 Melissa Jenkins was a schoolteacher and basketball coach from Vermont who went missing under mysterious circumstances in March of 2012. Thankfully she was found within 24 hours of her disappearance, but unfortunately her discovery would reveal a disturbing crime that was committed by two suspects who claim they were her friends. Melissa Jenkins was a 33-year-old single mother who on the surface seemed like your typical American woman, but in reality she was far more than that. Melissa was truly one of the nicest women in her area and she would do just about anything for anyone. Everyone in her community, both before and after her untimely passing, had nothing but nice things to say about her. She made a living by teaching at St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont. St. Johnsbury is a private school, but it's considered a non-profit as well, giving it a leg up over some other schools of this nature. Melissa was one of the school's science teachers who was loved by all of her students. Every year it seemed like students fought as hard as they could to land a place in her class. She was a great teacher who got on well with all of her students and made sure that each of them felt welcomed, heard, and cared for. She always had her students' best interest at heart and had a true passion for furthering the future generations. When she wasn't teaching science, she spent her time coaching the school's basketball team. Coaching grades 9-12 as far as I can tell. Melissa knew that if her students were going to succeed, they not only needed a proper education, but they needed an extra curricular outlet as well, and she was more than willing to provide this for them. Not only was Melissa an amazing teacher and coach, but she was a great mother as well. We don't know much about what led Melissa to become a single mother, but we know that she had a two-year-old son who was the center of her world. Unfortunately, she needed to work two jobs to make ends meet, but she was happy to do so if it meant building a better life for her son. To make this happen, she would spend nights and weekends working as a waitress at a local restaurant. Considering Melissa spent almost every waking minute of her day, either at work or in the public in some capacity, it became all the more shocking when she seemingly dropped off the face of the earth on March 25, 2012. None of her friends were able to get in touch with her throughout that evening, and she'd been watching her two-year-old son that evening as well. So her boyfriend grew incredibly concerned for both the safety of Melissa and her son. After several hours went by and he had still been unable to reach her or locate her, he decided to call 911. It was March 25, 2012, when police received a call from Melissa's boyfriend. He explained that he'd received a call from Melissa earlier that night about a couple of friends of hers that were having car troubles. He explained that Melissa had offered to come help the friends out, but he never heard another word from her after this, despite dozens of phone calls. Her boyfriend continued by saying that he'd gone out looking for Melissa that evening, but he couldn't find any trace of her. But this is where things get pretty interesting. He explained that Melissa sounded strange when he spoke to her on the phone, but he didn't think much of it at the time. But he grew incredibly concerned when he found her car abandoned on Gashalo Road. This doesn't seem to have been a road that she would have normally traveled down. It was just a dirt road a short distance from her home, but her boyfriend couldn't figure out any reason that she would have been in this area at this time of night. When he approached her car, he realized it was still running. He looked in the windows, but there was no sign of Melissa. But then he noticed the most disturbing detail of all. Her son was still strapped into his car seat in the back of the car all by himself. After telling police all of these details, investigators showed up within minutes. We don't know why the young boy wasn't given to his father, but he was sent to live with a family friend while police ironed out the details of what was going on. There were obvious signs of a struggle just outside of the car, including various shoe prints, scrapes, smudges, and unidentified tire tracks. A baseball hat was found on the ground near the front of the car, but it didn't belong to Melissa, and none of her friends or family recognized the hat. The tire tracks that were seen a short distance away looked as if the person driving the car had sped away in a hurry, but it was this next piece of evidence found near the tire tracks that made police all the more suspicious. They found Melissa's cell phone on the ground crushed and rendered useless. Officers collected the phone for evidence, but there wasn't much information on the phone that proved to be beneficial to the investigation. By the time detectives had collected all of the evidence from the scene of the crime, it was beginning to get dark out, meaning their investigation met a new challenge. Regardless, police worked tirelessly through the night to collect every piece of evidence they could, but it seemed the suspects had managed to successfully leave the scene of the crime without leaving anything of significance behind. Except for Melissa's two-year-old son. As it would turn out, he witnessed the entire struggle, and he was willing to tell the police everything he saw. As with most missing person cases, the first person detectives suspected of the crime was Melissa's boyfriend. Police interviewed the boyfriend, and he gave a few conflicting accounts to officers. According to Melissa's brother, the boyfriend wanted a serious relationship, but Melissa just wasn't into him like that, or at the very least, she wasn't ready for such a strong commitment so soon considering she had a son now. She either wanted to break