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In early 2016 two longtime Strongsville residents Bruce and Melinda pesovic received some very exciting news their 20-year-old daughter named Anna and her 20-year-old fiance named Jeff had just told them they were expecting a baby a baby girl and so Bruce and Melinda were totally excited about the prospect of finally becoming grandparents but at the same time they knew Anna and Jeff did not have very much money Anna still lived at home with Bruce and Melinda she did have a job but she made very little money she was a waitress at a local Applebee’s restaurant and as for Jeff he had a better job working as a service technician for a heating and air company but he didn’t have enough money to support him and Anna in fact he didn’t even have enough money to move out of his parents home he was still living with them on the other side of Strongsville and so this couple they’re really excited about their baby but Bruce and Melinda are thinking you know we really got to find a way to support them because they are just not prepared for this first child and so Bruce and Melinda they talked it over and they decided the best way to support this young couple was to tell their daughter if she wanted to she could invite Jeff to come stay at their house that way the two of them could be together and once they had their daughter Bruce and Melinda could be the great grandparents and help take care of the baby and in general this would allow the couple to just continue to save money and move out when they were ready and so when they told Anna they were willing to do this Anna was so happy she was so grateful she called Jeff and Jeff was equally happy and grateful and said yes I would love to move in with you guys so it took several months but finally in June of 2016 which was the same month that Jeff and Anna welcomed their daughter to the world Jeff would leave his parents home and move into Bruce and Melinda’s home and almost immediately after he moved in he and the rest of Anna’s family began experiencing some very strange and disturbing things around their property just a few days after Jeff had moved in he and Anna were home alone they were on the main floor of the house and they were having dinner at the kitchen table and at some point Jeff just happened to glance out one of the back windows that looked out into their backyard and nowthis property had this huge sprawling backyard basically they had all these houses kind of in a row and they all had almost like a communal backyard this big big open space and so Jeff is looking out into this huge backyard and he sees off in the distance something strange he doesn’t really know what he’s looking at because it’s night time it’s dark but he stands up and he walks over to the window and as he’s looking out he sees way off on the back side of their property are these four strangers just standing there appearing to be smoking something and they’re just kind of looking up at the pesovic house and so Jeff is looking out the window at these four not really sure what to make of them and he calls Anna over and so Anna walks over and the two of them are looking out not really sure what to do I mean on the one hand these four people who they clearly didn’t know or they believed they didn’t know were definitely trespassing but at the same time they weren’t really doing anything they were just kind of standing there smoking but as they’re watching these four people one of them begins walking up the property towards their home and then stops alongside the pavic trampoline which was in their backyard and this person begins fiddling with the trampoline and so at this Anna’s like you know what I don’t know what they’re doing I feel totally uncomfortable and so Anna would actually call the police and so the police they come out but by the time the squad car arrived in front of the pesic house the four people inback must have seen the car and they took off running and so when the police officer went in the backyard and looked around there was no one there and there was also no sign they were there there was no drop cigarette butts or anything they just kind of vanished and so the police officer told Jeff and Anna if they come back you know let us know and so the officer left and then a little while later when Bruce and Melinda came came home Jeff and Anna would tell them about what happened and they would agreethat that was totally strange that in all the decades they had lived in Strongville they had never had anybody stroll onto their property and just loiter in the middle of the night and so for the next couple of days the family was definitely on edge but after a little while this whole incident was largely forgotten.

