Left at the scene of the apparent abduction, investigators found Heeringa's car and jacket, as well as her cigarettes and purse with a large amount of money.

In September 2016, a resident of Muskegon Township, Michigan named Jeffrey Willis was charged with her kidnapping and murder on the strength of forensic evidence combined with eyewitness testimony that implicated him.

[9] On November 2, 2017, Willis was also found guilty of the 2014 murder of Rebekah Sue Bletsch;[10] six weeks later, he received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

[11] Willis was also charged (but not tried) with the attempted kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl in 2016, as well as child pornography in 2011, which involved his unsuspecting female next-door neighbors who were 14 years old at the time.

[1][20] Police executed a search warrant for Willis's home and found pictures of Heeringa in a folder labeled "vics" on his computer.

[23] On December 13, 2016, a Muskegon County judge ruled that Willis would stand trial for murder and kidnapping charges in Heeringa's case.

[9] On May 25, 2016, Willis was charged with the murder of Rebekah Sue Bletsch, a 36-year-old jogger whose body was found with three gunshots to the head near her home in Dalton Township on June 29, 2014.

[27][28][29] On November 2, 2017, a remorseless Jeffrey Willis was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Bletsch and of the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

[11] On March 9, 2018, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill that will require convicted defendants to listen to victims' impact statements at sentencing, which was inspired by Willis's refusal to do so after the Bletsch trial.

Once inside the car, he locked all of the doors and produced a gun, but she managed to escape with minor injuries after she said she couldn't breathe and convinced him to open her window.

[3][34][35] Willis was charged with production and possession of child pornography after police found videos of two nude girls who were 14 at the time on his computer.

He also told police he knew that "Jeff had been following or watching Ms. Heeringa, and that he hit her ... which made her go unconscious to get her in the van," and that Willis had raped her, used sexual toys and torture.

[38][39][5] Bluhm was suspended without pay from his job as a sergeant at the West Shoreline Correctional Facility, a state prison in Muskegon Heights.

The story was released via a webisode titled "The abduction of Jessica Heeringa," which was narrated by her mother, who also mentioned there was a $26,000 reward for information about her disappearance.

[47][48][49] The case was featured on the season seven premiere of the Investigation Discovery series Disappeared, titled "Somebody's Watching," originally aired on April 11, 2016.

[50][51][52][53] Coincidentally, Willis's arrest for the attempted kidnapping of the minor female less than a week later on April 16, and the additional investigation afterwards, eventually led to the other charges against him and Bluhm.