill her mother – deleted her social media profiles that had amassed millions of followers.
She first deleted her Instagram account, which according to Entertainment Tonight had at one point more than 7.8 million followers. After deleting that account, she posted a series of TikToks saying she is doing her “best to live my authentic life and what’s real to me.”
“And what’s not real is social media,” she said, calling it a “doorway to hell.”
“It’s so crazy, I can’t even wrap my head around what social media is,” she said. “…And with the public scrutiny as bad as it is, I just don’t want to live my life under a microscope.”
Then she deleted her TikTok as well. People magazine learned that she deleted those accounts “at the advisement of her parole officer, so she won’t get in trouble and go back to jail.”
Li Cohen
Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.
Human remains found in a barrel in the Missouri River were identified last week as belonging to a woman considered a potential witness in the case against a Missouri man accused of holding a Black woman hostage in his basement.
During a Monday hearing seeking a bond increase for Timothy Haslett Jr., prosecutors said the woman found in the barrel, Jaynie Crosdale, “was inside” Haslett’s Excelsior Springs home before his arrest in October.
The Clay County Prosecutor’s Office did not provide further details but said it presented the evidence to the court.
Excelsior Springs police had identified Crosdale as a potential witness in Haslett’s case in January and asked the public’s help in locating her. Authorities said at the time that they believed Crosdale had “information about the investigation.”
She was later found dead after kayakers located her body in a blue barrel in the Missouri River, according to NBC affiliate KSNT of Topeka, Kansas. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Immediately after police identified her remains last week, prosecutors filed a motion seeking a higher bond for Haslett, writing in a court filing that they had “concern for the safety of the community.” Prosecutors said Haslett’s bond of $3 million was “insufficient to insure the safety of the community and the victim.”
The court, however, ruled against increasing Haslett’s bond. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The home where neighbors raised the alarm in Excelsior Springs, Mo.Sarah Plake / KSHB
Haslett was taken into custody in October after the 22-year-old unidentified victim escaped from his basement wearing a metal dog collar and ran to neighbors for help. The woman said she had been held captive and assaulted.
Lisa Johnson, a neighbor who helped the woman, said she was getting ready for work when she heard a faint “help me” from outside her front door.
“She looked straight at me and said ‘help,'” Johnson previously said.
Johnson said the woman feared that if the police were called Haslett would kill them both, but Johnson called authorities anyway.
“I understood where she was coming from at that point. But I did it anyway,” she said.
Police said they found the woman wearing a metal collar with a padlock, latex lingerie and she had duct tape around her mouth, according to a probable cause statement filed in October.
The woman said Haslett had picked her up in early September and kept her in a small room in his basement, restraining her wrists and ankles with handcuffs, the document stated. She said she had been repeatedly raped and whipped and escaped when Haslett left to take his child to school, according to the probable cause.
Haslett was indicted in February on one count of first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sodomy, one count of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of second-degree assault and one count of endangering a child. He faces more than five life sentences in prison if convicted.
A man who abducted a 6-year-old Missouri girl and beat her to death at an abandoned factory two decades ago was put to death Tuesday evening, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to block the execution over arguments he was mentally incompetent.
Johnny Johnson, 45, received a lethal injection dose of pentobarbital at a state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. CDT, authorities said. He was convicted of the July 2002 killing of Casey Williamson in the St. Louis area suburb of Valley Park.
Johnson, who had schizophrenia, expressed remorse in a brief handwritten statement released by the Department of Corrections hours before being executed.
“God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt,” Johnson’s statement said.
This undated photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Johnny Johnson.
AP
As he lay on his back with a sheet up to his neck, Johnson turned his head to the left, appearing to listen to his spiritual adviser shortly before the injection began. He then faced forward with his eyes closed, with no further physical reaction.
Among those witnessing Johnson’s execution were several members of the girl’s family and the former prosecutor and police investigator who handled his case.
The U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor and two other justices dissenting, rejected a late request to stay the execution.
In recent appeals, Johnson’s attorneys have said the inmate has had delusions about the devil using his death to bring about the end of the world.
“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed,” Sotomayor and the other dissenting justices wrote in a statement when the stay was rejected. “There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world.”
Former St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch called the delusions “nonsense” and said Johnson inflicted “unspeakable horrors” upon Casey.
“He’s got some issues — significant issues,” McCulloch said moments before witnessing the execution. But “he knew exactly what he was doing.”
The girl’s disappearance from her hometown of Valley Park on July 26, 2002, had set off a frantic search before her body was found.
Casey’s mother had been best friends in childhood with Johnson’s older sister and even helped babysit him. After Johnson attended a barbecue the night before the killing, Casey’s family let him sleep on a couch in the home where they also were sleeping.
In the morning, Johnson lured the girl — still in her nightgown — to the abandoned glass factory, even carrying her on his shoulders on the walk to the dilapidated site, according to court documents. When he tried to sexually assault her, Casey screamed and tried to break free. He killed her with a brick and a large rock, then washed off in the nearby Meramec River. Johnson confessed that same day to the crimes, according to authorities.
“It was more violent and brutal than any case I’ve ever seen,” said former St. Louis County homicide investigator Paul Neske, who questioned Johnson at length the day of Casey’s murder and witnessed his execution.
After a search by first responders and volunteers, Casey’s body was found in a pit, buried under rocks and debris, less than a mile (kilometer) from her home.
At Johnson’s trial, defense lawyers presented testimony showing their client — an ex-convict who had been released from a state psychiatric facility six months before the crime — had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication and was acting strangely in the days before the slaying.
In June, the Missouri Supreme Court denied an appeal seeking to block the execution on arguments that Johnson’s schizophrenia prevented him from understanding the link between his crime and the punishment. A three-judge federal appeals court panel last week temporary halted execution plans, but the full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it. Johnson’s attorneys then filed appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court centered around his competency to be executed.
Gov. Mike Parson on Monday denied a request to reduce Johnson’s sentence to life in prison. The clemency petition by Johnson’s attorneys said Casey’s father, Ernie Williamson, opposed the death penalty.
