NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The family of a Lakeview woman whose body was found over four years ago is appealing to the mayor of New Orleans to do more to get the investigation moving.
Jessica Easterly’s family says they have been greeted by a “wall of silence” from police and the Orleans district attorney, despite a promise to reinvigorate cold cases.
“She would light up a room like a lightning bolt. She would say the funniest stuff it would hurt your sides she would make you laugh so hard,” said Easterly’s friend Maria Creel.
For them, Aug. 22, 2019, is a day Easterly’s relatives and friends say they will never forget.
They found the 43-year-old’s body two blocks from her Lakeview home in tall weeds.
Four and a half years later, the family says their search for answers from the NOPD, the parish coroner, and the district attorney remains clouded.
“I think we are being pushed aside because to them Jessica’s life doesn’t matter,” said her sister, Audrey Schmitt.
Creel was one of Easterly’s long-time friends since high school in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Shortly after Easterly moved to New Orleans, Creel says her friend’s light began to dim.
“I said ‘aren’t you ready?’ and she said ‘yes I’m ready I just don’t know how to get out,’” said Creel.
For years, Creel says Jessica complained of problems at home.
In text messages shared with Fox 8, Creel says Easterly texted, “I’m hiding in the bathroom so Justin doesn’t hear me. We’ve been fighting for the past three days.”
“I called her and said, ‘aren’t you tired of that chaos?’” remembered Creel.
Creel says August 12, 2019, was especially bad and she wanted to come to New Orleans and rescue Easterly but couldn’t make it in time.
Creel says Jessica disappeared hours after talking about leaving the Lakeview home she shared with her husband, Justin Durning.
“That was the last time I talked to her. She was going home to see how things were there and nobody ever talked to her again,” said Creel.
Creel says she didn’t hear from Easterly the following day and called the NOPD on August 14 after she got a strange message from Durning on Easterly’s Facebook account nine hours after Durning said Easterly went missing.
Creel said the message stated, “Jess with you,” “we are worried.”
Creel said she responded, “No she’s not. when was the last time your (sic) spoke to her?”
“He said ‘she’s missing. She’s missing. And he’s worried about her,” Creel said.
Creel says she messaged back, “Ok I’m sending the police over there.” She got a reply, “Ok, your going to freak ‘my daughter’ out.”
Creel then said she responded, “If ‘my husband’ came home from work and all my stuff was here, and the kids didn’t know where I was, he would already be talking to the police.”
Creel says she then got this reply, “I know how to file a missing persons report, do you think I hurt her or something?”
Police went to the house three hours later. NOPD body cam video Jessica’s family obtained shows Durning walking up to responding officers with his dog as they approached the front of his home nearly 12 hours after Durning says he last saw Easterly.
“About 12 o’clock I came home. We talked. And I lay down and took a nap. Her car is here. Her wallet’s here. Everything’s here,” Durning says on the body cam video.
The police report confirms when Creel called, she “advised that victim and husband had a bad relationship. Complainant believes husband possibly did the victim something.”
Police confirm Easterly’s friend Creel made the call from Mobile, Alabama.
“At this point, I think a report is required.” an officer says on the body cam video. Durning responds, “They told me 24 hours for the circumstances she disappeared.” The officer responds, “You should’ve done this hours ago. This is suspicious.”
Jessica Easterly was gone without a trace.
The NOPD has not named Durning a suspect.
Police on dash cam video say, ”He is just explaining himself to death. He says I’m sorry if I seem sketchy. That seems weird to me.”
Nine days later, Easterly’s friends and family, frustrated over the early investigation, came to Lakeview, armed with fliers to organize a search. They decided to take a quick look around the neighborhood where Easterly’s cousin made a horrific find.
“We’re walking along the canal. He smelled something and he said, ‘why don’t you go look over there by the train tracks and that’s where I found her,’” said Schmitt.
They found Easterly’s badly decomposed body at the end of Orleans Avenue at I-610 -- just off the interstate and two blocks from her home.
“I screamed. No one can hear me. I fell to my knees,” said Schmitt.
Four and a half years later a memorial to Easterly remains, and so do the unanswered questions.
“I don’t think the word disappointment is enough. I’m furious,” said Schmitt.
Family members say there were plenty of trouble signs in the marriage.
“Yes, my sister was leaving him,” said Schmitt.
They say Easterly and Durning met on a 2010 boat trip and had a bumpy start.
“He was terrible at every opportunity. She would call and talk on the phone and the next thing you know he would be on speakerphone,” said Creel.
Easterly’s family says the two broke up and then reunited. Five years later, in 2015, friends say they had a quick wedding at a small ceremony at Biloxi’s Hard Rock Hotel.
While he didn’t investigate Easterly’s disappearance, Marco Demma worked over a thousand homicide cases with an 80% clearance rate before retiring from the NOPD over a decade ago. He’s critical of the husband’s decision not to call the police first.
“The longer you wait, the more things can happen to jeopardize an investigation or find that person alive. So many things could happen,” said Demma.
Durning declined multiple requests for an interview, saying he’s taking care of his father.
“No, he doesn’t talk to anyone,” said Creel.
In August of 2021, exactly two years after Easterly’s death, Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams created a cold case unit focusing on her death. Family members say after a promising early start, they’ve heard little.
“We brought him every text message, every slimy detail,” said Schmitt.
Some of those text messages were from Easterly complaining about abuse.
Complicating the investigation, the coroner ruled Easterly’s cause of death “undetermined.” The autopsy showed that Easterly had a broken nose, rib, and vertebra, and a cracked jaw.
“A healthy 43-year-old woman just doesn’t turn up dead at the end of the road with broken bones and a broken neck,” said Schmitt.
The autopsy report showed Easterly had more than a dozen compounds in her bloodstream, including methamphetamine, many in trace amounts.
Friends say Easterly and Durning were active on adult websites.
“They did put adult content out. They didn’t have jobs. He didn’t let her work,” said Creel.
“It definitely opens it up to a wide spectrum,” said Demma.
Her family believes Easterly was killed somewhere other than the place where her body was found. They say a detective told them the body showed signs of a condition called “lividity,” which refers to the way bodily fluids pool on portions nearest the ground.
“When you die on one side, the lividity goes to one side. When I found her, the lividity, it was on the other side,” said Schmitt.
“It’s only if it’s on the upper portion of the body -- it suggests that the body could’ve been moved, along with vertebrae broken post-mortem,” said Demma.
The NOPD and the coroner’s office declined FOX 8 requests for interviews.
D.A. spokesman Keith Lampkin told Fox 8, “We’ve been talking to the NOPD, and the coroner, and we don’t have anything new.”
“They were presented with the body that had trauma. It was dumped. They had evidence of domestic violence. They’ve been presented with the texts,” said Schmitt.
Easterly’s family has collected hundreds of names on a petition asking Mayor LaToya Cantrell to push the investigation forward. But more than four years after Easterly’s death, the family’s quest for answers remains unfulfilled.
“We are not going to stop or back down on this,” said Schmitt.
Easterly’s family says her body deteriorated at the coroner’s office, where they were presented her remains in a small box of bones over a year and a half after she died.
As for Easterly’s “undetermined” cause of death, a spokesperson for the Orleans coroner’s office provided a statement saying “Our classification stands as ‘undetermined’ unless the coroner’s office is presented with significant evidence that would support a change in classification.”
Fox 8 asked the mayor’s office for a response to the petition, but have not heard back. If you know anything to help solve this case, you’re asked to call Crimestoppers.
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