Melissa Ketunuti was born in Thailand in 1978 and raised there by her Native-Thai father and Belgian Mother. Her father is a Civil Engineering Consultant in Bangkok, and trained horses on the side, so Melissa grew up interacting with some of the most stubborn and hardest to train animals. Her father later went on to start a program called Old 99, which gives disabled children the opportunity to ride horses. I think that training horses requires dedication and patience, which is something that will become a skill for Melissa in her adult life.
Melissa would travel to Belgium with her mom to visit her grandmother, but after her grandmother’s passing, the trips to Belgium grew fewer and fewer. During one of her trips, Melissa explained how her mom went to an all-boys school in Belgium and learned how to be just as tough as the other boys. Melissa was a lot like her parents, but also had her own hobbies and personality. She liked running and would participate in marathons in various parts of the world. She also liked photographing and blogging about her travels.
Melissa was very smart and persistent in school. When she was faced with a task and failed, she found a way to try again. She never really got upset when life handed her lemons, she just saw it as another challenge to find a solution to. When Melissa was done with her primary and secondary schooling in Thailand, she moved to the United States in 1995 to attend Amherst College with the aspiration to be a surgeon. While living in Massachusetts attending Amherst, she made two very close friends. One of the friends had a family in Massachusetts that took Melissa in as a family member. They were considered her surrogate family and stepped in to help her out while keeping in close contact with her family in Thailand.
In 1999, Melissa graduated from Amherst with a degree in Neuroscience and quickly headed off onto her next adventure.
I was not familiar with the medical school pathway before this episode and had to do some research on how one goes about getting a medical license. I am going to briefly explain the steps so that you understand what these terms mean. You start out in medical school for 4 years and graduate with a Doctor of Medicine degree. After medical school, you will need to get some experience and training in the form of residency. Residencies are typically 3 years and are more focused on the specific medical field you want to study. After residency is even more specific training called a fellowship and this can be a few years or more depending on your goals. It is usually after the fellowship that you can take exams to get licensed and/or board certified. Some states require a minimum of 1-year residency to get licensed, but I imagine that the field is competitive and more training is actually required. So keep these terms in mind, medical school, then residency, then fellowship.
Melissa started medical school at Washington University in 2001 with the hopes of becoming a surgeon. While taking classes there, she fell in love with pediatrics in underprivileged countries and saw this as a way to make a difference in the world. Her family and friends were not surprised that she no longer wanted to be a surgeon because Melissa was selfless and gentle. She wasn’t becoming a doctor for the money, but rather to help save lives in areas that don’t have many resources. She was very considerate with people and if one of her patients said a word incorrectly, rather than correct them, she would also say the word incorrectly so the patient didn’t feel uncomfortable.
Melissa transferred to Stanford Medical School where she received a Fogarty Ellison Scholarship in 2005 that allowed her to travel to Botswana for research. She spent a year in Botswana with some of the world’s sickest children affected by HIV/AIDS. Her time there greatly impacted her perspective of life, and she was planning to return to continue research. She graduated from Stanford in 2007 and moved onto her next adventure.
She transferred to Washington D.C. to start her first year surgery residency until she was able to find something closer to what she wanted to do. In 2008 she was able to transfer to Pennsylvania for her remaining 3 years in pediatrics residency at Children’s Hospital where she finished her residency in 2011. After her residency, she continued to work for the Children’s Hospital, completing her fellowship in infectious diseases, and pursuing a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine. Fellowships require long work shifts, so living close to the hospital you work at is ideal. She was a 4-minute walk away from where she worked and lived in an affluent area in Philadelphia in a moderately sized townhouse with her dog Pooch.
Because Melissa’s schedule was understandably chaotic, she had a scheduled dog walker who would use the lockbox outside to enter the house and walk Pooch during the day when Melissa was at work.
On January 21st 2013, Melissa called a pest control company to schedule an appointment for her townhouse. She noticed mice in the basement and wanted an exterminator to spray foam in the areas where the mice were getting in. The pest control company said they would get her in touch with a contracted worker who can help her out. She got a call from the exterminator who parked down the street from her townhouse since there was no parking on her street. She walked down the block to meet with him so she could walk him to her house. 45 minutes later the exterminator left and drove away in his Silver Ford pickup.