But Casey’s great aunt, Della Steele, wrote an emotional plea to the governor urging the execution be carried out to “send the message that it is not okay to terrorize and murder a child.” Steele said grief from Casey’s death led to destructive effects among other family members.
“He did something horrible. He took a life away from a completely innocent child, and there have to be consequences for that,” Steele said recently, speaking with The Associated Press.
The family has organized community safety fairs in Casey’s memory, including a July 22 event that drew a couple hundred people. The family gave away dozens of child identification kits along with safety tips involving fire, water and bicycles, among other items.
The execution was the 16th in the U.S. this year, including three previously in Missouri, five in Texas, four in Florida, two in Oklahoma and one in Alabama.
“It’s been a difficult day, and a difficult 21 years,” Steele said in a statement after witnessing the execution. “We will continue to honor our sweet Casey’s memory by doing our best to make a difference in the lives of other children.”
When a young mother disappears in Columbia, Missouri, investigators use DNA from a tree to help solve the mystery of what happened to her
December 2014: Mengqi earns her master’s degree
Facebook
After emigrating from China to further her education, Mengqi Ji earned a master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Missouri. At the time, her future husband Joe Elledge was also studying engineering there.
Sept 8, 2017: Joe Elledge and Mengqi Ji’s whirlwind romance
Boone County Prosecutor’s Office
Mengqi Ji and Joe Elledge met in September 2015. They both worked as engineers at a company named Nanova. Mengqi was Joe’s supervisor. Their first date was in January 2016. Joe proposed on Sept. 8, 2017, while on a hike in Rockbridge Memorial State Park.
Sept. 22, 2017: Joe and Mengqi get married
Defense Attorney Matei Stroescu
After a short engagement, Joe and Mengqi were married on Sept. 22, 2017.
February 2018: Mengqi learns she is pregnant
Amy Salladay
After finding out she was pregnant, Mengqi was overjoyed, but shortly after their daughter was born, trouble began to brew. The couple found themselves constantly arguing.
Mengqi’s parents, pictured with their daughter, traveled from China to help care for their granddaughter, but their presence only increased tension between Joe and Mengqi.
Oct. 9, 2019: Mengqi disappears
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boone County DA’s Office
Joe says that on the night of October 8, he approached Mengqi to give her a massage and initiate intimacy. However, according to Joe, Mengqi rebuffed his advances and, claiming she had plans the next day, she went to bed around 11 p.m. Joe says when he woke up in the morning, she was gone, leaving behind her car keys, cell phone, wallet and, most importantly, the couple’s 1-year-old daughter.
Oct.10, 2019: A mother’s instinct
Boone County Prosecutor’s office
Mengqi spoke with her mother in China every day, so when she missed a day, her mother became concerned and sent a friend to check on her. That’s when Joe admitted his wife was missing and finally reported her disappearance to police.
However, Joe did not call 911. He called the non-emergency 311. This is police bodycam footage of a visit to their home.
Oct. 15, 2019: A husband’s plea
KRCG 13
Joe Elledge gave an interview to CBS affiliate KRCG. He said he needed his wife to return home safely, and that he and his daughter loved her. He also implied that Mengqi may have run off with another man, stating, “I hope that she’s, at least with somebody who cares for her, you know, enough to keep her safe.”
Oct. 15, 2019: Joe’s police interview
Boone County Prosecutor’s Office
That same day, Joe also voluntarily sat down for an extensive interview with the Columbia Police Department. Investigators soon became suspicious of his story, especially after Joe described going for long, leisurely drives to look for new hiking paths instead of searching for his missing wife.
Oct. 15, 2019: Police discover secret recordings
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boone County DA’s Office
The same day Joe was interviewed at the police station, investigators asked to see his cellphone. On it, they discovered 10 hours of secretly recorded arguments between Joe and Mengqi. Both Joe and Mengqi’s cellphones are pictured here.
Joe got defensive in some of these recordings. In one recording he said, “What are you trying to do? Are you — seriously? Are you trying to, like, get the baby away? Are you trying to make me go crazy so that you can call the police on me and take my (expletive) baby away from me?”
A broken marriage revealed
Recording: Boone County DA Office/Transcript: 48 Hours
Later, officers were able to recover nearly four-and-a-half additional hours of recordings from Mengqi’s phone. A transcript of one of those recordings can be seen here.
“What was on those conversations of significance?” Peter Van Sant asked then-prosecutor Dan Knight. “Unvarnished Joe Elledge,” he replied.
In those recordings Joe told Mengqi, “You think you’re so empowered because of this society. Well, don’t forget that nature exists. You’re still just a woman.”
Oct. 25, 2019: Joe Elledge arrested
AP via Boone County Sheriff’s Department
The Columbia Police Department announced that they were opening a criminal investigation into Mengqi’s disappearance.
The same day, officers arrested Joe Elledge, but not in connection to his wife’s disappearance. Instead, he was arrested on suspicion of physical child abuse. Officers had learned about some bruises on his daughter. Joe admitted that he pinched the baby one day when she was crying. His bail was set at $500,000.
Oct. 29, 2019: Searching the Lamine
KRCG 13
After analyzing cell tower data, investigators discovered that on the day he says his wife disappeared, Joe visited the Lamine River, about 40 minutes away from the couples’ home.
Joe hadn’t mentioned this to police, so officers became suspicious that perhaps the river had to do with her disappearance.
Highway Patrol did a surface search at the Lamine River, hoping to find clues. It was the first of many searches there, which included dive teams and cadaver dogs, but nothing was ever found.
Oct. 30, 2019: Custody case begins
Amy Salladay
Joe Elledge’s mother filed for guardianship of his young daughter. Just days later, Mengqi’s parents filed for guardianship of their granddaughter. Mengqi’s mother and daughter are pictured.
They reached an agreement that the child will spend her summers in China with Mengqi’s parents, and the rest of the year with Elledge’s mother in the United States.
Feb. 19, 2020: Joe Elledge is accused of murder
CBS News
Despite not being able to locate Mengqi, then-Boone County Prosecutor Dan Knight decided to file first-degree murder charges against Joe Elledge for the death of his wife. After reviewing the audio recordings found on Mengqi’s phone, Knight became convinced that Joe had something to do with his wife’s disappearance. Knight and his team began preparing for trial.
