Ep. 1 Joli Truelson

You can listen to episode one of “Aren’t You the Girl?” podcast here:

Posted is the transcript for the episode for those who would like to read Joli’s story instead.

Sources, music and audio used in this episode are listed at the end of this post.

When 16 year old Joli Truelson was found in a creek after supposedly thumbing a ride to her grandmother’s house, a massive anti-hitchhiking movement ignited in the Twin Cities. 

But was that the easy explanation for her murder? 51 years later her death remains unsolved and we wonder did Joli truly get a fair investigation when she was initially killed? 

Or did the story fit a narrative at the time and it was easy to dismiss?

In this episode of Aren’t You the Girl? I’ll be looking into the life and death of Joli Truelson. And my reasoning on why I believe she deserves a new investigation in 2024. 

Joli Truelson was described to me by friends and family as a silly, creative girl who was not quite a hippie but an open spirited 16 year old. She enjoyed art, specifically painting and drawing. But wasn’t the best student academically. 

Loving to dress strangely in a time of even more strange fashion; Joli stayed a Jean clad child with chipped nail polish on her fingernails. Sandy haired and eyes full of love and laughter, her family said.

Joli entered the world on New Years of 1955 to mother Nora. 

Joli spent her younger days riding her horse. Had an extremely fun personality and always seemed to have friends around her. 

In a 2005 Star Tribune article written by David Chanen, Joli’s mother Nora said, 

“Joli was artistic. She had a flair for the ridiculous.”

Nora and her husband Ray Truelson, who was Joli’s step father,  owned prominent Porky’s drive-in diners in the Twin Cities. 

Joli had 5 siblings – 2 of whom were babies when she passed. 

When the weather was nice, Joli would put her younger brother Thor behind her on her bike and coast around the lakes of the city with him in tow. One of his only and most loved memories of his sister. 

Joli was living in a time where girls and women were beginning to become more free with more options. Joli was only beginning to find her way. 

After her last day of school at Southwest high in June of 1972, Joli stood in the doorway of her counselor’s office, hopeful that she would do much better next year. 

That she would find her place and get on the right track. Her parents, particularly her father, weren’t very happy with Joli’s life decisions at that time and her choice in friends. Her father said her friends were hippies. 

A common issue between girls and parents at this time period. 

Joli started off this Summer with the intent of being better. 

Timothy Joseph Crosby on the other hand – started off his Summer by isolating himself reading true crime detective magazines and taking long drives on his own especially at night. 

He is 16 years old and looks for young, female hitchhikers to force into sexual interaction with him before letting them go. He uses a gun or knife to scare the victim. 

While Joli’s uncle Matt, who lived with her grandma in St. Paul was out of the country, Joli stayed at her grandma’s to keep her company. Occasionally returning home to Minneapolis to visit.  

On July 3rd, 1972, Joli’s mother Nora was roused out of bed at around 5 am by someone at the door. Upon going downstairs and looking out the window, she was met with the sight of an older, wet and disheveled woman standing in the rain. The woman held a shrieking cat up to the window and shouted something through the door about her cat. 

Shocked, Nora shrunk back from the door and left the odd woman standing there. It was a bizarre and troubling event and she was unable to go back to sleep. Nora did not recognize the woman and had no idea why she might be there in a cold rain, just as day was breaking.

The day stayed wet and cold and Joli, together with two unnamed friends, spent the majority of the evening around then Lake Calhoun now named Bde Maka Ska. 

Joli was wearing a red sweater with musical notes pattern on it and a pair of Army-style olive-drab trousers.

At around 8:30 pm, Joli’s mother Nora was giving Joli’s two younger brothers a bath. Joli’s stepfather Ray hollered up the stairs to Nora and said Joli was on the phone. Nora said she was busy with the boys and told her to call back.

After the kids were put to bed around 9pm, and Joli had not called back, Nora figured that Joli had wanted a ride to her grandma’s house. Since she was supposed to be at her house by 10pm, Nora figured she was taking the bus and was on her way there.

Nora hadn’t felt well that day after the early-morning disturbance and she retired to bed earlier than usual. 

But Joli had no money and her 10 pm curfew had now passed. 

What happened next is unclear. One of the friends who was with her that night originally said that Joli had taken the bus to St. Paul. This friend then later claimed that at about 10:50 pm Joli was hitching a ride to her grandmother’s house in St. Paul. Her friend claimed to have watched from Thomas Beach as Joli was walking.

