Justine's Voice for Justice

**Natalie Morales** (0:35)
What were you doing that brought you here in 2003?

**Matt Scribner** (0:39)
I was conditioning a horse to do endurance.
It was Labor Day weekend, Saturday, that I came up on my, just my normal training ride. Right about here, I saw a freshly dug hole in the brush. The rest of my ride, I kept trying to justify why it was there.

**Natalie Morales** (1:01)
It sort of haunted you, it sounds like.

**Matt Scribner** (1:03)
It did.

**Donal Vanderschut** (1:07)
We had just come home from our summer house, up in the Sierras. I barbecued.

**Morgan Geyer** (1:14)
At dinner were Donal and Etienne Vanderschut, their daughter Justine, and her boyfriend Danny. No one had any idea what nightmare was about to unfold after that meal.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (1:25)
I gave her a kiss on the forehead, said, good night, I love you.

**Christine Vanderschut** (1:28)
I spoke to her on the phone.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (1:33)
I was leaving for work at 5, 5.3 in the morning.

**Morgan Geyer** (1:36)
Lynette walks into Justine's room. Justine is not there. The dog is on the bed. The front door is open, and her car is gone.

**Ed Bonner** (1:46)
17 years old, disappears, leaves everything behind without trace. It felt sinister.

**Donal Vanderschut** (1:54)
We're gonna find her.

**SPEAKER_8** (1:56)
We searched and searched everywhere.

**Ed Bonner** (1:59)
There were searches that the Bandershoots organized, and then there were searches that we did on our own with our search and rescue teams.

**Danny Besimer** (2:07)
I try to imagine what it was like, and what it's gonna be like when she comes back.

**Ed Bonner** (2:12)
Danny and his roommate, Brandon, were on the sheriff's radar quickly.

**Angela Ford** (2:17)
Friends started to come forward about how jealous Danny was of Justine.

**Ed Bonner** (2:21)
They were interviewed that first day. They said, oh no, we were home all night. There's a belief right away that they are concealing something about Justine's disappearance.

**Jeff Rynick** (2:33)
Okay, have a seat. Have you ever seen anyone die, Brandon?

**Ed Bonner** (2:40)
Tone changes, story changes, he confesses.

**Morgan Geyer** (2:45)
Brandon claims that Danny killed Justine.

**Brandon Fernandez** (2:47)
She's laying down and he's over her, and his hands were not released.

**Angela Ford** (2:52)
He explained that Danny was choking her and that he helped to bury her.

**Jeff Rynick** (2:56)
Let's go.

**Morgan Geyer** (2:57)
At the end of the interview, Brandon led the investigators to the location of Justine's body.

**SPEAKER_13** (3:02)
Justine Vander Schuyt's body discovered buried in a shallow grave.

**Matt Scribner** (3:06)
The Auburn Journal had a photo of just the brush where Justine had been buried, and I went, oh my gosh, I saw freshly dug hole three days prior to her disappearance. I immediately contacted the sheriff's department.

**Ed Bonner** (3:20)
That was a big piece of evidence. That's absolutely cold-blooded, premeditated.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (3:28)
The Vander Schuyt family says they are relieved.

**Morgan Geyer** (3:31)
The decision was made to accept pleas to murder from both defendants and give them a life sentence.

**SPEAKER_8** (3:37)
Hopefully we can all move on from here.

**Morgan Geyer** (3:39)
No one would have ever imagined that 20 years later, we would still be fighting for justice for Justine and her family.
In 2020, Brandon Fernandez filed a petition to get out of his murder conviction. If Brandon's petition is granted, one of Justine's killers will walk free.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (3:54)
We're fighting for her. That's why we're here.

**Christine Vanderschut** (3:57)
She doesn't have a voice, so we're her voice.

**Natalie Morales** (4:30)
When Justine Vandershoot's remains were discovered in a remote location more than two weeks after she disappeared. But it's here in this garden outside her bedroom window that her parents, Don and Lynette, still come to find her.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (4:47)
This is actually Justine's little footprint there.

**Natalie Morales** (4:51)
Mementos of their youngest child and condolence flowers that poured in after her death are now permanently rooted here.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (4:59)
We call this Justine's garden.

**Natalie Morales** (5:02)
At the center, a towering dogwood tree, a reminder of her favorite trips to the Sierra Mountains, and a sobering measure of how long she's been gone.

**Lynette Vanderschut** (5:13)
When we celebrated the 17th anniversary, Christine said she's been gone as long as she was here on earth.

**Natalie Morales** (5:19)
Justine's older sister, Christine, sums up what those years have been like for her in one word.

**Christine Vanderschut** (5:26)
Lonely. She was my best friend.
We were only 18 months apart. We did pretty much everything together since day one.

**Natalie Morales** (5:34)
How would you describe Justine? What was her personality?

**Christine Vanderschut** (5:37)