Feb. 22, 2020: A memorial for Mengqi
Amy Salladay
After months of searching for Mengqi, authorities still couldn’t find her. Mengqi’s mother attended a memorial vigil in her honor at the Lamine River.
March 25, 2021: Mengqi Is found
CBS News
Seventeen months after Mengqi’s disappearance, a hiker stumbled upon her skeletal remains, in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park — the same park where Joe had proposed to her. A memorial for Mengqi is pictured.
Broken ribs
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boone County DA’s Office
Mengqi was found with four broken ribs, an injury that Prosecutor Dan Knight believes shows that she was killed in a violent confrontation
August 2021: The power of plant DNA
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boone County DA’s Office
At the time of Joe’s arrest, officers had collected muddy boots from Joe and Mengqi’s apartment. Plant population geneticist Christine Edwards, and her team at the Missouri Botanical Garden, were asked to compare plant DNA recovered from those muddy boots to plant samples recovered from trees near where Mengqi’s remains were found.
The tree that helped solve a murder
CBS News
The prosecution said DNA from the tree hanging over Mengqi’s burial site matched samples from the boots, ultimately linking Joe to that exact location. Christine Edwards told Peter Van Sant, “Once we found the match, I became very convinced that he buried his wife.”
Alex Linan, pictured here with correspondent Peter Van Sant, is an assistant scientist at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
Nov. 2, 2021: A new story
Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP, Pool
Faced with the fact that Joe Elledge was now placed at the scene of Mengqi’s burial site, Joe’s defense attorney Scott Rosenblum presented a new story at trial. He argued that Joe did in fact kill his wife, but it was a tragic accident.
Rosenblum said the couple got into an argument and began shoving one another. He claimed when Joe shoved his wife, she fell backward, and Joe heard a thud. After she told him to leave her alone, Joe claims he went for a walk and Mengqi went to bed.
The next morning, Rosenblum said Joe awoke at 5 a.m., heard his baby crying and found his wife dead. “He was in a dissociated state of denial,” said Rosenblum. Panicking, the attorney said, Joe decided not to call 911, and later buried his wife. “Once he went down that rabbit hole, he chose to continue down that path,” he said about his client’s lies to Columbia police.
Establishing a Motive
Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP, Pool
After opening statements, Prosecutor Dan Knight played those secret audio recordings between Joe and Mengqi showing them arguing, including Joe telling Mengqi she was “brainless.” Knight told Peter Van Sant that the recordings helped establish motive. “It was a calculated effort on his part … to bring her under his control,” he said. Knight believes that when Joe couldn’t control Mengqi, he decided he wanted her gone.
Nov. 9-10, 2021: Joe Elledge testifies
Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP, Pool
Joe Elledge spent two days on the witness stand. Dan Knight questioned Joe for nearly three hours to pinpoint a cause of death.
Knight asked, “You killed Mengqi on that bed, didn’t you?” “No,” Joe replied. Knight also asked if he stood on top of her back and jumped on her or suffocated her. Joe replied no to those questions.
Joe reiterated that Mengqi’s death was an accident.
Nov. 11, 2021: A guilty man
Alessia Tagliabue/Missourian via AP, Pool
After a 10-day trial, both sides delivered closing arguments. Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum reiterated that it was all a tragic accident and argued for manslaughter. Dan Knight argued that Mengqi’s death was premediated and asked for first-degree murder.
Neither side got what they wanted. The jury found Joe Elledge guilty of second-degree murder, meaning that they didn’t see Mengqi’s murder as premediated. The jury then recommended a sentence of 28 years in prison. Prosecutor Dan Knight believes the sentence may signify a year of prison time for each year of Mengqi’s life.
A sudden loss
Boone County DA’s Office
On June 4, 2022, Dan Knight who worked so hard to get justice for Mengqi, died unexpectedly.
Remembering Mengqi
LinkedIn
Mengqi’s friends and family remember her as artistic, smart and kind, and say she will be missed deeply by all who knew her. In her short 28 years of life, she was a bright light with a kind soul and a love for her Chinese culture and her family.
This story originally aired on Dec. 10, 2022. It was updated on July 29, 2023.
On Oct. 15, 2019, Joseph Elledge walked into the Columbia, Missouri Police Department without a lawyer to tell detectives about the mysterious disappearance of his 28-year-old wife, Mengqi Ji — six days earlier.
JOE ELLEDGE (police interview): We didn’t have any big fights … I think the last big fight was actually the week before. And it wasn’t really a big fight.
For over a year, Mengqi’s Ji’s husband, Joe Elledge, had been insisting that his wife took only her purse and disappeared sometime in the early morning hours of Oct. 8, 2019.
Defense Attorney Matei Stroescu
The 23-year-old described his wife as tense and withdrawn the night before she disappeared, so he gave her a massage.
JOE ELLEDGE (police interview): I was going kinda slow. I was trying to drag it out because I wanted to extend the amount of time that we were together doing something.
According to Joe, Mengqi eventually went to sleep, saying she had to be somewhere in the morning.
JOE ELLEDGE: I asked her about three times, “Who is she meeting?” And her answer was just, quote, “Me.” … she wouldn’t tell me who she was meeting or where she was going, what she was doing.
The next morning, Joe says he woke up alone. His wife was gone.
Dan Knight: He was claiming … she had just disappeared — that she had left her little girl behind. Her phone was left behind … her car. Her car keys were left behind.
From the beginning, then-Boone County prosecuting attorney Dan Knight, had doubts about Joe’s story.
Dan Knight: We were trying our best to leave no stones unturned. But there were a lot of stones.
Joe told investigators that after his wife disappeared, he found journal entries on her computer where she’d written about an online emotional affair she was having with a man living in China.
JOE ELLEDGE (police interview): The last paragraph said … “like It’s sad though that I have no interest in my husband.”
The day Joe spoke with detectives, he also did an exclusive interview with local CBS affiliate, KRCG, and implied that his wife may have left him for another man.