Fast forward about 5 months to November 2016 and Anna was home alone with her young daughter and she’s playing with her daughter on the first floor of the house towards the front of the house and as she’s playing with her daughter she suddenly hears what sounds like someone trying to open the backsliding glass door on the back of the house and so instinctively, Anna thinks okay! you know Jeff must be out there or my parents must be out there and they don’t have a key or something and so she Scoops up her daughter and she begins walking towards the back of the house to open the store for them and when she walks into one of the back rooms before she reaches the back door she happens to look out one of the windows that looked out into the backyard and standing right up against the glass is this unknown male figure with his face pressed up against the glass and so Anna just freezes and stares at this guy and then this guy he notices Anna and he Ducks down out of view and now Anna’s thinking to herself this is the guy he must have been trying to break in my back door I’m home alone I don’t know what’s going on here I don’t know if he’s going to try to break in again and so she just turns and runs back towards the front of the house she runs upstairs she goes in a bedroom she locks the door and she calls the police but by the time the police come out there and they look around they can’t find this unknown figure that was at the back of the house and there’s no sign of an attempted forced entry and so unfortunately they told her look you know I’m sure this was very traumatic for you but there’s really nothing we can do here there’s no evidence to suggest who did this and so please just you know keep your house locked and if you see anybody suspicious on your property call us back and so naturally after the police left and Anna had a chance to contact Jeff and her parents they were horrified and they rushed home to comfort her and then after the initial shock of this incident had worn off the family began to speculate you know do you think this might be connected to those four strangers we saw on our property a few months ago it just seems odd that those two things would happen so close together and then the family began to think okay well then who is this person who are these people ? what do they want ? why are they targeting us? what’s going on?….. because as it was the pesovic family they didn’t have any enemies at least none that they knew of if anything the people of Strongsville adored this family especially Melinda the mother for the past 20 plus years she had been a middle school teacher in town and her students adored her. She was also a big-time soccer coach in the community because she had played in college and she was still very passionate about it so she was this amazing coach and in the eyes of many parents in the Strongsville Community. Melinda was a bit of an inspiration because she was not only the mother to Anna she was also the mother of an 18-year-old boy named Kyle who had Down syndrome and was non-verbal and Melinda just had this unbelievable way with him where she was so good to him she Incorporated him and everything she got him so involved she gave him the best life he could possibly have and so anytime you saw Kyle with his mother Kyle would be all smiles even though Kyle couldn’t speak it was so obvious his mother made him incredibly happy but regardless of the reason for these strangers to be lurking around their property the pesovic family was now totally on edge and found themselves constantly looking out the windows especially at night in fear these strangers were going to come back and might try to break in again and unfortunately these strangers would come back in January of 2017 so 2 months after Anna saw that unknown figure at the window and heard the back door sliding around Bruce’s car was broken into it was sitting in the driveway of their property someone got inside of it and stole his laptop and so Bruce he calls the police and he says you know I’ve got to believe this has to do with the people that are harassing my family and the police believed him and they began looking around and asking around but they could never track down the laptop or the thief and so once again the family was kind of left on their own and the police said look you know if you see anything else let us know but there’s not much we can do here.

A few months later in July of that year Anna Jeff and their daughter were all home together one night when Anna happened to look out one of the back windows on their first floor and out on the very back of the property were three strangers just standing in that same spot where they saw those four strangers smoking the year before and these three strangers are just standing there looking up at the house and so horrified Anna calls out to Jeff and says look there are three people in the back of our property and so Anna she pulls out her phone and she’s calling the police and as she’s calling the police Jeff who’s totally upset that there are these people harassing him and his family and making them feel unsafe he just grabs a flashlight and storms out the back door to go confront these people but as soon as Jeff went out the back door before he could even Shine the Light on them the three people had turned and ran and vanished and so finally when the police did show up they were aware of all the calls they had gotten from this family and so they went out there and they did a serious search for these three strangers but like always nothing was found and so the family once again was told if you see anything else let us know the following month which was August Anna was home with her daughter along with her mother who was upstairs and as Anna is in the front of the house in the playroom with her daughter she hears the sound of somebody trying to open that backsliding door and now immediately her radar is up because she knows what happened the last time she heard the sound there was that person in the window but she’s thinking okay I can’t just immediately call the police I need to at least look and see if there’s someone that I know at the back door and so she Scoops her daughter up she stands up and she walks around to the edge of the room she’s in and she kind of Peaks her head down this hallway that will give her a clear view of this backsliding glass door and once she finally has a full view of whoever is

there she screams because there are two large adults as she would say standing at the back door trying to force open this door and so when she screams these two strangers they hear it they turn around and they run and Melinda she was upstairs she hears her daughter screaming she comes flying downstairs she’s trying to figure out what’s going on Anna is hysterical the baby’s crying and so Melinda actually calls the police about what her daughter has just seen the police come out they search the property they can’t find anyone and so

again the police leave and they tell the family look you know I’m sorry this is happening to you but we can’t do anything so please just let us know if anything else happens and we’ll be out here as soon as we can you know we’re bound to catch these people but you know right now we just don’t have much to operate on the following month which was September one of Melinda’s car keys would go missing and whoever had these Keys whoever had stolen these Keys would use it to randomly start Melinda’s car

in the middle of the night and they also used it to set off her car alarm at odd hours of the night and then also during this time frame that her keys were missing they also discovered that there were Nails jammed into the tires of Bruce’s car and so of course you know the family calls the police and tells them about what’s going on but the police can’t do anything and so very frustrated Melinda actually takes to Facebook and posts that someone’s stolen her keys and please just give them back and just overall she’s pleading with whoever is harassing her family to just leave them alone but unfortunately this post would not do anything the harassment would continue a month later on October 19th Jeff was home alone when he heard the sound of the backsliding glass door rattling and now he knows that every time this has been heard by Anna that there’s always some stranger at the back door and so Jeff grabs the family dog and he very carefully turns and looks down that hallway towards the back door to see who this is and right

as he pokes his head out he sees there’s this large adult figure with a put up trying to open this back door and so the dog sees this person and starts barking and running towards the door Jeff runs after the dog and this big person outside who’s trying to break in he sees the dog he sees Jeff running and he turns and he runs away and so Jeff and the dog they stay inside the house and they watch this guy just take off across the property and disappear into the trees and Jeff would call the police but