Her friend saw a gold fastback design vehicle, with rally lights in the front, pass by two young, male hitchhikers before stopping about 30 feet ahead of them where Joli was walking. 

The boys started running towards the car thinking that it had stopped for them. 

Joli looked inside the vehicle, gave her a friend a shrug then got into the car and drove away. 

The boys went to Joli’s friend and one said, 

“Hey, how come he didn’t take us?”

At around 8 am on July 4th, Nora received a phone call from her mother saying that Joli never made it to her house.

Nora immediately called Joli’s friends and asked if they had seen her and no one had. She called the Minneapolis police department to report her missing and they suggested she was probably elsewhere and to wait it out.  

Nora took the younger boys, threw them in the backseat of her car and drove around the city to try to locate Joli. She searched absolutely everywhere and asked everyone she could if they had seen her daughter. 

At around 1:30 pm, 13 hours after Joli was last seen, two young boys were playing near Minnehaha Creek, just east of 35W, and found her body dumped in the creek. She was floating in about 16 inches of water. Blood was found on the ground nearby. 

Her red sweater with musical notes pattern visible just underneath the water’s surface.

A news report in 1972, in which the reporter failed every time to say Joli’s name correctly, ended its report with a close up shot of Joli’s face underneath the water. Little sensitivity given to Joli.

The back of her skull had been caved in probably with a hammer. There was no indication of a struggle. She was not sexually assaulted and nothing was stolen from her. 

Seemingly to not have seen anything coming. 

Joli’s friend told police that the suspect had passed the boys to get to Joli and they got a very clear look at the man driving the gold car. To this day, those two boys have never been located and have never come forward no matter how hard her family tried to keep her in the public. 

Joli’s uncle Matt spent the next 4-5 years after her death trying to locate those boys and the suspect responsible. He saturated South Minneapolis neighborhoods with pamphlets describing the case and asking for help. 

Nothing came out of it except for a couple prank calls.

This is an age where the area was much more of a local hang-out than it is now. However, the weather was cold that night and not many people were out in general. Adding an extra layer of invisibility to Joli’s case. 

Joli’s uncle talked to everyone he could. Even visiting sites of other murder scenes he felt resembled Joli’s – which I’ll talk about more in the next episode. 

The only description of the driver was provided by her friend, who stated multiple times that she didn’t look at his face, offered the following information, 

White male, straight brown hair, possible glasses, age 20 – 30.

No sketch was made and no other details were ever released regarding Joli’s death.

Now, it’s important to understand that Joli died 51 years ago. At this time, a lot of teenagers were hitchhiking which means hitchhiking assaults and fatalities were also rising. 

Deputy Rusinko from the Minneapolis department during that time stated they have been getting reports of several assaults a week on young girls who are hitchhiking. Telling newspapers at the time of Joli’s death, 

“We’ve had some real serious assaults. What can happen is that a girl gets picked up by a guy and refuses to submit to his demands and he gets mad and roughs her up.”

Timothy Crosby used girls who were hitchhiking to fuel his own sexual desires for at least 2 years before he was first caught. It was an outlet for many men at that time. But the blame was mostly put on the woman for getting into the vehicle. 

In the six months leading up to Joli’s death in July of 1972, Minneapolis reported 35 assaults on women who were hitching in the area. Police on Joli’s case quickly used her story to “confirm their fears of women hitchhiking.” Which was an actual headline for Joli’s death. 

Though some cases were pretty severe, no other reports of girls being murdered were reported. And none of the stories have any similarities to Joli’s demise. 

Lt. Searles, who was originally in charge of Joli’s case, said he looked into about 100 similar hitching cases and incidents by 1974 and none bore a resemblance to Joli. 

The other girls were beaten. Joli was hit in the back of the head without knowing it was coming; Joli had no chance to defend herself. Someone wanted to cause harm to her. Leading me to feel Joli’s case is more personal than it was originally believed. 

It wasn’t only Minneapolis being overwhelmed by hitchhiking tragedies – this was a movement across the country. 

As highlighted in the film Rape – A Preventive Inquiry made a year later in 1973, law enforcement at this time were so incredibly overwhelmed with hitching horror stories along with other cases of violence against women in this blossoming, open culture. 

A big focus was put onto the victim to not hitch-hike. Be aware of their surroundings – teaching women to just submit to the predator. Saying its better to end up going to the sexual assault unit instead of the morgue. 