Joe Elledge gave an interview to CBS affiliate KRCG. He said he needed his wife to return home safely, and that he and his daughter loved her. He also implied that Mengqi may have run off with another man.
KRCG 13
JOE ELLEDGE (KRCG interview): I hope that she’s with – at least with somebody who – who cares for her, you know, enough to keep her safe.
Joe and his family hired attorney Scott Rosenblum, who points out there were intimate texts between Mengqi Ji and the man she was communicating with.
Peter Van Sant: Sexual in nature?
Scott Rosenblum: Very sexual.
Texts like this one where she wrote, “I want you so much right now.”
Peter Van Sant: And did she ever express love for him in any of these communications?
Scott Rosenblum: She did.
Timeline: The Disappearance of Mengqi Ji
26 photos
The question was, had Mengqi run off to be with that man who lived in China, where she was born?
Amy Salladay is the Ji family’s attorney.
Amy Salladay: Mengqi was born during China’s One-Child Policy. But Ke Ren, Mengqi’s mother, would say that “We only ever wanted one child. We wanted to give all of our love to this child.”
Yáo Li: Mengqi is like the — the kid all the parents would want.
Yáo Li is a Chinese immigrant, and an assistant prosecutor in Boone County, who helped Dan Knight communicate with Mengqi’s parents.
Yáo Li: They are really, really proud of her. … I know how hard it is to get into a top university in Shanghai and Beijing … the competition … is really intense. … And she did that.
Dan Knight: Then she came to the University of Missouri in 2012 where she finished up her undergraduate studies and then she also obtained her master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Peter Van Sant: This was a brilliant woman. Correct?
Dan Knight: Absolutely.
One of her professors hired her right out of school at his biomaterials company, “Nanova,” where Joe also worked.
Dan Knight: Joe … grew up in Kansas City. … he then came to the University of Missouri, and he studied engineering, and he met Mengqi at Nanova Biomaterials. … My understanding is, is that she was his supervisor.
Joe proposed on a trail in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park called “The Devil’s Icebox.” Two weeks later, they were married.
Boone County DA’s Office
The two quickly fell in love, and a year and seven months into their relationship, Joe proposed. He took a knee on a trail in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park called “The Devil’s Icebox.” Two weeks later, they were married.
Dan Knight: I believe there was a rush to get married because Mengqi’s visa was about ready to expire.
Yáo Li: It’s a really foreign concept for American citizens to understand the stress that a immigrant is facing … She’s fully capable to support herself financially. But she cannot get this green card. … So, this really changes the power dynamics of a marriage.
Nearly five months into the marriage, Mengqi was offered a big job.
Yáo Li: And then she found out that she’s pregnant.
Mengqi and Joe decided she should turn down the job to be a full-time mom – even though, at the time, she was the sole income earner. Joe had quit working to finish school. In October 2018, the baby was born.
Yáo Li: So that’s the dynamic of this marriage. Mengqi was completely isolated from all the support system that she can have. … the little baby’s the only thing she has.
Her one lifeline was a daily call with her mother in China. It was their ritual. So, when Mengqi didn’t call on Oct. 9, 2019, her parents sent a friend living nearby to check on her.
JOE ELLEDGE (police interview): You know, I told him everything that happened. I told him that she just hasn’t been here for a couple days.
And it was only after that visit — the day after he said his wife vanished — that a seemingly unconcerned Joe Elledge finally called police to report her missing.
JOE ELLEDGE (to 311): Hi. I need to file a missing person’s report.
He didn’t dial 911 – Joe called the non-emergency 311.
Peter Van Sant: Do you find that suspicious?
Dan Knight: Absolutely. Absolutely. … it would be natural for him to have reported this immediately.
Instead, Joe would tell police that the day he woke up and found his wife missing, he went on two long leisurely drives in her car-with their baby in the backseat-looking for new hiking trails.
JOE ELLEDGE (police interview): There’s this, there’s just this big area that’s all – that’s all green on the Google Maps. And so, I wanted to go and see if there were walking paths back there.
Naturally, that raised eyebrows.
Joe voluntarily sat for an extensive interview with the Columbia Police Department. Investigators soon became suspicious of his story, especially after Joe described going for long, leisurely drives to look for new hiking paths instead of searching for his missing wife.
Boone County Prosecutor’s Office
DET. JON VOSS: Did you lock your door when you left the apartment?
JOE ELLEDGE: Yeah.
DET. JON VOSS: If she comes home, how is she gonna get back in? You’ve got her keys and her car. Her phone’s in the house. She can’t even call anybody.
JOE ELLEDGE: Yeah, I don’t know.
Detectives, and Dan Knight, suspected foul play. But there was no physical evidence: no blood, no weapon, no witnesses, no body. There was also no evidence that Mengqi took off with that man in China.
Dan Knight: And then also — it became — apparent early on that Mengqi would not have abandoned her child, her 1-year-old daughter. … She was a great mother.
During his interview with detectives, Joe gave them access to his phone — and on it they found something stunning: 10 hours of secretly recorded conversations with his wife, like this one:
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): I would like to discuss our relationship. And I am kinda ready to discuss the end of it as well.
Dan Knight: Joe told Mengqi … that he wanted to divorce her.
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): I don’t like being married (laughs) to you. I don’t like living with you. … It’s been a terrible relationship. I’m eager – to end it.
Dan Knight: He was asking her whether or not she was going to basically cooperate … And if not … was going to – he was going to tell the judge … “that she had been abusive to him.”
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): Should I mention in court that you’re abusive to me? Should I ask them to-deport you?”
But that was nothing, says Dan Knight, compared to the nearly four-and-a-half hours of secretly recorded audio they found on Mengqi’s phone.
Peter Van Sant: What was on those conversations of significance?
Dan Knight: Unvarnished Joe Elledge.
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): If you keep acting this way, I’ve told you before, ain’t gonna be pretty.
A CONTROLLING RELATIONSHIP
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): What are you trying to do? … Are you trying to make me go crazy so that you can call the police on me and take my f*****’ baby away from me?
About a year before Mengqi Ji would disappear, she secretly recorded her husband Joe, going ballistic, for nearly an hour.
