What happens when an ordinary night out turns into a tragedy, and a five-year-old child becomes one of the most important witnesses to a violent crime?
This week on Pushing Up Lilies, I’m talking about the heartbreaking case of Jessica Antolini, a 30-year-old woman whose life was taken following a violent confrontation outside a bar in Safety Harbor, Florida.
According to investigators, Jessica’s boyfriend, Christopher “Dodge” Smith, arrived at the bar looking for her. After an argument outside, he allegedly shot Jessica and then drove over her with his SUV as he left the scene. Even more disturbing, his five-year-old daughter was reportedly present and witnessed the violence.
Jessica fought for her life in the hospital for two days before passing away from her injuries.
As a forensic nurse and former death investigator, there are several aspects of this case that I want to examine. We’ll talk about how investigators evaluate gunshot wounds alongside injuries caused by a vehicle, why hospital records are so important in a death investigation, and how forensic evidence can help reconstruct the events leading to someone’s death.
I also want to discuss something that deeply concerns me: the involvement of a young child in such a traumatic event. We’ll look at the importance of specialized forensic interviews, protecting child witnesses, and recognizing the emotional impact that witnessing violence can have long after the investigation ends.
And because October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we’ll talk about intimate partner violence, the warning signs that sometimes go unnoticed, and the role healthcare professionals can play in helping people experiencing abuse.
But before anything else, I want you to know who Jessica was.
She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a woman who cared deeply about people’s rights and animal welfare. Her family described her as kind and loving, and her life deserves to be remembered for so much more than the circumstances of her death.
Join me as we examine the evidence, the unanswered questions, and the devastating loss of Jessica Antolini.
Because behind every death investigation is a person whose life mattered.
* Listener discretion is advised.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I’m your host, Julie Mattson.
00:10
Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine-tingling, unusual, and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey, guys. Welcome to another episode of Pushing Up Lilies. Welcome back if you’re new. I’m so glad you’re here.
00:39
If you’re not, I’m also glad you’re here. But I wanna talk this week about a case that just happened a few days ago. It happened in Florida, and it has to do with domestic violence.
00:51
So, imagine being at a local bar, and it’s a Tuesday night, you’re talking to your friends, and you’re enjoying yourself, and you’re doing something that millions of people do without giving it a second thought.
01:04
And then somebody comes looking for you, and they’re not looking for you to have a friendly conversation. They don’t want to sit down and try to work something out. They’re angry.
01:14
Witnesses would later describe his behavior as though he was hunting someone, and the person he was looking for was thirty-year-old Jessica Antolini.
01:26
Now, within minutes, Jessica would be lying on the ground with a gunshot injury, and then investigators allege that the man responsible then got in his SUV and drove over her.
01:38
And here’s another part of this case that I find really disturbing. His five-year-old daughter was with him in the vehicle, and the dog.
01:47
She would later tell investigators something that no child should ever have to say, “Daddy shot Jess.” Jessica fought for her life in the hospital for two days, but on October fifteenth, she died from her injuries.
01:58
Now, her boyfriend, forty-year-old Christopher Dodge Smith, now faces a first-degree murder charge.
02:05
I’ve investigated deaths for years, and I’ve seen what happens when anger, violence, and access to a weapon come together. I’ve also seen what happens to the families left behind.
02:19
This almost happened to me, and I know we’ve talked about it. But this case raises several questions that I wanna talk about from an investigative standpoint.
02:28
What happened in the moments before this shooting? And I wanna share with y’all, like, how do you distinguish injuries caused by gunfire from those caused by a vehicle?
02:40
And what happens when a young child becomes one of the most important witnesses? I’m Julie Matson.
02:46
I’ve spent more than thirty years as a nurse, including years investigating deaths, and this is Pushing Up Lilies.
02:53
So, before we talk about the man accused of killing Jessica, I wanna talk about Jessica herself.
02:59
So, as you know, one of the things that bothers me about homicide coverage is how quickly a victim’s entire identity becomes connected to the person accused of taking their life.
