How did you get involved in this case?
My wife saw something
in Chinese media about the, about
Jean's daughter
having uh her, her mother being missing
and
needing help here in the United States to get the word out and to locate her mother.
And so
that caught my wife's attention.
My wife and I had previously been involved in
locating
a lost hiker in Yosemite who fell to his death.
And so we had that experience and wanted to see if we could help some more in this case.
What's it? So you've been in communication with the family or uh
uh or representatives of the family?
My wife was previously in constant communication with them,
but in connection with this latest development, no, we haven't been
in communication with them. They haven't
discussed it with us.
What's your understanding of the most recent development?
I'm assuming that they probably found Gene's body. I was told that
in a search on Saturday, they found something
and that they informed the family,
but I have not been told directly. And so
I I'm assuming that it,
that they found her.
Um where did this information come from?
From the private investigator
hired by the family.
Ok, back up a little bit, uh, on the history of the private investigator, how,
you know, uh, tell me about that.
At some point
r
a
month ago,
the family hired a private investigator.
And so that's what I'm talking about.
This is a private investigator in
southern California with considerable experience.
So the family that hired the investigator is
actually in Europe because Gene has two daughters,
the youngest one being there
in Europe with the father.
And so the father and his brother
hired the investigator.
What can you say about the possibility of her remains being found and that,
you know, it kind of being kept on the down low.
What I can say is that
I believe that to be the case,
uh all indications are
that they found remains on Saturday
and as far as
them not making
any announcement of that
and frankly, they're not even
making an announcement relating to
John Root Fitzpatrick, whose body was supposedly found
in September, I believe on September
17th.
Uh I'm
puzzled and offended by the, by the whole thing.
I really don't understand it. I
there are lots of cases where
bodies are found
and they're initially not identified, but
usually the authorities will promptly
inform the public at least do the courtesy to the public of saying look,
a body's been found.
It's going to take us a while
to
identify it
and that we've had now two of those instances
and that
kind of routine, normal thing
has, has not occurred. In fact,
one thing I can say that are especially bizarre is
supposedly the sheriffs have not officially announced to the public
that John Root Fitzpatrick's body was found.
Yet they have put a seal on the autopsy.
I myself have never heard of a John Doe autopsy being sealed.
Uh,
yeah, it
is a little unusual. They will do it, uh in ongoing criminal investigations.
But now at this point
with uh the truck being found out there and
the two remains supposedly being found out there,
it seems like this is leaning towards noncriminal
case, right?
It's really hard to gauge that.
I, I'm just not sure David. Um,
sure, that's a possibility
but
still the way they're treating it
does give the message to me
that they're still treating it as a criminal matter.
You know,
this thing that we're talking about here speaking out of both sides of
the mouth has plagued the case from the beginning because for example,
they've said, oh, they went voluntarily missing
and then
they start putting seals on everything,
definitely telegraphing that
they're dealing with
a serious criminal matter. And that continues right now to, to the present.
And I'm thinking, look, if you find a body and it's, it's not identified,
why don't you at least announce that you've found it?
And then if, if, what you just mentioned is the case, if they end up concluding
that it's not criminal or it's murder suicide or whatever it is,
they can make the announcement later,
but at least tell the public you found something
and that's the park, by the way too. That
from what I understand the park has refused to release incident reports
from the discovery of Fitzpatrick's truck
from the discovery of Fitzpatrick's body.
And then
probably for what happened on Saturday and I just don't get that at all.
Why the park has to stonewall things.
Well, it seems like a multi
jurisdiction
log jam and nobody wants to step on somebody else's toes.
Well, that's probably true.
You know, I would, I would add one other thing candidly with you.
I think the San Bernardino sheriff has a poor record dealing with Asian victims.
From what I've seen in this case.
I'm
concerned about whether
Asian victims are dealt fairly with.
I frankly suspect they may have a problem there with discrimination and
I'm worried that they may be dragging the San Diego sheriff down that same
bad path.
Hm.
Right. Uh Your, your, uh, your wife is uh
Chinese, is that right?
That's right. My wife is from, from mainland China and speaks
Chinese fluently.
Ok. What's your background?
I also have studied Chinese. I speak it both Mandarin and Cantonese.
Um My background is mainly,
I'm a Deputy County Council for Contra
Costa County in the Bay Area.
I've served
uh in that function for 30 plus years.
So I'm familiar with county government in general.
Although my specialty isn't criminal law,
I, I do have background in Chinese. I lived in Hong Kong for two years
and worked there
and continue to maintain close contacts with, with China and Hong Kong.
Well, what's your message to the San Diego Sheriff's Department?
Now that they've apparently found something out there on Saturday,
my message would be
quit stonewalling.
Be fair with the public.
Tell us
what you have. If you found a body,
don't play games,
just announce it if you haven't identified it. That's fine. People understand.
It may take
some time perhaps a couple of weeks to identify it.