The dog walker arrived 15 minutes later, as usual, to walk Pooch and entered the house using the key. She immediately noticed the smell of smoke and a distraught Pooch. She called the fire department to let them know there was a fire inside the house and went to look for the dog and see where the fire was coming. As she went through the kitchen the smoke got thicker and as she entered the basement, she was able to see the charred and smoldering body of Melissa lying on the floor. It was a miracle that the fire did not spread since the basement was filled with highly flammable paint and dry paper. With the dog walker waiting outside with Pooch, the first responders entered the house and used water from the kitchen sink to extinguish the fire on Melissa’s body. There was no visible signs of life and detectives were called to the scene of a murder investigation. When arriving, the detective noticed that Melissa had her hands and feet bound with a leather strap. Paper taken from the kitchen and a liquid accelerant were used to start the fire on her. The house was not ransacked and it didn’t seem like anything was taken. Melissa’s body was taken to a medical examiner where the cause of death was strangulation, and 50% of her body was burned. The straps used to bind her hands and feet were considered horse riding equipment, a hobby her father was passionate about. There were no signs of sexual assault and this crime seemed puzzling to detectives. What was the motive for this crime if not sexual? Why would they burn her body? How did they get into her house?
Detectives questioned nearby areas to see if anyone had surveillance, and they got lucky with one of the cafes down the street and Melissa’s work having security cameras working that day. From the footage, detectives noticed the camera at the cafe pick up Melissa walking alone and then walking back again with a man following behind her. 45 minutes later, the man walks by alone and with his jacket off and draped over his arm. This was January 13th 2013 and as I am recording this, it is January 13th 2020. The weather in the area that Melissa lived in was anywhere in the 40s-50s according to this week’s weather. Cold, but you could walk without a jacket. What was weird was that he was seen wearing gloves. Why be too hot for a coat, but keep your gloves on?
Detectives were able to get a timeframe from when the dog walker called 911 and look back on video surveillance to find this unknown man on a camera walking to and from her town-home, so this was most likely their guy. In the video from her work, the recording shows him leaving in a Silver Ford pickup and circling the block a few times before leaving the area. Police were not able to get the license plate on the truck so they needed to use another way of identifying this guy. I am not too familiar with this technology, but police were able to take the footage of the man, map his face digitally, and then compare it with Driver’s License photos in the DMV database. I think this technology is really cool and scary at the same time. Police were able to get a list of people and then narrowed it down to see if anyone had a Silver Ford pickup. While this was happening, police were also searching Melissa’s phone records to see if they could identify any of the phone numbers, but this process does take some time. Detectives got in touch with 3 of Melissa’s friends and asked them to check the house to see if anything was missing or unusual. The 3 friends went in and did not notice a robbery, or that anything was moved from its normal spot. The friends left the house visibly upset and crying.
All of the pieces of a suspect started forming a picture of a man living close by and working as an exterminator. There was finally a name to a face and that name was Jason Smith. I can’t think of a more basic American name than this. It seems like the first name that comes to mind when you want to give a fake name and can’t think of something original. Anyways, so police records show that Melissa had received a call from Jason, the pest control company confirmed that he was subcontracted to Melissa’s address, and his Driver’s License photo matched the person seen on camera. According to Jason’s records, he only had arrests involving the use of drugs and alcohol. A DUI and a few public disturbance arrests were non-violent, and his rap sheet wasn’t long at all. Police obtained a search warrant and formed a Fugitive Strike Force to arrest him in Levittown, Pennsylvania. Jason lived with his girlfriend, her parents, and Jason’s kids when the Strike Force came in with guns blazing and ordering everyone to the ground. I am going to get a little critical here, because I am very against this use of force when it comes to arrests. First off, Jason does not own the home, so I think that it is unethical to have a Strike Force enter a home of someone unknowingly harboring a criminal, especially since they did not release the identity of their suspect to the public. Second, Jason does not have a violent police record up until now so this amount of force seems a little hardcore for someone who has a DUI record. Third, there are children in the house, and I think anyone would have known that by canvassing the outside of the house and seeing kids toys outside.