03:10
Jessica Antolini was thirty. She had a family who loved her, friends who cared about her, and people who are now trying to understand how somebody they love so much was taken from them.
03:22
Now, after her death, her mom, Suzanne, shared a statement expressing the family’s heartbreak, and she said that Jessica was a beloved daughter, a cherished sister, and a treasured friend.
03:32
Her mother also talked about something that was very important to Jessica. She cared about people’s rights and animal welfare.
03:38
And those details matter because they tell us something about what Jessica believed in and what was important to her.
03:45
She obviously cared about others, and her life involved relationships and interests and causes beyond the circumstances of her death.
03:54
At thirty years old, she should have had decades of life ahead of her.
03:59
Now, we don’t know a lot about her childhood or her professional life, and I don’t fill gaps with assumptions, as you all know, but her family deserves to have her life represented accurately.
04:10
And when I worked death investigations, you know, I’d go to a scene sometimes, and I always tried to remember that that person was somebody’s child or somebody’s spouse or somebody’s sibling or parent or friend.
04:24
And sometimes we learned about their lives through photographs, and so we would see their family photographs, and it’s heartbreaking to know that I’m about to tell these people that their loved one is no longer with us.
04:37
You know, we looked at their personal belongings, and it was just devastating. And those details don’t tell us about how someone died, but they remind us who died.
04:48
And Jessica’s story deserves to be in with her life. And her mother said she was kind and loving and advocated for people and animals, and so that’s how I want my listeners to remember her.
04:59
So, she wasn’t just a woman who was shot outside of a bar. She was Jessica, a thirty-year-old woman whose family’s now facing a future without her.
05:09
Now, Safety Harbor is a community in Pinellas County, Florida, and it’s near Tampa Bay.
05:17
On Tuesday, October thirteenth, Jessica was at the Harbor Bar on Main Street, and at about eight forty-five that evening, investigators say Christopher Smith arrived at the establishment.
05:28
Now, he was forty years old. He was known by the nickname Dodge. Don’t know why. But he reportedly arrived with his five-year-old daughter and his dog.
05:38
Now, according to the sheriff’s office, Smith entered the bar, and he left his daughter and the dog in the parking lot.
05:44
Now, I wanna talk about what witnesses reportedly observed because people who knew him for years said that his behavior was very strange.
05:55
Witnesses said that he looked possessed, and he was aggressively searching for Jessica. And one description suggested he was hunting her.
06:04
Now, I think that language is significant, especially when it comes from witnesses who are familiar with his usual behavior. So as an investigator, I would ask them what they meant. Was he pacing?
06:16
Was he yelling? Did he threaten anybody? Did he mention why he was looking for her?
06:22
Those are questions, not established details, but I would wanna interview those witnesses separately as quickly as possible.
06:30
Witnesses sometimes influence one another without realizing it, and so sometimes one person says someone’s angry, and then everyone remembers anger. And so that doesn’t mean that they’re dishonest.
06:42
It just means that human memory is very complicated, and investigators need actual observations rather than simply accepting someone’s interpretation of another person’s behavior.
06:54
So according to the arrest documents, Smith found Jessica in the bar. The two went outside. They began arguing. We don’t know why.
07:05
And the sheriff’s office identified this location as the southwest corner of Ninth Avenue South and Main Street, just west of the Harbor Bar.
07:13
Now, what they were arguing about, again, has not been publicly established. I think that it’s important to say that.
07:18
It’s easy for people to assume that jealousy or infidelity or a breakup whenever a woman is killed by an intimate partner was the cause of the argument, but we don’t know that started this particular confrontation.
07:31
Now, what investigators allege happened next is much more clear. Jessica went to his vehicle. She followed him out to the vehicle. He produced a firearm and shot her in the face.
07:44
So according to details reported from the arrest affidavit, the bullet entered near her left eye and exited the back of her skull, and she fell to the ground.