Nothing wrong with that,
but the same thing going back to
it's already been a month and a half
since they found Fitzpatrick's body and yet they've
refused to announce that that's even worse in
a way because of the time that's passed.
Um, did, did you, uh, did you say that you do have some information
that Fang Jin's family was notified of this discovery that happened on Saturday?
Yes, I do. That's correct.
What, why would they be notified and nobody else, uh,
and were they notified by San Diego Sheriff or San Bernardino or the Forest Service?
Do you know
they were notified by the San Diego Sheriff's office?
Whether they were notified directly or whether
it was routed through the private investigator?
I'm not sure. I do not know why the notification
was only to the family
and that there was no further
notification beyond that either to me or to the public.
Ok. Very good. Anything else you'd like to say?
I guess the only thing I'd like to say is I appreciate very much
your efforts, David and also those of CBS eight to publicize this case.
I think that that
was a major factor
in pushing this case to an apparent conclusion.
Without that,
I'm afraid the case could have continued to linger.
They have had a lot of this evidence, including the
phone
location information for a long time since
early August or so.
And nothing was happening until rather late in the game when your article appeared.
And also another one from San Diego. And I think that
that's been the catalyst for forcing this along.
I hope that you
can through your efforts,
get them to come clean with the public as they should have done a long time ago,
especially now that it's apparently reached a conclusion.
They need to let the public know what they found and be upfront,
quit playing games and talking out of both sides of their mouths
to you personally.
What was your reaction when you heard that the remains might be, may have been found?
I think my reaction was
uh it was not surprise
because things have been building towards that. After all,
Fitzpatrick's truck was found there
in
Brago State Park
and then Fitzpatrick's body was found.
September the 17th.
And so I also had some information that an item of genes had been found
with some material that linked it to her.
So there were indications up to now
that
her back
would be found there,
her backpack,
her backpack. That's exactly right. That's what, what, uh,
I was told was found.
And so it doesn't surprise me. It's one of sadness. Of course, you have a
47 year old woman
with two beautiful daughters, one
in college, the other
a young girl,
something like seven years old and all of a sudden they don't have a mother.
And so it, it hits you
that it's a tragedy.
It's a tragedy because I think
gene did
reasonable steps
to try to avoid this kind of thing.
She got a background check on Fitzpatrick, she got copies of his identification,
his driver's license and
military records. She did her due diligence. I feel
she was hindered by a
so-called family friend
that
misinterpreted the background report for her.
And so I think she came here under a false impression
because the guy downplayed the criminal record
and he made it sound like the guy had a lot of money,
which is not the case.
And so I think she came here under false pretenses. It's sad every which way.
It's, it's a tragedy. It leaves me with a very sad feeling.
Well, but it does appear that the
attraction was romantic. Right?
Yes. It, it was romantic. There's no doubt about it. She came here
for romantic purposes, had been
uh texting him for,
for something like six months prior to coming here and they definitely had rapport
and her expectation was that he was going to shore around the area.
Morongo Valley,
Morongo Basin,
Joshua Tree State Park
and see whether
uh the relationship developed.
And so in that way, it's a tragedy too that it didn't work out that way.
Obviously, it's, it's taken an entirely different
direction.
Why would they have been out there in a four
wheel drive truck and 100 and 15 degree heat?
I have no logical,
no logical explanation for that. Actually, the family
did not have an impression that she was gonna go camping.
And the last phone conversation with a
family friend where the friend actually talked
and could hear Gene's voice.
The Gene said that they were planning to go on a
trip to the east coast to visit Fitzpatrick's relatives back there.
And then a video suddenly came out at night
out at around 10:15 p.m. on Friday, July 21st. And this was a dark video
that was shaky. It's an alarming video that's
not at all like the other videos she sent that had music
and in that
there was a separate caption that was sent,
uh unlike the other videos they had an embedded caption,
this one was sent separately and it said,
uh that this is a small town in the desert at night. There are,
there are lots of lights
preparing to go camping
the way it's worded is just bizarre.
It came out of the blue and so it alarmed family members at that time.
It just came off the wall.
Well, you're kind of implying that maybe that uh video message was not sent by her,
but wasn't there Chinese?
Wasn't it written the message that she's going camping written in Chinese?
And would you expect uh
John Fitzpatrick to write, be able to write that in Chinese to them?
That's a good question. And I've grappled with that
logically,
Jean sent it.
But one thing you need to know is that when she sent the other videos, she tended to put
artistic or poetic captions with them.
Whereas this is the first one where number one,
she sent the caption separately and number two, it was in just straight language.
There's a definite
disconnect.
And so I'm not saying John Fitzpatrick did it. She may have done it.
But what I do know is that it was in Chinese, right?
But it was worded very differently. And so what was she trying to do?
Was she in distress and
putting something out there
that maybe is, is cryptic or might cause people to wonder.
I, I don't know, these are all things that have gone through my mind.