Dateline: The Jacket - 5 harrowing details about Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell's murder, explored 

Dateline has covered multiple cases through its many seasons, and one of the most talked about ones is "The Jacket." The twenty-eighth episode of the thirtieth season came out on June 3, 2022, and revolved around the murder of Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell that took place in March 2015. It wasn't until 2022 that the murderer, Anjelica's stepfather, Wesley Hadsell, was convicted of first-degree murder.

This Dateline episode is about Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell, a college freshman studying at Longwood University. She was known for being athletic and friendly. AJ had just returned home to Norfolk, Virginia, for spring break and was leading a seemingly happy life until she went missing in March 2015.

Initially, it looked like she left out of her free will. She had left behind a note for her mother and also texted her family that she ''needed time''. But it was hard to tell why she would suddenly leave. Besides, there were many things related to the case that did not make sense.

The police had a suspicion that something was amiss. This was not just a girl running away from her family. She had gone through a recent breakup, but that was not enough reason to justify her running away. As seen on Dateline, they would be proved right when they uncovered her dead body in an abandoned property five weeks after her having gone missing.

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Dateline: 5 harrowing details about Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell's murder

The police, Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell's family, and her friends Corey French and Andre Barr were not totally on board with the idea that the eighteen-year-old girl had run away from home. Detective David Benjamin, who was the lead detective on the case, told Dateline,

“It was looking more and more like an abduction.”

Nobody had been able to guess the harrowing details of AJ's murder.

Cause of death

As Dateline reports, Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell's body was found in a drainage ditch at a property she would have no reason to visit. Her pants were pulled down to her ankles when she was found, which was unnatural. It suggested a possible sexual assault had taken place before she was killed. AJ had no history of drug abuse, and she had never taken any. However, the medical examiner said her cause of death was heroin poisoning.

It was evident she was murdered. It was heartbreaking enough that she had been murdered by her stepfather, but such a brutal death was even more chilling.

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Betrayal by someone AJ trusted

According to Dateline, Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell did not know her biological father. She had found a father in her mother's ex-husband, Zach Hoffer, but it lasted only till she was eight when Hoffer and her mother had a divorce. She later found a father in her mother's next husband, Wesley Hadsell.

Wesley had a good relationship with AJ and wanted to adopt her. When she agreed, he legally adopted her in 2012. This Dateline episode shows us how the man AJ considered a father ended up being the one to abduct and kill her.

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AJ's jacket was found at Corey French's house:

As Dateline reports, Wesley Hadsell played the role of a devoted father all along the investigation process. He led search parties, cooperated with the officers, and gave interviews.

However, it was he who had told the police that Corey French was "obsessive" right before Corey found a piece of AJ's credit card on the road. This made the police suspicious of French, and the suspicions only grew when AJ's friend Andre Barr said he had seen AJ's softball jacket at French's house.

Police did find the jacket at French's place, but due to the lack of any other evidence, they had to let him go. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Wesley had asked Andre where to look for AJ's jacket.

Wesley, on being questioned, said that he suspected French had hurt AJ and broke into his house to look for AJ or any proof. He had found the jacket but did not go to the police himself as he feared he would be charged with breaking and entering.

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How Wesley Hadsell murdered AJ

As seen on Dateline, Wesley soon became a suspect due to his being connected to the discovery of every piece of evidence and his past criminal record of robbing, breaking, and entering.

On searching his work van, police found duct tape, a shovel, and other items possibly used to abduct someone. They also found a GPS device that had a record of every location he visited. While other locations made sense, one did not, and it led the police to an abandoned property near the North Carolina border, where they found AJ's body.

While Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell did not have a drug problem, Wesley did. He had been recently thrown out of AJ's mother's house due to his drug problem getting out of hand. Investigators concluded that Wesley had broken into AJ's house and forced her to write the strange note to make it look like she left willingly. He had then kidnapped her and later killed her, and dumped her body at the abandoned property.

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Wesley Framed Corey French

Not only did Wesley Hadsell murder his stepdaughter, Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell, but he also tried to frame her friend Cory French for the crime. Police guessed that he placed AJ's jacket at French's house to make him look guilty, then told Andre exactly where to look for it. It was all adding up. Wesley Hadsell had murdered his stepdaughter in cold blood and pretended to be a loving father all along.

Sometime before the Dateline episode aired, Wesley Hadsell was convicted of the first-degree murder of Anjelica "AJ" Hadsell in 2022. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and an additional fifteen years in prison.

You can check out The Jacket or any other episode of Dateline on NBC and Peacock.

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