Amanda Brinker (14) died after being struck in the back of the head multiple times with a car jack
Filed Under: Beating
Published: Nov 02, 2007 @ 6:00 AM
Amanda Brinker (14)
Date: Sep 20, 2007
Cause of Death: Bludgeoned with Car Jack
Location: Anderson, IN
The following is a transcript of a 911 call, obtained by Theheraldbulletin.com, placed Thursday morning to Anderson Police by 20-year-old Jesse Lee Pitts:
Police dispatcher - "Anderson 911. What is your emergency?"
Pitts - "Yeah. Me and my girlfriend were walking in 10th Street Park this morning, like, just a little bit ago, had just enough time to get home, um, on the right-hand side, there was a girl laying in the river, face down."
Dispatcher - "Can you tell me where this is again?"
Pitts - "10th Street Park... I went down and checked on her. I looked at her. It's a girl I know. Her name is Amanda. I don't know her last name. I went down and looked at her, and she was already face down. She wasn't breathing; there wasn't no pulse or anything. So I told my girl, 'Just bring me back and I'll call the police.'"
Dispatcher - "Is she female, white?"
Pitts - "Yes. She's female, white."
Dispatcher - "And you said her first name is Amanda?"
Pitts - "Amanda, yes. I knew her through a couple of my other friends."
Dispatcher - "And what's your name?"
Pitts - "Jesse Pitts..."
Dispatcher - "OK. And you're not there anymore, right?"
Pitts - "No, I went home."
Dispatcher - "OK. We'll get somebody out there."
Pitts - "Thank you."
Dispatcher - "Good-bye."
Pitts - "Good-bye."
During the call, Pitts mentions that the victim is face down in the water. However, he is somehow able to identify her as "Amanda," a girl he just happens to know. It goes without saying that the location where he purportedly found the body is off the beaten path and not in an area where it would have typically been seen right away. Investigators had such a difficult time locating it that the dispatcher had to call Pitts back to get more detailed directions.
Pitts - "Hello?"
Dispatcher - "Hi, Jesse. When you go into the park, where is it? When you drive into the parking lot where is she?"
Pitts - "OK. Let me gather my mind here real quick. OK. When you pull into the park, you know how it's got that little split ways where you either go left or right? Go left and it's on the right-hand side. There'll be a big tree with, like, a little bit of, like, a shrub in front of it. It's probably, like, 6 foot tall."
Dispatcher - "OK. Hold on a second. You go into the park and where the drive splits you go to the left?"
Pitts - "When you drive, you go all the way down and park, and go on the trails...You're going to go to the left on the trails, and it's on the right."
Dispatcher - "How far on the trails?"
Pitts - "Um, not very, um. I don't want to say anymore than I can. There's just (unintelligible) her beat up, I believe."
Dispatcher - "This is after you leave the parking lot?"
Pitts - "OK, when you pull in...You know where the trails are? If you walk down the trail, probably about a 100 feet or so, to the right-hand side you'll see a clearing. It looks like the weeds have been pushed down...She's right down there...I went down to check on her and she's just face down and her skin was white."
Dispatcher - "OK, just a minute."
Using the information provided by Pitts, police were finally able to locate the victim's body along the banks of White River. It was immediately apparent that the victim had suffered severe blunt force trauma to the back of the head. When investigators conducted a search of the area, they found blood splatter on a nearby walkway. Not far from there, police discovered a purse and an identification card. The individual named on the card was 14-year-old Amanda Brinker.
Due to the circumstances surrounding the discovery, investigators began to suspect Pitts might know more than he was letting on. Anderson Police Department Detective Joel Sandefur went to Judge John Shanks and asked him to authorize a search warrant for Pitts' apartment. Sandefur told Shanks that investigators were suspicious of Pitts because the body was not in a location where it could easily be found.
"The body was not in clear view," Sandefur told Shanks at a probable cause hearing Thursday. "It was hidden."
Upon hearing the details of the investigation, Shanks granted the Anderson Police Department permission to search Pitts' apartment, located on the 1600 block of Southwood Road. During a search of the property, investigators found two very incriminating pieces of evidence. Inside a trash bag, they found a shirt stained with blood, and in a 1993 Chevrolet Cavalier, they found a jack handle with human blood and what appeared to be particles of hair and flesh. According to the car's owner, Jennifer Lawler, Pitts had borrowed the car earlier that morning so he could pick up Amanda at her school bus stop.
Investigators had substantial evidence linking Pitts to the crime, so the decision was made to book him on suspicion of murder.
"The severity of this is horrorendous," Detective Terry Sollars told Newslinkindiana.com Friday. "It places a major burden on all of the police involved in this to want to be able to solve this quickly. We don't want someone out there walking around the streets, who has killed a 14-year-old girl in such a horrible fashion."
During questioning, Pitts admitted to picking Amanda up, and allegedly told investigators that they drove to Edgewater Park and smoked marijuana cigarettes while walking the nature trails. After getting high, Pitts said he pulled out the jack handle, an item he told detectives he was carrying for "protection," and struck Amanda in the back of the head. He then threw her body down an embankment next to the river. Afterwards, Pitts drove back to his apartment and told some of the details to his girlfriend, 20-year-old Barbara Howard. Pitts and Howard then went to the park to check on Amanda. Shortly thereafter, Pitts called 911 and reported finding the body.
Pitts [had a] profile on the popular social networking website, MySpace. [Since deleted] In it, he said he was working on going to college so he could get an associate's degree in criminal law. He listed some of his favorite television shows as CSI, and Law and Order. He said he enjoyed those shows because he likes "to stay smarter than the law." In light of his current situation, it would appear as though he missed an episode or two.
On Sunday, a MySpace user by the name of Amanda Nicole Burns eloquently summed up many people's thoughts when she left the following unedited comment on Pitts' page:
"How the f-k u going to kill my friend? ur f-ked up in the head. I have known u for 6 yrs and u just did not seem like that, but I know now to watch myself and my kid around people for the rest of my life. ur a sick f-king bastard and u will go to hell for this u dumb f-k. She had so much ahead of her, why did u have to kill her? She was f-king 14 and wouldn't f-k u so u kill her. ur sick dude. They need to kill u the same f-king way u did her. Now ur kid will know u as a killer and not his father. I wish u would die. ur sick. She deserved to live as much as u did."
Pitts is being held without bond in the Madison County Jail. According to police, he has given several conflicting statements to investigators, including one version in which he "accidentally" struck Amanda with the jack handle, a claim police consider absurd.
"Due to the type of injuries that she sustained and the (manner) of her death, it doesn't appear that it was anything close to an accident," Sollars said in an interview with Theindychannel.com Friday.
Investigators have not commented on what, if any, motive Pitts had for killing Amanda, however yesterday I spoke with someone who claimed to know the reason behind the murder.
"I talked to a friend and they just talked to Jesse and he said he killed her cuz she wouldn't have sexual relations with him," my source said.
Perhaps in the coming weeks we will find out if they are correct.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the Anderson Police Department at (765) 648-6730.
A fund has been established to help Amanda's family pay for her funeral expenses. Donations can be sent to: Independent Federal Credit Union, 1107 E. 24th St., Anderson, IN 46016.
Related Article(s): Amanda's Private Profile, Jesse Lee Pitts Arrested for Murder of Fourteen-Year-Old Amanda Brinker
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