07:54
And instead of remaining there and trying to help her, Smith got in his SUV and drove away. But as he left, his vehicle ran over her. His five-year-old daughter and dog were inside.
08:05
Now, I’ve seen a lot of traumatic injuries during my career. I’ve seen gunshot wounds and motor vehicle fatalities and assaults and deaths involving a lot of different mechanisms of injury.
08:15
But the allegation that Jessica was shot and then struck by a vehicle adds another important dimension to this investigation.
08:23
So, these are two completely separate traumatic events, and both of them need to be thoroughly documented, and I’ll explain why in a moment. But it’s important, and it’s interesting.
08:35
I think that y’all will be super interested to know the details. But at approximately nine PM, multiple people started calling nine one one.
08:45
Witnesses reported the shooting, and they gave descriptions of Smith’s vehicle. Now think about what first responders are facing. A woman suffered a critical gunshot injury.
08:56
A vehicle had driven over her. The suspected shooter had fled, and a child was with him. So that creates a lot of immediate priorities.
09:07
So, emergency personnel need to get to Jessica, and they want to determine whether she has signs of life. They want to begin treating her injuries, and law enforcement needs to locate the suspect.
09:18
They have two different jobs. They wanna secure the scene, protect witnesses, and determine if there’s still danger. So, investigators need to preserve evidence.
09:27
So, when I worked death scenes, one thing I learned early was how quickly a scene changes when emergency treatment starts, and that’s appropriate.
09:35
It’s totally appropriate because saving a life comes first.
09:38
But afterward, investigators have to reconstruct what happened, and they need to know where the victim was originally, whether she was moved during treatment, was clothing cut away, and whether medical equipment or life-saving interventions affected any of the physical evidence.
09:54
But in Jessica’s case, there was another challenge because she didn’t die there. She was alive when emergency responders transported her to the hospital.
10:05
So, she arrived at Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital in St.
10:09
Petersburg with life-threatening injuries, and that means the medical team was working to save her life while detectives were beginning a criminal investigation.
10:18
Now, the hospital records are gonna become an important part of this case ’cause physicians and nurses are gonna document her injuries and her neurological status and all of the tests and treatments that were done and how she responded to her care.
10:31
And those records are gonna establish what happened after the assault and provide a lot of information to the medical examiner. Now, Jessica was hospitalized for two days.
10:41
Just three days ago, she was pronounced dead. Her family had gone from having a daughter who was alive on Tuesday to preparing for her funeral by Thursday night.
10:52
Now, I’ve delivered death notifications, and I’ve sat with families who are trying to process sudden violent loss, and there isn’t a sentence you say that makes something like this any easier.
11:04
You try to answer their questions, and you explain what you know, and you try not to make promises about things that you don’t understand.
11:11
But for Jessica’s family, there are still questions that investigators are working to answer, and this whole criminal justice process is only beginning for them.
11:21
Now, what about the five-year-old witness? That’s one of the most troubling aspects of this case involves Smith’s daughter. She was only five years old.
11:31
According to the arrest affidavit, she witnessed the confrontation and the shooting. Investigators reported that she repeatedly said that her father had shot Jessica.
11:41
So, I want everybody listening to think about the significance of that. She’s five years old.
11:46
She was present during this act of extreme violence involving someone she knew, and now she’s part of a homicide investigation.
11:56
So, in death investigations, you know, we sometimes encounter children who witness traumatic events, and those situations require tremendous care.
12:05
A child’s statement needs to be documented accurately. But investigators also have to consider things like developmental age and language and the possibility of trauma.
12:16
Children don’t really explain things the same way adults do, so she might have thought that weapon was a toy, and she might confuse the order that things happened.
12:26
She might remember one particular sound or image more clearly than anything else, and repeated questioning by multiple adults sometimes changes how a child tells a story.
12:36
And that’s why we have specialized forensic interviewing.
12:39
It’s so important that a trained child forensic interviewer conduct a developmentally appropriate interview with a child like this using open-ended questions.