So police enter the house and shoot the family’s 8-year-old Boxer while terrifying everyone in the house, including the children, and ultimately arresting Jason. While being arrested Jason told a detective that, “ She was alive when I left her home.” Interesting for someone to say that right off the bat with no context to the crime they are being accused of. I am assuming they are going to say he is being arrested for the murder of Melissa Ketunuti, but if he had nothing to do with her murder, I am sure the first response would not be “She was alive when I left her home.” Jason was not violent and did not resist arrest.
Detectives take Jason to the police station along with his girlfriend and kids for questioning. After interrogating him for 5 hours and showing him pictures of Melissa’s charred body, Jason finally confessed to how and why he murdered Melissa. His confession was not recorded, but a written and signed confession statement. He says that Melissa’s dog Pooch was getting in his way and was becoming a problem for him to do his work. Melissa also wanted him to spray foam to keep the mice from getting into the basement. Jason had made a comment critiquing the contents in the basement. Melissa told Jason that he wasn’t doing a good job and that he shouldn’t be an exterminator. Jason was trying to leave passed Melissa but she stood in the doorway and blocked Jason while continuing to belittle him. Jason grabbed Melissa by her throat and started choking her on the ground. Jason recalls how she begged him to stop and that she would do anything. Detectives asked Jason how he would feel if someone did this to his little girl and he broke down crying.
Jason admitted to murdering Melissa because he snapped out of anger and attacked her. He tried her up with the straps he found in the basement. Once he realized she was dead he freaked out and attempted to burn the body to get rid of evidence. He left the house and got in his truck. He drove around the block a few times to see if there was any smoke coming from the house and then left to his next job when it seemed like no alarms were raised. It must have been minutes after he left that the dog walker showed up to the house and found Melissa’s body. Jason was charged with 5 counts which were murder, arson, risking a catastrophe, abuse of a corpse, and a weapon’s charge. He was 37 at the time of his arrest.
I want to take a moment to talk a little bit about Jason’s upbringing, because I don’t see any major red flags in his past. Jason and his brother were raised by their mother and her girlfriend. They lived in the house with 2 other boys, 14 cats, and 8 dogs. I can’t imagine a household with that many people and animals under one roof. I am hoping that most of these cats were outside barn cats because I have a hard time cleaning up after 2 cats at my home so I can’t imagine how they did it with 14 cats and 8 dogs. Jason seemed to have anger issues at an early age and on several occasions would light fires. I don’t think this was anything more unusual than a young boy playing with fire because he never had a record including arson. Jason’s brother, Elliot, claims that their household income was so limited that the boys would steal groceries, but their mom later denies that she would ever let the boys steal. Their mom was strict with them, as I imagine any mom is in a house with 4 young boys, but she didn’t physically punish them. It seemed like Jason was close with his mom and relied on her since he never really moved out until later on in life. His family doesn’t paint a good picture of Jason and says that he was a moocher, he was rude to women, and would get angry easily. He didn’t have anything higher than a high school education and worked low skilled jobs, but I don’t think this makes someone a loser. Jason was a loser because he racked up $1000 bill by calling sex hotlines on his brother’s phone while living with him and never paid his brother back. He was a loser because he abused drugs and alcohol, eventually got a DUI, and a arrested for being stupid in public after drinking too much. Although he may not be likeable, family and friends never saw a violent side to Jason’s anger. People closest to him trusted him and said he was great with his kids and spent a lot of time with them playing outside. No one around Jason noticed any unusual behavior after he murdered Melissa and it seemed like he carried on normally.
