MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — The former wife of accused killer Jeffrey Willis took the stand Wednesday.
Willis, 47, is charged with murdering Rebekah Bletsch, who was fatally shot while jogging down a rural Muskegon County road in June 2014.
Willis’ ex-wife, Charlene Bishop, said she was married to Willis for 13 years, but they had gone their own ways in the last 5 to 6 years of marriage. She testified she was out of town the night Jessica Heeringa disappeared.
ALIBI QUESTIONED
A human resources worker for Herman Miller earlier testified Willis was on vacation the day Heeringa disappeared. The HR employee said Willis reported to work at 9:45 the night Bletsch was shot and killed.
Prosecutor D.J. Hilson worked to try dismantle Willis’ account to police of where he was at the time of Heeringa’s disappearance as he questioned Willis’ ex-wife.
Bishop said the day police came to their home in 2013, she remembered seeing Willis’ phone and keys at home. Cpl. Christopher Hare previously testified that
Willis told him his wife had his cellphone and he could not give it to Hare at that time.
Hare previously testified Willis told him he left for his grandfather’s home on Bailey Street hours after Heeringa’s disappearance to retrieve a board to repair or build his dog kennel; Bishop said Wednesday they didn’t have an outdoor dog house, but an indoor dog crate with a plastic bottom and metal top.
Bishop said she also never heard that Hare had left her a message on their answering machine in June 2013.
After Willis’ arrest in 2016, Bishop said she received a letter from her ex-husband.
“It was referencing what he had been doing the day Rebekah Bletsch had been shot, and what I remembered, or what he intended me to remember. It felt like he was planting memories,” she said.
Bishop said she was not aware that her ex-husband was “into the dark web.” When shown photos of handcuffs and a ball-gag found in Willis’ minivan, Bishop said she’d never seen them before.
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