12:50
And you don’t want somebody repeatedly asking a child, “Did your daddy shoot Jessica?” You want the child to describe what they remember in their own words, and you want to avoid unnecessarily making that child relive the experience.
13:08
Investigators will also need to determine where she was positioned and what she was actually physically able to see.
13:14
Now, the arrest affidavit indicates that she witnessed it, but it doesn’t really establish her understanding of what happened or how much she saw.
13:24
There are child abuse charges against Smith, and those reflect another serious aspect of this case. His daughter and the family dog were unharmed, thank God.
13:33
They were reunited with family members, and I’m grateful that they were physically safe, but I do hope that she receives the support she needs.
13:43
Because children exposed to violence sometimes experience nightmares and behavioral changes and difficulty sleeping and anxiety, and sometimes those effects aren’t immediate.
13:53
So that little girl deserves privacy and stability and appropriate care, and her experience should never become entertainment.
14:02
I think that’s really important for those of us who tell true crime stories. Now, what happened after Smith left?
14:11
According to the arrest affidavit, Smith contacted his mother after the shooting, and he told her that he made a serious mistake and that he shot Jessica.
14:21
He also said that he was gonna bring his daughter to her. So that alleged telephone conversation would be extremely important.
14:27
Detectives would want to establish when he called her, how long the call lasted, and exactly what was said, and they would wanna interview his mother about the conversation.
14:38
They would wanna know if he was upset, if he was calm. Did he say anything about what happened before the shooting? Did he mention running over her?
14:46
And those are all questions that I, as an investigator, would ask.
14:51
Now, the publicly reported account really doesn’t give us those answers either, but an alleged admission made shortly after a crime is evidence that investigators want to examine rather closely.
15:01
And the sheriff’s office says that deputies located Smith’s vehicle just a short time after the shooting, and officers attempted to stop him and ultimately immobilized his vehicle.
15:13
Video released by law enforcement actually shows part of the arrest, and he was taken into custody, and his daughter and dog were still with him.
15:21
So, investigators then had at least two important locations to process. So, they had the location of the shooting and the location of the vehicle strike and the vehicle itself.
15:30
But depending on what was found, investigators would document and collect physical evidence and examine the firearm and obtain witness statements.
15:39
The SUV would be particularly important because it was allegedly used to strike Jessica, and evidence on the vehicle might help establish whether or not it actually made contact with her and which portions of the vehicle were involved.
15:54
So, they’re definitely going to look over the vehicle, and that examination needs to be compared with the medical findings.
16:03
Now, Smith was initially arrested on charges of attempted first-degree murder and child abuse, but after Jessica died, the attempted murder charge was upgraded to first-degree murder.
16:13
As of October eighteenth, Smith has been reported as being held without bond in the Pinellas County Jail, and he’s accused of these crimes. But a conviction has not been established.
16:26
Now, what would I look for as a death investigator? I wanna spend a little bit of time talking about the forensic side of this case.
16:34
This is where my background as a forensic nurse investigator kinda changes how I look at a story.
16:40
When you hear about someone being shot and then run over, it’s easy to assume that you understand the cause of death. But as a death investigator, we don’t start with assumptions.
16:49
We start with circumstances and the medical evidence and the injuries. So, in Jessica’s case, there were two major mechanisms of trauma.
16:58
First, we got the gunshot wound to the head, and then we’ve got blunt force trauma from contact with the vehicle.
17:05
Both are potentially fatal, but the medical examiner needs to evaluate the injuries and determine what contributed to her death.
17:12
So, I wanna explain something about gunshot wounds because a lot of people misunderstand them.
17:17
A gunshot wound to the head is frequently catastrophic, but the location of the entrance and exit wounds alone doesn’t tell us everything.
17:26
The actual injury depends on the bullet’s path and the structures involved.
17:32
When I was doing my psych rotation at the forensic mental hospital in Vernon, there was a gentleman there who was an inmate, and he had attempted suicide.