I want to get into my personal take of why Jason murdered Melissa. I think that when Jason showed up he was attracted to Melissa because she was a pretty girl. I don’t think he made a pass at her, but maybe after finding out where she lived and that she was a doctor, he felt intimidated by her status. She may have been a little demanding with what she wanted done because she had a dog in the house. She may not have wanted poison placed in the basement because her dog could get into it, but rather for him to seal up the areas where the mice were getting in. Pooch was a small dog so when Jason claims the dog was getting in the way, it was probably sniffing him and just being overly affectionate. Jason may have made a comment to Melissa about her dog that changed the tone of the conversation between them. I am going to assume that Jason was not good when it came to dealing with people who were particular, and to be honest, I am not good at it either. Melissa’s comment about Jason being incompetent at his job could have been related to his social skills and how he was getting an attitude with her. I said that Jason was probably attracted to Melissa and the reason I say this is because of the sex hotline calls he had made and the disrespect he had towards women. I don’t think this crime is sexual by any means, but I think in the back of his mind, Jason thought he had a shot with Melissa. I think that when Melissa started criticizing Jason, he was enraged that this beautiful woman thought he was rude and that her being a doctor made him feel like she saw herself as better than him. It could have been that Melissa may have been mean to him because everyone has their bad days. Maybe she was having a crap day and was raising her voice, but based on people working with Melissa in tough situations, they still found her helpful and kind. I don’t think that Melissa lost it on Jason, but it can’t be ruled out. I think the more likely story is that Jason’s ego was extremely fragile and a woman asserting dominance was enough to break his ego and set him off. I don’t know why Jason found it necessary to tie her hands and feet after he strangled her. Maybe he thought she wasn’t dead, but then why set her body on fire? It is such a horrible way to kill someone if you aren’t sure they are dead. He set her body to hide evidence, but this ultimately led to the discovery of her body sooner. He didn’t try to conceal her body, but made it really noticeable. Jason did not know what he was doing and obviously panicked.
At the court hearing, the two detectives working on the case, Detective Edward Tolliver and Henry Glenn, testified on Jason’s confession. One of the detectives was present when he made the comment about her still being alive when he left, and the other was present during the interrogation.
In a desperate attempt, Jason claimed that he falsely confessed and was roughed up by detectives to confess. He claims that detectives slammed his head on the ground and thought that he could get away with this claim since the interrogation was not recorded. He also said that he was mentally incompetent to confess because he had intellectual disabilities. I think there is a difference between intellectual disabilities and being stupid, like Jason. When he was talking to his girlfriend in jail on the phone, he forgot that the call was being recorded and they were both joking about how he planned to fake a mental disability to claim he falsely confessed and was coerced. In court the recordings of that phone call was replayed and the defense team was dumbfounded. I think at that point, Jason’s own defense team had given up on him because he was a loose cannon. A jury of 6 women and 6 men found Jason guilty of the 5 charges against him. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. All his convictions were imposed to be served consecutively.
Melissa’s surrogate family and friends attended the hearing and were relieved when the verdict was read. They made impact statements from both themselves and for Melissa’s family in Thailand. Her parents were not able to attend because their health declined after her death and they were not well enough to travel the long distance. Melissa’s friends from Amherst College made the Melissa Ketunuti Basselier 1999 Memorial Scholarship to help other aspiring students in the science an medical field. Melissa’s loss was felt by everyone who ever knew her and the most common thing that people said about her murder was that her death was a loss to the world. Jason not only murdered a daughter, friend, and sister, but he also murdered the person who would have saved thousands of lives.
Jason has tried to appeal his convictions, but have exhausted almost all of them. The Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Relief Act allows defendants to challenge their conviction. When Jason tried to make a valid claim for this Relief Act, his own lawyer filed a “Finley no merit letter” saying that he has no credible claim to be eligible for the PCRA. Not only are his appeals almost exhausted, but he doesn’t even have the support of his own lawyers.
Resources for this episode include the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h-gD55IjxM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elz--ou8l3w
https://www.sudinfo.be/art/648576/article/regions/centre/actualite/2013-01-23/melissa-ketunuti-une-pediatre-d-origine-belge-etranglee-et-brulee-a-philadelp
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/hp/news_update/20130127_Mentor_recalls_Ketunuti_s_selfless_nature.html
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/01/29/melissa-ketunuti-m-d-06-violently-murdered-in-philadelphia/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3080549/Exterminator-convicted-slaying-Philadelphia-doctor.html
https://kywnewsradio.radio.com/articles/news/time-running-out-convicted-exterminator-jason-smiths-murder-appeal
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/20150514_Jury_in_strangling_of_CHOP_doctor_asks_to_see_evidence.html
http://www.stanfordmedicine.com/news/all-news/2013/02/friends-colleagues-remember-melissa-ketunuti-07.html