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It was Oct. 29, 2018, about a year before Mengqi Ji would disappear, when she secretly recorded her husband Joe, going ballistic, for nearly an hour.
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): Do you want me to f****** break s***? Do you want me to hurt somebody?”
It all started weeks earlier, after Mengqi gave birth and her parents flew in from China to stay with them. It is Chinese custom for grandparents to stay and help for 100 days — a custom that infuriated Joe.
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): I don’t want your mom here … Your mom is causing problems … Your mom should f****** leave.
Dan Knight: What really infuriated Joe was that Mengqi was standing up to him and saying that she needed her mother.
MENGQI JI (audio recording): If I don’t take care of my own body, my own health, it’s not responsible for me … or this family –
JOE ELLEDGE: Yeah, I agree.
MENGQI JI: She’s helping me to do that. And I know it.
JOE ELLEDGE: I don’t like that woman. And I don’t think you should either.
Yáo Li: The tension was just to the breaking point, and there’s yelling, there’s cussing.
And Yáo Li says Joe really despised it when Mengqi and her mother Ke Ren spoke Chinese in his presence.
Yáo Li: That’s a stressor for him. Because everything that he doesn’t understand, he would assume the worst.
Mengqi, left, and her parents during their visit from China to help care for their granddaughter.
Amy Salladay
When Mengqi’s father returned to China, Joe decided to take back control, says Amy Salladay.
Amy Salladay: Mengqi’s mother was making Chinese dumplings … She’s making them for his birthday … And he doesn’t like how she’s using, using the cutting board.
Dan Knight: I called it the “cutting board incident.”
Prosecutor Dan Knight says it’s an incident that seems petty, but it led to an explosive argument.
JOE ELLEDGE (audio recording): Don’t do my cutting board like that. I’m telling you, cutting board doesn’t like that.
Dan Knight: He was demanding that his mother-in-law leave the residence immediately and permanently, never to return.
Peter Van Sant: Did Mengqi’s mother stand up to him? … and could that have triggered this cutting board incident?
Dan Knight: Mengqi’s mother, like Mengqi, was a Confucianist. She wanted harmony more than anything else. There was no standing up to Joe.
JOE ELLEDGE: There’s gonna be some f****** problems if she tries staying … I’m gonna make it f****** go away.
MENGQI JI: The problem …
JOE ELLEDGE: Yeah, you can bet your ass on that.
Dan Knight: It was a one-way street. It was Joe’s way or the highway.
MENGQI JI: You are not a God. You don’t understand –
JOE ELLEDGE: I am a f****** God … I say mom don’t stay here, she don’t stay here.
Mengqi pleaded with Joe to let her mother stay. He responded with insults and profanity.
JOE ELLEDGE: What the f*** is the matter with you? F****** brainless.
Dan Knight: He told her that she was incapable because she was a woman.
JOE ELLEDGE: You think you’re so empowered because of this society … You’re still just a woman.
Dan Knight: It was a calculated effort on his part to gaslight her, to try to brainwash her, to bring her under his control.
Joe was also threatening, explaining how he “conquers nature”- a cryptic comment that Dan Knight believes was a metaphor for wanting to hurt Mengqi.
JOE ELLEDGE: You know how I conquer nature? I f*****’ kill it. I grab its head and break its f****** neck. That’s how you conquer f****** nature.
Yáo Li: Mengqi ‘s … mother, of course, was in shock. It’s just really difficult for her to understand why this young man is so mad and so angry at her, at everything.
Mengqi felt so helpless that she called Joe’s mother Jean Geringer, who drove two hours to try and mediate.
MENGQI JI: I have no choice, I had to call you. I’m sorry … He’s gonna come back and just, I don’t know, unpredictable thing’s gonna happen.
Mengqi recorded that meeting as well.
JEAN GERINGER: I’m not here to choose sides. I’m here to try to be neutral and just give advice and guidance.
Even in his mom’s presence, Joe was not shy about expressing hateful, even violent thoughts about his mother-in-law.
JOE ELLEDGE: Do I just smack her? Do I just beat her down?
MENGQI JI: You wanted to.
JOE ELLEDGE: I have that craving … yes.
JEAN GERINGER: You can’t …
JOE ELLEDGE: I’m not going to though …
JEAN GERINGER: … you can’t go there.
Dan Knight: The evidence that we – that we had was that he was making his mother-in-law, Ke Ren, kneel to him and bow to him.
Joe would eventually apologize to his mother-in-law, but he still forced to her leave before the 100 days were up.
Yáo Li: She thought that apology was sincere. Or otherwise, she wouldn’t have left and then believing that things might get better.
Yáo Li translated Mengqi’s journals for the prosecutor’s office, and says things didn’t get better. But Mengqi couldn’t walk away.
Yáo Li: And even she is confused of, “Why I just cannot get out of this relationship” … That’s her constant question to herself.
Dan Knight thinks Mengqi felt trapped by her immigration status.
Dan Knight: In just five months she was set to have another interview where she would be applying to get her permanent green card.
A little over two weeks after Mengqi vanished, the Columbia Police Department announced it was opening a criminal investigation into her disappearance. That same day, police showed up at Joe’s apartment.
Amy Salladay: He’s with his mother. … The detectives at the scene were asking her, “Where is Mengqi, do you know where she is?”
The Columbia Police Department announced that they were opening a criminal investigation into Mengqi’s disappearance. The same day — 16 days after his wife vanished — officers arrested Joe Elledge on suspicion of physical child abuse.
AP via Boone County Sheriff’s Department
Joe was arrested — not in connection with his wife’s disappearance, but on suspicion that he had physically abused their daughter.
ARRESTING OFFICER: We have become aware that there was some bruising … So, do you know what we’re talking about?
JOE ELLEDGE: Yup.
Dan Knight: This is through Ke Ren, her mother. … Mengqi had told her that she’d observed … bruising on the buttocks. And Ke Ren suggested that Mengqi confront Joe about this. … and that Joe then … admitted that he had done this … to the little girl.
ARRESTING OFFICER: Tell me exactly what happened.
JOE ELLEDGE: She was crying a lot one night… I think I pinched her butt a little bit.