17:45
Yes, he held the gun submentally, and evidently, he kind of pointed it that way, but he shot the whole side of his head off. It didn’t kill him.
17:57
It obviously hurt, but no brain damage, no brain injury, multiple reconstructive cosmetic surgeries. But just because it was here doesn’t mean…
18:08
You know, people flinch, people change their mind last minute. His bullet went that way, So the actual injury depends on the path of the bullet and the structures between the entrance and the exit.
18:23
So, investigators would review hospital imaging and medical records and autopsy findings. If the projectile passed through the head, there might be no bullet available.
18:34
That doesn’t mean there’s no ballistic evidence. Investigators might recover the bullet fragments or a projectile at the scene, but if it went in and out, it’s not in her head.
18:45
Now, they might also compare ballistic evidence with the firearm that was used, and then there’s the vehicle.
18:51
In cases involving pedestrian, where they’ve been run over, the pathologists are gonna look for injury patterns associated with blunt force trauma.
19:00
So, depending on the circumstances, they might have abrasions or contusions or fractures or pattern marks, and sometimes the tire tread patterns appear on their clothing or on their skin, and these can be associated with chest or abdominal compression.
19:16
The absence or presence of one particular injury doesn’t really establish the entire sequence. Investigators have to evaluate everything together.
19:25
The autopsy, medical records, scene evidence, vehicle examination, and the witness accounts are all gonna matter.
19:33
So, one question I would have is whether Jessica was alive when the vehicle actually contacted her. But I wanna be precise here.
19:40
There are medical findings that sometimes help assess whether injuries occurred before or after death.
19:46
So, hemorrhage into tissues and other signs of a vital reaction are important, but interpretation is not always straightforward.
19:54
Somebody who’s had an injury might have severely compromised circulation, and that is gonna affect the amount of bleeding associated with a subsequent injury.
20:04
So, I wouldn’t assume that just because she didn’t bleed a lot meant that an injury occurred after her death, and I wouldn’t determine the sequence based solely on what the witnesses said.
20:14
I would want the pathologist’s findings and all of the circumstances. Another important issue is the two-day period between the assault and her death.
20:23
Because she survived long enough to get hospital care, her clinical course is part of that death investigation.
20:30
So, the medical examiner is gonna look at the extent of the initial injuries and then any complications that developed.
20:36
So, for example, brain injuries sometimes cause swelling and hemorrhage and secondary neurological damage, but patients are gonna require mechanical ventilation and surgery, and she’s in ICU.
20:50
Now, I haven’t seen her medical records, so I’m not saying which of those treatments she received, but those are types of issues a forensic pathologist is gonna have to consider when they do her autopsy.
21:01
A medical examiner’s final cause of death statement might identify one injury mechanism or multiple contributing injuries, depending on the evidence. So, we shouldn’t have bet that determination.
21:12
It’s not been released yet. As for the manner of death, the publicly reported circumstances are consistent with a homicide. And remember, that’s a medical legal classification.
21:24
It means that death resulted from the actions of another person. It doesn’t determine criminal guilt. That determination belongs to the legal system.
21:34
And there’s another part of this investigation that I’m interested in, and that’s the timeline.
21:39
I know the sheriff’s office said that Smith got there around eight forty-five, and then nine one one was called at nine, but within those fifteen minutes, investigators have to really reconstruct the sequence as accurately as possible, as like when he entered the bar, when he saw Jessica, how long they argued, when were the shots fired, and then how much time passed before he struck her.
22:01
We talk about video. Security video will be very valuable from nearby businesses.
22:07
It might help establish the movement of people and vehicles, but investigators also need to consider camera angles, timestamps, and whether the camera records the entire event.
22:18
A camera might show, like, the beginning of an altercation without actually showing the shooting, and another might capture the vehicle leaving, but not the point of impact.
22:28
So, the goal is to establish the most reliable timeline, and thank goodness, in most cases, we have multiple sources. So, one more issue matters to me.
22:38
Preservation of evidence from Jessica’s hospital care, like clothing, personal effects, documentation of wounds, those are all gonna have evidentiary value.