things off or just keep things somewhat casual. According to her brother, the boyfriend wouldn't let this go, and it seems as though he often pressured Melissa into committing, even though she wasn't ready. But when officers spoke with the boyfriend about this, he claimed that the brother was either lying or ignorant to the truth. According to the boyfriend, he agreed with Melissa's decision to take things slow. Police weren't buying this at first, so they decided to take a mold of his boots to compare them to the boot prints found at the scene of the crime. Turns out they weren't a match, and police decided to let him go. The following day, investigators called in the help of a detective who specialized in interviewing children. They brought in Melissa's son and spoke with him about what had happened that night, the night that his mother went missing. It turns out the boy, despite being only two years old, was able to reveal a lot of information to the police about the crime. He told investigators that his mother had been attacked by two people. Not only this, but when police asked him what happened to his mom, he grabbed himself by the neck, looked at the detective, and said, Mommy cried. After hearing this terrifying confession from Melissa's son, the next person of interest was the father of Melissa's son. Just to clarify things here, Melissa's boyfriend, the one that we've been speaking about up to this point, the one that discovered her car, was not the father of her son. The boy's father lived about 80 miles away in Burlington. Police interviewed him, but he had an alibi and was cleared almost immediately. This brought police back to St. Johnsbury. When they made their way into Melissa's home, they searched every square inch of the property, but found no indication of a struggle or anything that was amiss. It seemed as though they'd reached a dead end. But as they looked around, they noticed one small detail that seemed vaguely interesting. A business card for a snow plowing business, owned by Alan and Patricia Prude. The police didn't know if this business card was significant, but it seemed as though she'd only recently received the card, so they thought the owners of the business might have some details to share if they happened to be present prior to the crime taking place. By this point in the investigation, police strongly suspected that Melissa had already lost her life. They kept their options open, but they prepared for the worst, as the evidence found at the scene of the crime didn't suggest that the perpetrators intended to keep Melissa alive for very long, and time was running out. Police searched every possible area where someone might have wanted to dispose of incriminating evidence, but they continually turned up empty-handed. They even searched all the local rest stops and ditches, but there was nothing to be found. It was around the 24-hour mark that investigators received a tip that would blow the case wide open. Someone had called in from a local boat launch, and reported that they noticed something suspicious sticking out of the water in a local fishing spot. Investigators didn't think much of it, but they decided to investigate anyway. Once they arrived, they immediately knew that they had encountered a crime scene. As they drew closer to the mysterious object in the water, they found out quite quickly that this wasn't an object. It was a woman, and this woman was none other than Melissa Jenkins. A scuba team was called to the scene of the crime to help collect all of the evidence that may have been left underwater. Mind you, all of this was taking place in the middle of March in Vermont. The waters were borderline freezing temperatures, but the scuba team had a job to do, and they did it well. As they looked under the water, they found that Melissa had been secured in place with a few cinder blocks and rope. Thankfully, they were able to free her without much issue, allowing police to look into the case without too much degradation of evidence. Photos from the scene have been kept under wraps, but officers revealed that Melissa was placed in the water face down. She was then secured with the aforementioned cinder blocks and rope, and was then covered up with sticks and brush to try to conceal her location. But this seems to have been done in a half hazard rush, proving that the criminals weren't prepared for this crime ahead of time. None of Melissa's clothes were found at the scene of the crime, and there was virtually no other evidence to lead investigators to the suspects that may have done this. But when she was pulled from the water, police realized something that shocked them to their core. When police looked into the evidence that was collected directly from Melissa's remains, they found that she was covered in bruises and had several serious wounds that were inflicted immediately prior to her losing her life. These wounds were indicative of a stun gun being repeatedly used, but the next piece of evidence wasn't what officers would have ever expected. They found that someone had taken Melissa's life with their bare hands. An up close and personal attack that wasn't consistent with the evidence officers had collected up to this point. They believed that they were initially investigating a crime of opportunity, but now they were investigating a crime of passion. When officers began to backtrack Melissa's steps from that day, they first checked her phone records to see who she'd spoken to that evening. They found one call had come in from a prepaid burner phone at around 8.30 that evening. They found that the burner phone had only been used to make this one single call. This led investigators to a store in New Hampshire where the phone had been purchased. When they asked the manager about the sale of the phone, they learned that the device had been purchased with a check. The signature on the check tied it to none other than Patricia