Scott Rosenblum: To me, that was — a ruse to get him incarcerated.
Joe’s defense attorney, Scott Rosenblum.
Scott Rosenblum: He was a young parent. Maybe he made a mistake. But there was no other indication that he was abusive towards his daughter. None whatsoever.
Joe was held on a $500,000 bond, his mother took custody of his daughter, and Dan Knight set about proving his theory about what happened to Mengqi.
Dan Knight: I thought from pretty much the very beginning this eventually was gonna wind up being a murder case. Things just had to develop.
Peter Van Sant: So, you’re tellin’ me that these trees that we are standing among right now helped solve a … case?
Dan Knight: Absolutely.
TREES HAVE DNA, TOO
Dan Knight: On October 25th, 2019, police executed a search warrant over at Joe Elledge’s and Mengqi’s apartment.
That was the same day Joe Elledge was arrested on suspicion of child abuse. Mengqi had been missing for a little over two weeks.
“These officers, they were on the ball. … they were able to find some things that were … great evidence in this case,” said Prosecutor Dan Knight.
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Dan Knight: These officers, they were on the ball. … they were able to find some things that were … great evidence in this case.
Dan Knight: Police collected … from his backpack … writings, different writings.
Notes Joe had apparently written to himself about how to respond to questions from reporters and investigators.
Dan Knight: One of those I labeled as being a script, “what to tell the police.”
Dan Knight: Another thing that he had written was that he was to speak about Mengqi in the present tense rather than the past tense.
JOE ELLEDGE: She’s a very dedicated person. Ah, she’s a hard worker and I really like that.
Peter Van Sant: Why would a man who was claiming his wife had walked away, have to remind himself to not speak about her in the past tense?
Dan Knight: Because he killed her.
Detectives looked for possible evidence in every corner of the apartment, and on a hunch, also took a muddy pair of Joe’s boots into evidence.
Peter Van Sant: Just in case, down the road, they might be relevant?
Dan Knight: Something was amiss, yes. And … they sensed it. And they took ’em.
The search for Mengqi became a hunt for her remains, starting by retracing the long, leisurely drives that Joe said he took – with his baby in the backseat – while only he knew that wife was “missing.”
JOE ELLEDGE: We just went driving and it was a really nice day and so I just wanted to go out.
But every lead was just another dead end. So, Dan Knight made a bold move.
Dan Knight: I decided to go ahead and file charges. Murder in the first degree without a body.
Charges were filed while Joe was still in jail on abuse charges.
With Joe behind bars, Knight stepped up the search for Mengqi’s body.
Dan Knight: These are the cell tower records that we had in this case.
Peter Van Sant: This is his cell phone then? Joe’s cellphone?
Dan Knight: That’s correct.
According to Joe’s cell phone records, he had spent 30 minutes by the Lamine River, the day he claimed Mengqi disappeared – something he had not told police.
After months of searching for Mengqi, authorities still couldn’t find her. Mengqi’s mother attended a memorial vigil in her honor at the Lamine River.
Amy Salladay
Convinced her body was here, authorities searched for months. There was even a memorial on the river, attended by Mengqi’s mother.
Yáo Li: By March of 2020, we had really given up … we needed to do something to be able to say goodbye.
Then, a year later, with Joe Elledge still awaiting trial, a hiker was making his way through a wooded area in the very park where Joe had proposed to Mengqi. A flash of color in the dirt caught his eye. It was a purse.
Dan Knight: He had this walking stick. And he kind of flipped that purse around just a little bit. … He noticed that there were these shoes … And then … He saw somethin’ that looked like was maybe a- skull … and in fact, it was a skull, Mengqi’s skull.
Peter Van Sant: She had finally been found?
Dan Knight: That’s right. That’s right. it was a miracle.
YáoLi: I think that’s – that’s the worst moment for a parent.
YáoLi: I had a video conference with Mengqi’s parents, who were both back in China.
Yáo Li: They didn’t say anything. All you s — see is their tears.
From China, Menqgi went to the University of Missouri in 2012, where she finished her undergraduate studies and obtained a master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. One of her professors hired her right out of school at his biomaterials company, and that’s where she met her future husband.
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They now knew their daughter was dead — but how and why were still a mystery. Sadly, even the medical examiner’s office couldn’t say what killed Mengqi.
Peter Van Sant: Was there damage to her bone structure that —
Dan Knight: Yes.
Peter Van Sant: Unnatural damage?
Dan Knight: Yes, there was. Four … ribs were broken all the way through.
Peter Van Sant: Do you believe that those broken ribs are evidence of physical abuse, of a physical attack?
Dan Knight: Of a massive, catastrophic blow to her back, all the way, these through and through breaks that she would have been in agonizing pain.
Dan Knight was building a theory of what happened to Mengqi-and items collected about a year-and-a-half earlier, were about to become key. For one thing, Joe’s cell phone records put him near Mengqi’s burial site the day he reported her missing.
Peter Van Sant: What were the weather conditions like that day?
Dan Knight: Unfortunately for Joe but fortunately for justice, it was raining.
Knight had those muddy boots — and a hunch was about to pay off.
Dan Knight: As you can see right here, there is soil that is caked onto these boots.
Mud and gravel on the soles of Joe’s boots were sent out for analysis, along with foliage stuck in the mud.
Dan Knight: We’ve got 12 different types of vegetation in these boots.
Mud and gravel on the soles of Joe’s boots were sent out for analysis, along with foliage stuck in the mud.
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boon County DA’s Office
Dan Knight decided to send Joe’s boots to a lab at the Missouri Botanical Garden, where juniper tree needles were carefully removed from the soles for DNA testing.
Peter Van Sant: Plants have DNA just like people?
Christine Edwards: Absolutely, yeah. Every organism, every living organism in the planet has DNA.
Christine Edwards is a plant population geneticist who never dreamed she’d become a CSI investigator in a murder case.
Christine Edwards: They wanted to see if there was some way that we could match the vegetation in the boots to the … site where a woman’s remains were found.
Christine Edwards: These are two samples that were collected from … the left boot right here.
