This episode of Music City Murder begins in Nashville but ends in Marietta (Atlanta), GA. It still counts as a Nashville true crime case, however, and the unsolved mystery of Heather Uffelman's death will send chills down your spine.
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Show Notes:
- In September 1992, in Nashville, a local music video company ran two ads in the classifieds trying to sell the central processing unit and monitor for an Apple Quadra 950.
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- They put 22-year-old Jeremy Rolfs—a 22-year-old senior at Tennessee State University—in charge of the process.
- One of the ads read ULTIMATE Power (ultimate in all caps): Apple Quadra 950 + plus some other details...$24,000 obo.
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- I think this is the first mistake. Putting the price for such a huge and costly piece of equipment will draw criminals.
- On October 7, 1992, a man calling himself "Tom Johnson" called about the ad and said he was a freelance computer programmer
- Jeremy Rolfs even met up with this "Tom Johnson" to preview how the equipment worked.
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- Unfortunately, there were no other witnesses to this event, and so it went completely unnoticed.
- Since the destination was over 200 miles away, he decided to drive through the night, and his fiance, Heather Uffelman, joined him to keep him awake.
- At 1:30 AM on October 24, Jeremy and Heather set off for Marietta.
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- They arrived at the motel at 7:30 AM. Originally, they had been set up to meet at an industrial park.
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- But "Tom" said the directions were so complicated that it would be better to meet somewhere else.
- Since Jeremy had spent plenty of time wandering through industrial parks looking for unmarked addresses, he thought it was reasonable.
- "Tom" said his business partner had the check and would be along in an hour, so the couple went to breakfast.
- When they came back a half-hour later, "Tom" said he'd spoken with the business partner and he was on the way.
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- Rolfs so trusted the guy that none of this struck him as odd, and so he just went along with it.
- There were no clues that this guy was anything but what he said he was.
- At 8, he suggested that they load the computer into the car, so they did.
- They made small talk for about 20 minutes before Jeremy asked "Tom" where the president of the company was with the check so they could close the deal.
- Then, "Tom" pulled a gun on them and said, "I think we can close this deal right now."
- "Tom" had Jeremy and Heather lie down on the ground before rolling them up in a blanket.
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- He had Jeremy turn away from Heather, and then he suddenly heard a loud buzzing in his ear, and the room began to spin, because he'd just struck Jeremy in the back of the head with a claw hammer.
- He then went over to Heather and hit her with the hammer, and Heather let out these horrible, bloodcurdling screams.
- When Jeremy said "stop screaming, and he'll leave," "Tom" hit Jeremy over the head several more times before returning to Heather Uffelman.
- Jeremy remained conscious throughout the whole ordeal and was able to see Tom dust the counter for fingerprints.
- As soon as "Tom" left, Jeremy freed himself and crawled over to Heather to tell her he would get help for them and that they would be all right.
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- What he saw would haunt him until his dying day.
- to get help for himself and Heather.
- They were rushed to the hospital, where Heather succumbed to her injuries around 12:30 PM that day.
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- Jeremy was released from the hospital on Oct. 27.