22:48
Hospitals and law enforcement have specific procedures for handling evidence, like maintaining the chain of custody and documenting transfers, and that process is real important when a patient survives for some time after a violent assault.
23:03
Of course, as always, medical care remains the priority, but accurate documentation helps investigators later more than you know.
23:13
And in a case like this, the difference between an incomplete and a thorough investigation sometimes comes down to details recorded during those first few hours.
23:23
So, something to remember as a nurse, all you fellow nurses. As news of Jessica’s death spread, the community of Safety Harbor began responding.
23:31
On October sixteenth, a memorial was created near the intersection where she was attacked. There are flowers and candles placed there next to a tree.
23:40
Many residents spoke about her, and the community also encouraged people to wear purple during the event.
23:49
Purple is associated with domestic violence awareness, and I think the timing is significant.
23:54
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and here we are in the middle of October discussing a woman who investigators say was killed by her boyfriend.
24:03
Jessica’s employer also released a statement.
24:06
So, she was a technical recruiter for Watermark Risk Management International, and they said she was talented and caring, and they’re devastated over her death. That adds another part to her story.
24:17
She had a career and colleagues and a workplace community and those people are grieving too, because when somebody’s murdered, that impact extends far beyond the immediate family.
24:28
Coworkers lose a colleague, and friends lose somebody they spoke to regularly, and it starts making you question your own safety. And sometimes people who witness the violence, they’re struggling.
24:39
They’re struggling with what they saw. The witnesses who called nine one one and tried to get help for Jessica, I hope that those people receive support.
24:48
Witnesses that see a violent death or assault that later results in death is something people carry with them for years. I’ve seen the effects of trauma on emergency responders and investigators.
25:00
I have friends who started smoking because of what they saw. And certain cases stay with you no matter how much training you have. So, people that see this aren’t like me.
25:12
They haven’t seen death over and over. This may be their first experience with it, and it’s a friend. So, I wanna talk about the domestic violence aspect of this case.
25:23
Investigators are saying that Smith and Jessica were in a romantic relationship, but we really don’t know the dynamics.
25:30
We don’t know if there had been previous threats reported or any violence involving Smith.
25:36
We don’t know whether she’d been trying to leave the relationship, and we don’t know what prompted the argument. And so, I don’t wanna speculate about all those things.
25:44
There’s a broader issue worth discussing.
25:48
When violence occurs between intimate partners, investigators need to look beyond that final confrontation, and they will do that, but they need to examine that relationship history and look into prior threats or stalking or harassment or had there been previous contacts or calls with law enforcement in any previous incident regarding, and the involvement of weapons and any threats.
26:13
Those questions are gonna help investigators understand the circumstances and assess whether there’s evidence of escalating behavior. They also help prosecutors evaluate the case, though.
26:23
In some intimate partner homicides, people later describe warning signs that they didn’t initially recognize as dangerous. And many of us have been there. I mean, I’ve been there.
26:35
Didn’t think anybody would hurt me, and don’t think that way because in a lot of cases, the violence can also come without any previous reported warning.
26:48
So, we shouldn’t assume, and let’s always remember this too, cause people are always like, “Why did she stay?” We shouldn’t assume that every victim had the opportunity to predict what would happen, and we certainly shouldn’t place responsibility on Jessica for another person’s alleged action.
27:06
So, I think about the role of healthcare professionals here too, being one.
27:10
Nurses, doctors, nurse practitioners, they frequently encounter patients experiencing intimate partner violence, and sometimes those patients have visible injuries, but sometimes they are just there for anxiety or pain or other complaints, and sometimes they don’t disclose abuse.
27:27
So as healthcare providers, we need to create opportunities for private, non-judgmental conversations, and we need to know how to assess immediate safety and document disclosures accurately and connect patients with the resources if they need them.
27:45
And we also need to understand that leaving a violent relationship is not always simple or safe, that safety planning is individualized, and the most appropriate response depends on the person’s circumstances and how much support they have and the level of danger.