Prue, the same name that had been printed on the business card that was found inside of Melissa's home. Police planned on calling in the Prues to interrogate them, but as it would turn out, they didn't need to call them because when they arrived back at the police station, the Prues were there waiting on them. When officers spoke with the couple, Patricia said that she'd come into the police station to report her identity as being stolen, and she believed her ex-husband was behind it. But police quickly turned the conversation to Melissa Jenkins, and the couple both admitted that they had met Melissa before. In fact, they were friends of hers. They'd plowed her driveway a couple times the previous winter, and friends and family of Melissa also said that this was true. They learned that Melissa was very friendly with the Prue couple, but that she hadn't spoken to them in several months. They had been reasonably close friends leading up to this, but according to one of Melissa's friends, Melissa had to end their agreement because she was creeped out by Alan. As it would turn out, Alan Prue had romantic feelings towards Melissa, but these feelings were not mutual. Alan had asked her out on multiple dates, but Melissa repeatedly declined and eventually terminated their business agreement as a result. The Prues were allowed to leave the police station that day, but they were secretly placed under police surveillance over the next few days. Investigators knew that the couple were acting suspicious, and they believed that they may be involved in the crime, but they just didn't have any evidence to prove it just yet. Police eventually managed to retrieve the CCTV footage from the store where the burner phone had been purchased, and as expected, both Alan and Patricia were seen in the footage. During their interrogation with the couple, police noted that Alan mentioned visiting a drive-thru restaurant that same evening, so they requested footage from the restaurant as well. When the footage finally arrived, investigators were speechless. The CCTV footage showed Alan wearing the same hat that had been found at the scene of the crime that day, the one that had been left in front of Melissa's car. Police called the couple back in for follow-up questions, this time speaking to them separately. Patricia denied any involvement and any knowledge about the crime, even when she was confronted with the CCTV footage and the images from the scene of the crime. Alan, on the other hand, buckled under pressure. Alan opened up to the officers and explained the details of what had taken place that fateful evening, and it wasn't pretty. Police knew that he'd previously shown a romantic interest in Melissa, but they couldn't have expected what he revealed next. Alan admitted that his wife was bisexual, not only this, but she struggled with monogamy. She would often ask Alan if they could invite other partners into their bedroom and he felt forced to comply. On this particular occasion, the couple had agreed to find someone willing to come home with them, and Alan specifically wanted to bring Melissa into the equation. The two hatched a plan to fake car troubles, calling Melissa to help them. It seems that the plan was simply to try to seduce Melissa into coming home with them, but the plan went south very quickly. Soon after Melissa arrived, Alan jumped on her and managed to overpower, but he wasn't able to finish the job. Patricia then jumped in and put an end to things, and the two worked together to steal Melissa in the back of their car, now panicking about what they had done. All the while, Melissa's son watched from the backseat of the car, with both Alan and Patricia blissfully unaware that Melissa had even brought her son with her that evening. The crime wasn't premeditated, so to speak. Yes, they conspired together to try to get Melissa to go home with them, but both Alan and Patricia insist that they had no plans of taking her life that day, and the evidence certainly seems to support this. Alan says that even after things went south, he still had no plans of claiming her life. He admitted to police that he wasn't feeling like himself that night and seems to have been filled with misguided rage, but when he realized what he was doing, he stopped. But that's where Patricia jumped in to finish the job, allegedly against Alan's wishes. During the couple's court proceedings and future interrogations, Alan continually claimed that Patricia was the one to blame for claiming Melissa's life. He admitted to letting his temper get the better of him, and he was willing to accept whatever punishment the court deemed necessary, but he never admitted to taking her life. Regardless, a jury decided that they were both guilty and sentenced each of them to life in prison. Both Patricia and Alan have appealed their sentences since then, but their cries have fallen on deaf ears. In the years since the crime, both Alan and Patricia have continued to blame one another, passing the buck, so to speak. The truth is, we don't know which of these two was truly the mastermind behind the crime. All I can say for sure is that, thankfully, it doesn't look like either of these two will ever see the light of day again, and Melissa's family can finally begin their search for closure. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of True Crime Stories. This case, like many others, was recommended by you guys, so if you have any other cases you'd like to see me cover in the future, just let me know in the comments below. And while you're at it, if you want to help support the channel, the best way you can do that is by leaving a comment and liking the video. Both of these things help out a lot more than you may realize, and if you'd like to help out financially, you can click the blue join button below to help support the cause as well. But with that, my name is Ty Nottz, and I'll catch you guys in the next video.