Christine Edwards: Once we knew that we could get usable DNA out of the – the forensic samples that we took from the boots, then we needed to match them to the – the trees at the site.
After carefully removing the needles stuck to the bottom of Joe Elledge’s boots and extracting their DNA, Alex Linan, was assigned to climb several juniper trees surrounding Mengji’s grave. He meticulously numbered each tree and then scaled them one by one, picking fresh needles from the highest branches.
CBS News
Edwards’ colleague was tasked with collecting sample needles from the juniper trees surrounding Mengqi’s gravesite.
Peter Van Sant: How do you do it? Pick it up off the ground or go up to the trees?
Alex Linan: So, we have to go all the way up to the trees. And this involved a ladder and a 10, 15-foot-long pole pruner so that we could make sure that the needles that we were getting came from the exact tree that it was. So, we couldn’t just get it from the ground. It had to be from the tree.
Each sample was stored and numbered, and back at the lab, they were compared to the needles found on Joe’s boots.
CBS News
Each sample was stored and numbered, and back at the lab, they were compared to the needles found on Joe’s boots.
Christine Edwards (pointing to a monitor): These two lines here are the genotype of one of the samples from the boot. … And this one is from the tree that is overhanging the gravesite. And as you can see, the lines match up.
Peter Van Sant: And that moment for you when you realized you had a match?
Christine Edwards: Yeah, It … was really exciting. … “We got him.” … He was there.
Peter Van Sant: No doubt he was there.
Christine Edwards: No doubt in my mind. He was there.
Peter Van Sant: Scientifically confirmed?
Alex Linan: Yes.
Peter Van Sant: Just like a fingerprint, just like DNA, blood DNA that is presented in trial, this is just as reliable.
Alex Linan: Exactly. Exactly the same technology.
Peter Van Sant: So, what you’re telling me is, these trees that are all around us here played a role in solving a murder?
Alex Linan: Absolutely. Yes.
Dan Knight says it’s only the second murder case he knows of where tree DNA has been used as evidence.
Dan Knight: The walls were closing in on Joe. So, I expected at trial for there to be another defense, besides … “Oh, Mengqi must’ve just run off and gone to China.”
And Dan Knight was right.
TRAGIC ACCIDENT OR PREMEDITATED MURDER?
On Nov. 1, 2021, Joe Elledge went on trial for the murder of his wife, Mengqi Ji.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): The question is … what happened in that apartment?
And Joe’s attorney Scott Rosenblum pivoted to a new explanation about what happened to Mengqi. Joe didn’t mean to kill his wife.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): What happened was a tragic accident.
Faced with the fact that Joe was now placed at the scene of Mengqi’s burial site, Joe Elledge’s defense attorney, Scott Rosenblum presented a new story at trial. He argued that Joe did in fact kill his wife, but it was a tragic accident.
Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP, Pool
Thanks to a juniper tree and its DNA, Joe could no longer claim that Mengqi had run away. He now had to admit that he buried his wife in a shallow grave.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): He had no intent, not — certainly not murder. That’s not even close.
Joe did have something to do with Mengqi’s death, said Rosenblum, but it was not murder. He took jurors back to Oct. 8, 2019, the day Mengqi died.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): And as they go into the evening hours … he asks her if he – if she wants a massage. Joe proceeds and … Tries to initiate sex. She rebuffs him. She says no.
Joe now admits he knew about his wife’s online affair with that man in China, Rosenblum said. And on this night, he confronted her.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): He’s upset, he’s hurt, and he wants to take his daughter for a walk. … She lunges towards him and pushes him … and he pushes her … Pushes her into the countertop.
Joe claims that’s when Mengqi broke her ribs. The defense called Dr. Keith Norton, the pathologist who conducted Mengqi’s autopsy, and he said it was possible.
DR. KEITH NORTON: Yes, but it would have to be a very forcible push.
Peter Van Sant: Does Joe maintain that she initiated this physical encounter?
Scott Rosenblum: 100%.
Peter Van Sant: She came after him?
Scott Rosenblum: Well, I mean … she wanted to prevent him from leaving with their daughter.
Peter Van Sant: He claimed in his new story that she attacked him … Do you buy any of that?
Dan Knight: Of course not.
Joe Elledge and Menqi Ji.
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boone County DA’s Office
Peter Van Sant: Look at the size difference here.
Dan Knight: Of course not. He’s twice as big as her.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): And again, she lunges at him and … he pushes her away … and she falls this time on her back and he hears the thud of her head hitting the ground.
Joe claims Mengqi was knocked nearly unconscious and then got up and went to bed. In the morning, when the baby started crying, Mengqi didn’t wake up.
SCOTT ROSENBLUM (opening statement): He’s sort of violently shaking her. Are you all right? Are you — all right? And it is abundantly clear at that point in time that his wife is dead.
Peter Van Sant: Why did Joe lie?
Scott Rosenblum: He … he was scared. … He made a choice, an erratic, irrational choice.
Peter Van Sant: Is that someone who’s in a panic state, or is that a killer who’s trying to – to cover up his crime?
Scott Rosenblum: I believe … it was, uh, evidence of extreme panic.
Dan Knight (at burial site): That story was very clever, but it … wasn’t what happened.
Prosecutor Dan Knight says all the proof he needs that Joe’s story is made up are those four broken ribs.
Mengqi was found with four broken ribs, an injury that Prosecutor Dan Knight believes shows that she was killed in a violent confrontation
District Attorney Dan Knight/Boone County DA’s Office
Peter Van Sant: You know how painful it is to break a single rib … She would’ve had to have been to a hospital, right?
Dan Knight: Oh, sure. There’s no doubt about it.
Knight says he keeps going back to Joe’s story about giving Mengqi a massage that night and believes that’s when he killed her.
Dan Knight: I don’t know if he put his hands around her neck and he strangled the life out of her. I don’t know if he, maybe, forced her face into a pillow. … But I know one thing for sure. That murder was horrific.
A premeditated murder says Knight, fueled by months of growing anger.
Dan Knight: He hated Mengqi with everything he had.
JOE ELLEDGE (audio): I’ll find a happier life. F*** this s***. I ain’t – I ain’t happy here.