Joli’s family made bright yellow pins with an image of Joli striking a fashion pose in a long black coat bearing the words – 

“Don’t Hitch-hike. 

Have a nice day, Joli.”

Which they passed around the city. 

Joli had been warned many times not to hitchhike by her family. Her friends stopped hitching entirely after her death; terrified about what may happen to them. 

Although her murder prevented other girls from getting into vehicles with strangers which definitely saved countless lives; I can’t help but start to think she didn’t get a fair investigation from the beginning. 

Was the story of her hitchhiking true at all? Why haven’t the two boys the car passed when picking up Joli never come forward?

Did these boys even exist?

While I can’t fault the original investigators for that was more of a reflection of society at that point – I have some concerns about the original detective tasked to Joli’s case – John Searles. 

His explanation for the boys not coming forward in the 1970’s was that they simply didn’t connect the vehicle with the murder and didn’t know they had valuable information.

Channel 5 news broadcasted to the whole state they are looking for those two boys along with Joli’s uncle keeping her face in the community for at least a solid 10 years.

The family expressed they felt like Searles didn’t care if her case was solved or not, at one point telling the family directly that Joli wouldn’t be dead if she wasn’t hitchhiking. 

During my research into John Searles I found in 1973 he was ordered to pay civil damages for raiding a home in 1970. Remarking he is “plenty bitter” because the city of Minneapolis hasn’t backed him up.

Saying he can’t see himself make another arrest for the city for treating him like that.

Though I believe Searles did investigate her case – I don’t think he focussed on the places he should have been. He looked into other hitchhiking incidents but to me, Joli’s story doesn’t add up to be one. 

Why would only Joli be killed and the other victims beaten, robbed or sexually assaulted? None of which Joli was. Only struck in the back of the head. 

To me, the hitchhiking story doesn’t add up. 

51 years later, it’s still a tough topic for the family how they were treated. 

In May of 2021, I began my search to find possible victims of serial offender and suspected serial killer Timothy Joseph Crosby. 

I go through his case files and court transcripts and piece together the dates Crosby was free along with vehicles he drove over the years. 

I start with the 1970’s and know the vehicle I’ll be looking for is a Gold Chrysler Newport 69.

Timothy started assaulting teenage girl hitch-hikers in 1972 as a teenager himself. By 1974, he was driving around with a kill kit in the trunk of his vehicle with the passenger door handles removed. Using his fathers police handcuffs and weapon on his victims.

He was already a serious offender by the age of 18 in 1974. 

I go into newspapers archives and start with the year of 1972 and search for a yellow car. I got to July of 1972 and came across Joli Truelson.

She was last seen getting into a yellow vehicle which matches the vehicle Timothy drove at the time. Her last known location was 20 miles from where Tim lived at the time with his parents in St. Paul. And she was heading to her grandmothers in St. Paul that night.

After searching Joli’s name to see what became of her case, I realized Joli had no online presence. Just a little statement at the end of her family’s restaurant closing in a Star Tribune article years ago.

Joli’s mother wondering why the restaurant closing is getting more attention than her daughter’s murder 40 years earlier.

I tried to submit my tip that Tim Crosby should be looked into in her case to find out there is no way to do that. Still I emailed Minneapolis and the cold case FBI. 

I couldn’t understand why she has no media presence, no number to call if you have a tip. 

One night I had an overwhelming urge to write up what I had of Joli’s case and post it on my website. Though she didn’t fit with my website, I strongly felt she had to be somewhere online. Anywhere is better than nowhere. People have to still remember and care, right?

Within a month, Joli’s brother contacted me and my journey into Joli’s life officially began.

I first met Thor in December of 2021. We went to where Joli was last seen hitchhiking and went to the location of where her body was found. 

Thor was able to paint a picture of what the streets and community looked like half a century ago. Not much has changed overall with the roads and locations. 

I got the official okay to contact Minneapolis regarding Joli’s case personally. To say I’m advocating for the family. Which was a journey itself. 

Started with the Minnesota BCA Cold case unit to see if they could review Joli’s case. They only investigate cases if the agency who has the case wants to give it to them. 

They told me who to reach in Minneapolis to get help with Joli’s case directly. 

I’m entering the Minneapolis PD department in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Sparking a nationwide defunding of the police. They are severely understaffed. 

It’s been exactly 50 years at this point since her death. 

Speaking to Thor, I quickly realized there was so much more to the story than I could have imagined. 

And for the first time, I started to doubt if Tim Crosby was my suspect for Joli’s death.