28:01
That’s one reason why I value the connection between forensic nursing and death investigation. The two fields actually approach violence at different points, right?
28:08
In forensic nursing, we have an opportunity to identify injuries and document evidence and support someone who’s survived an assault.
28:17
But in death investigation, we’re examining what happened when somebody did not survive, and I wish every case had ended the first of those two outcomes, but it doesn’t.
28:28
Now, the criminal case against Christopher Smith is still in its early stages.
28:32
As of this recording, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office had confirmed that his charge was upgraded to first-degree murder after Jessica’s death, and the child abuse charge was also reported.
28:44
Now, the investigation remains ongoing, and there are several developments that I would watch closely.
28:50
One is the medical examiner’s findings, and those findings are gonna help establish the medical cause of her death and document the injuries associated with the assault.
28:59
Second, the forensic evidence. Investigators are gonna evaluate the firearm and the vehicle and the videos and the witness testimony.
29:09
A lot of people observed his behavior, and witnesses contacted nine one one afterward, and their accounts are gonna help reconstruct what happened and provide evidence about his actions and his statement.
29:22
And then the phone call to his mom, if that conversation is brought into evidence, they’re gonna wanna know the exact wording and the circumstances.
29:32
And then a first-degree murder charge is serious, but a charge is not a conviction, so prosecutors have to prove the required elements under Florida law, and Smith is entitled to the legal process.
29:46
The public reporting available today doesn’t really establish a trial date, and I don’t wanna speculate about what sentence he might receive.
29:53
The investigation needs to proceed, and the evidence needs to be evaluated. Jessica’s family deserves answers. Now, there’s a few things here I keep coming back to.
30:04
The first is Jessica’s age, so think about her at thirty. Think about when I was doing at thirty and how much of my life was still ahead of me. Jessica deserved those years.
30:14
She deserved the opportunity to continue her career and spend time with her family and enjoy the things that she cared about.
30:21
And this happened outside a bar in a public area with witnesses, and we often think that being surrounded by people offers us protection, but that- Violent encounters sometimes unfold so quickly that witnesses have little time to help.
30:36
And in this case, people called 911 and gave information that helped locate him, which is great. And that little girl, she’s five years old.
30:45
Keep thinking about what it must have been like for her to be inside that vehicle, and I hope the adults responsible for her care now actually understand the importance of protecting her privacy and helping her to recover.
30:58
She has witnessed a terrible act of violence, and she should not be defined by it.
31:03
So, after more than 30 years in nursing and years working in death investigations, I’ve learned that even when we establish exactly how somebody died, there are questions that forensic science can’t answer.
31:14
We don’t know why some people choose violence. Why did they continue to hurt them when they were already injured, and what was going through their mind?
31:24
And these are questions that investigators explore through evidence and interviews and circumstances, but sometimes we don’t get answers.
31:31
And I think one of the hardest parts of death investigation is accepting that a thorough investigation doesn’t always give a family the emotional closure they hope for.
31:41
It gives them facts and documentation, and when the evidence supports it, it helps hold someone accountable, but it doesn’t give them their loved one back.
31:50
So, Jessica’s family now has birthdays, holidays, and ordinary days without her, and her friends have conversations that they wish they’d finished, and her coworkers will remember the person who used to be part of their day, and the community’s gonna remember what happened.
32:07
So, I wanna end this by talking about something that Jessica’s mom shared.
32:12
She cared about people and animals, and she was loved by her family and friends, and those are things that I hope remain part of her story, because Jessica Antolini was so much more than the circumstances surrounding her death.
32:24
She was a daughter and a sister and a friend, and her life mattered. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you being here, listening to the stories.
32:34
If you have story ideas or you’d like to be interviewed for the podcast, reach out to me, julie@pushinguplillies.com, and I’ll see y’all next week. Bye, y’all.
32:45
Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast.
32:56
This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public. Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplillies.com for merchandise and past episodes.