Joe took the stand in his own defense, and insisted that he loved his wife, even though there was tension in the marriage.
Joe Elledge spent two days on the witness stand.
Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP, Pool
SCOTT ROSENBLUM: You would have these arguments, you both felt you were misunderstand (sic), then there’d be a reconciliation and you would love each other.
JOE ELLEDGE: That’s right.
The defense tried to get jurors to relate to the sometimes-stormy nature of Joe and Mengqi’s marriage; moments of arguing common with many couples. Joe claimed his wife was responsible for much of the tension.
JOE ELLEDGE (on the stand): Uh, she would raise her voice – uh, yelled … And, uh, she wouldn’t – listen to me very well.
Amy Salladay: They wanted to paint her as the aggressor … they wanted people to feel like it was her fault.
Amy Salladay and Yáo Li were in the courtroom, regularly texting updates to Mengqi’s mother – who was unable to travel.
Yáo Li: She didn’t believe a bit of it. And – um – that was very emotional for her.
When Dan Knight finally had his chance to question Joe Elledge, he point-blank asked Joe how he killed the mother of his child.
Prosecutor Dan Knight played those secret audio recordings between Joe and Mengqi showing them arguing, including Joe telling Mengqi she was “brainless.” Knight told Peter Van Sant that the recordings helped establish motive.
Don Shrubshell/Columbia Daily Tribune via AP, Pool
DAN KNIGHT: Did you maybe stand up on top of her and jump on top of her back?
JOE ELLEDGE: No.
DAN KNIGHT: Did you suffocate her?
JOE ELLEDGE: No.
After nearly two weeks of testimony detailing the audio recordings, digital evidence, cell tower data, and the tree DNA linking Joe to Mengqi’s burial site, both sides delivered their closing arguments. Rosenblum asked for manslaughter, “Return the right verdict,” and Dan Knight asked for first-degree murder.
DAN KNIGHT: She deserves justice ladies and gentlemen! Mengqi deserves justice!
Amy Salladay: We were all nervous. And we hoped that the jury would see the case the way that we saw it.
A JURY DECIDES
Amy Salladay: We’ve all come to know Mengqi … and so I think we all felt that connection to her. And we hoped that justice would be served.
It was 7 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2021, and after deliberating for nearly seven hours, the jury had its verdict.
After a 10-day trial, both sides delivered closing arguments. Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum reiterated that it was all a tragic accident and argued for manslaughter. Dan Knight argued that Mengqi’s death was premediated and asked for first-degree murder. Neither side got what they wanted. The jury found Joe Elledge guilty of second-degree murder, meaning that they didn’t see Mengqi’s murder as premediated.
Alessia Tagliabue/Missourian via AP, Pool
JUDGE: Mr. Elledge would you please stand to receive the verdict. … We the jury find the defendant Joseph Duane Elledge guilty of murder in the second degree.
Guilty of second-degree murder. The jury believed that Joe killed Mengqi, but not with premeditation. Yáo Li says Mengqi’s parents were very pleased.
Yáo Li: They weren’t nervous about a conviction at all. … They believe this is a fair system.
But the day wasn’t over yet. The jury would now hear testimony in the “penalty phase.”
Dan Knight: I had to turn around very quickly late that night and start presenting evidence.
Dan Knight wanted life in prison. The defense asked for 10 years.
The state called several of Mengqi’s friends, who spoke about the impact of her death.
QINYI WANG | Friend: I feel very sad. And I feel angry.
FRIEND: That hurt us, that make us huge pain and huge sorrow.
The defense called only one witness to plead for mercy — Joe’s mother Jean Geringer.
JEAN GERINGER: It’s very disturbing. It’s heartbreaking because it’s so out of his character.
It was midnight when the jury got the case again. A little over an hour later —
JUDGE: We the jury … declare the punishment for a term of 28 years.
Dan Knight believes the jury gave Joe one year for every year of Mengqi’s short life. Yáo Li informed Mengqi’s parents.
Yáo Li: I don’t think … the numbers matter to them. I think the truth matters the most … that’s what is frustrating … I don’t think they will ever, ever know the whole truth of what actually happened.
All they can look forward to now is to be able to help raise their granddaughter, says family attorney Amy Salida.
Amy Salladay: I hope that she can be raised to know her mother’s Chinese culture and to know her mother’s family.
In January 2023, Mengqi’s parent’s and Joe’s mother reached an agreement. The child will spend her summers in China and the rest of the year with Jean. Scott Rosenblum says she is in good hands.
Scott Rosenblum: Jean and her husband are great parents. … She makes it her business to include — the maternal grandparents in the baby’s life.
Dan Knight would not discuss the child’s future but did say this about the trauma already suffered by Mengqi’s daughter.
Dan Knight: Number one: she was in the apartment at the time that Joe killed Mengqi, her mother. … one of these days, she’s gonna find out about that. … Second thing is when Joe drove around, the next day … Mengqi was in the trunk and … their little girl was strapped into a car seat. … But the thing that she’s also gonna find out about is that Joe … would’ve been just fine with her going the rest of her life thinking that her mother abandoned her.
Mengqi Ji’s legacy of accomplishment, dedication and love lives on in her baby girl, and in the hearts of those whose lives she touched.
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Amy Salladay: I want her daughter to know that she was a great mother. She was dedicated. She loved her with all of her heart. … I want her to be remembered for her smile and how friendly and outgoing she was.
Mengqi Ji’s legacy of accomplishment, dedication and love lives on in her baby girl, and in the hearts of those whose lives she touched.
Yáo Li: Everybody sees the goodness in her. That’s why everybody’s so connected with her.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, call 1-800-799-SAFE or visit thehotline.org.
On June 4, 2022, Dan Knight who worked so hard to get justice for Mengqi, died unexpectedly.
Boone County DA’s Office
Prosecutor Daniel Knight died on June 4, 2022.
Produced by Judy Rybak and Emily Wichick. Ryan N. Smith is the development producer. Shaheen Tokhi is the associate producer. Michael Loftus is the broadcast associate. Michael McHugh is producer/editor. Doreen Schechter, Michelle Harris and Phil Tangel are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