I called the homicide unit phone number multiple times and left messages which were never returned. Spoke to different people in Minneapolis on different days and no one could tell me why my emails and calls aren’t being responded to. 

We went to the BCA again. I discovered in old newspaper articles that samples of Joli’s had been sent previously to their lab for testing. They had reports regarding Joli filed away.

The BCA gave the Truelson family a copy of what they had and could share. 

The family shared the files with me. Not much is in them and it doesn’t answer many questions. I feel it’s necessary to share a few key details from her case files that are concerning. 

Minneapolis PD took one friend’s statement on July 4th – the day Joli’s body was found.

They took the other friend’s statement on September 13th – over two months after her death. 

Someone we personally feel should have been looked into more but by what little we have seen in her files – never was looked into. 

Not to point the finger at her friends who were only a year or two older than Joli; but I feel their story should’ve been examined closer. 

The most concerning, confusing part – Dr. Brandt back in 1972 listed her cause of death as undetermined between accidental or murder. Something that has always bothered the Truelson family and something they never got a clear answer on why this conclusion was made.

Only certain part we know is that her death was from a massive skull fracture. 

Absolutely no physical evidence from her case remains. 

Joli had a few items found in her pockets but since she was submerged in water for a prolonged amount of time – any evidence was washed away.

After finishing my write up of Joli’s story, I finally spoke to Sgt Suchta, the new chief of the Minneapolis cold case unit. Unfortunately Joli’s murder is one of the lowest priority cases in Minneapolis. The department’s cold case unit was cut completely after the 2020 tragedy. 

Only cold cases with physical evidence that can be tested are being focused on by active homicide investigators who are extremely overwhelmed by current caseloads much less the cold ones.

For cases like Joli’s, someone needs to confess to killing her or confess that they know who did it for Minneapolis to ever look into her case again. 

In their eyes – her case is closed.

Not investigating cold cases with no DNA evidence to me sends the message to the public that if Minneapolis police can’t solve your case within a certain time frame – the murderer will get to walk free. 

I was certain when I first discovered Joli Truelson that Timothy Crosby had to be involved. While I haven’t ruled him out as a possibility, I need all of my other questions regarding what happened the night Joli was killed answered first. 

Did she truly get into a yellow vehicle?

Only the detective on Joli’s case can get those questions answered yet refuses to.

Joli truly deserved more from her case back in 1972 and still does today. 51 years later, this should be a time where Joli’s case gets a renewed, fresh look. With the knowledge and advancements we have now. But for Joli and thousands of other cases – they are sitting collecting dust on shelves with no one advocating for them. 

With the permission of Joli’s family, I am able to use her story to launch this series. 

Joli is still loved and deeply missed. Her family have been strong in their advocacy and dedication to Joli. 

We will never stop searching for the truth of what happened that night on July, 3rd 1972.

Though Joli doesn’t have a strong online or digital presence – her friends from high school never forgot her. 

Personal Facebook groups from Joli’s school had multiple posts in her memory. Her friend group is still wondering what happened to their lively, bubbly friend 51 years ago and who took her away from them. 

They too have been reaching out to police with no answer. 

Please come forward if you have any information regarding who killed Joli. 

In closing, friends Terri and Barb wrote this poem in Joli’s memory for the Southwest High Yearbook in 1973 – the year Joli was supposed to graduate. 

She was like a ray of sunshine.

Always bubbling over with laughter.

She was completely unique in her manor.

Never letting life depress her.

She knew no hate and had no fears.

She related to every type of human

And the smaller things of life too.

When she’d look at you,

You couldn’t help but smile.

For happiness was Joli’s word.

As she leaves this world

To a life with more experiences,

Remember her as she was

And always will be . . .

A little ray of sunshine.

This was researched and written by Amy Pierce, with the help of the Truelson family. Please continue on to episode two about Joli’s uncle’s search for connections between her death and future Minneapolis victim Mary Schlais. 

Also, follow on social media to stay connected.

Sources for this episode:

• Joli’s family and friends, Minneapolis Police files, Joli’s autopsy report and Minnesota BCA Reports.
• Star Tribune, Minneapolis Star, The Daily Journal and The Winona Daily News.

Audio clips used

• Rape – A Preventive Inquiry – 1973 film 
• KSTP-TV Channel 5 News
• Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker 

Music by: 

• Ashot Danielyan – Pixabay

• Facebook
• YouTube
• TikTok