like always the police came out and there just was nothing they could do 4 days later on October 23rd Je je along with his young daughter and Bruce they went to the local Applebees where Anna worked to have dinner there and have Anna wait on them and then after they were done eating they said their goodbyes to Anna they left the restaurant they hopped in their cars and they drove back to their house when they got there Bruce was the first up the steps and he got to the front door and it was locked and so he knocked and Kyle

his son he came and unlocked the door Bruce went inside followed closely behind by Jeff who was holding his daughter they get inside and Bruce walks through the house to the back of the house where the kitchen is he flips on the lights and there’s something on the kitchen floor and when Jeff sees it he immediately turns around and runs out of the house carrying his daughter he grabs Kyle along the way and just takes them straight out of the house and then once Jeff was outside he called 911 and when

you listen to his 911 call it sounds like Jeff is unable to process what he has just seen 911 would say at a severe emergency uh somebody somebody’s been attacked in my house somebody’s been what attacked they attacked who who was attacked uh uh Mel Pik M was attacked he was attacked by whom do you know she was no we we just came home she’s on a kitchen floor Jeff and Bruce had just discovered Melinda lying on the kitchen floor she’d been stabbed over 35 times and shot three times she would be rushed to thehospital but she would die that night although the family was in shock and couldn’t even begin to process what had just happened they were all acutely aware that whoever had done this to Melinda had to be connected to all of these strange and suspicious people that had been lurking around their property for the better part of 2 years in fact literally after Jeff had called 911 Bruce was inside in the kitchen kneeling next to his dying wife and he called 911 and he would tell the dispatcher thatthe Strongsville Police Department really dropped the ball 911 what city is the emergency in please come to one for blazing star I think my wife’s de someone tell me people breaking into our house and now someone killed her sir tell me the city you need to talk to Strongville Ohio okay you need to be transferred don’t hang up 911 what’s the city of your emergency Strongville Ohio we have people on the way already what’s the address po blazing star I think someone killed my wife you think someone killed your wifeyeah there it looks like she has stabs on her back we’ve had people trying to break in our house all yearing sir I need to ask you questions okay are you there right now I just got in the door with my new son-in-law my son Kyle was here with sir what I want you to do is walk out the Strongsville Police Department would come out in force for this case and they would solve it in Just 4 days and when they went public with who killed Melinda no one could believe it back on October 23rd so this was thenight Melinda was discovered Jeff along with his young daughter and Melinda and her son Kyle they were all together in the house and at some point Jeff had put his daughter down in her play pen and then went into the kitchen where Melinda was and he walked up to her pulled out a knife and stabbed her over 35 times and then when Melinda fell to the ground Jeff drew a gun and shot her three additional times to make sure she was dead now while he was doing this his daughter is literally just a few feetaway and Kyle presumably is also right nearby but he has no way of understanding what’s happening to his mother and so with these two totally innocent lives just right nearby Jeff would clean off his weapons and he’d take off his bloody clothes and he would hide them inside of his car and then he would just scoop up his daughter and he would leave the house leaving Kyle alone in the house with his dying mother in the kitchen just leaves him there shuts the door locks it and then Jeff and his daughter would drive to Applebee’s tohave dinner with Melinda’s husband and her daughter and then after several hours when they got back to the property Jeff knew what was waiting for them inside and he still allowed Bruce to go inside first and discover his dying wife on the kitchen floor very little is known about why Jeff did this because Jeff has actually never come out and given his motive for the crime the running theory is that Jeff actually was not going to be able to pay for the wedding which was coming up in a couple of days and the wedding venue had

actually contacted Melinda and said hey you know we’re canceling the wedding because your future son-in-law can’t pay for it and so Melinda apparently confronted Jeff about his financial troubles and the theory is he snapped and killed her however that can’t possibly be the entire story for why he did this because it would turn out Jeff was found to be be responsible for literally every single suspicious event that had taken place around the pavic property leading up to the attack meaning every time they had seen strangers lurking around their property or people trying to break into their house that had been because of Jeff either it was literally Jeff outside being one of these suspicious people or he had asked friends or hired someone or groups of people to pretend to be suspicious people on the property or Jeff had been the only only person to see these suspicious people and then miraculously when other people attempted to look outside you know they were gone and so obviously Jeff was lying and so I actually had the opportunity to speak with one of Jeff’s childhood friends who was actually living roughly in the Strongville area when this horrible murder took place and what this person told me is that what is kind of generally accepted as why Jeff did this according to the People in Strongsville is that Jeff apparently loathed Melinda even though she had opened her house to him he loathed her and as soon as he moved in in 2016 he began plotting to kill her and so all of these suspicious events were Jeff’s attempt at building this really intricate Alibi that they had these strangers out there that were targeting this family and so that when she would ultimately be killed by him it would look like these strangers had done it and at first it totally worked everybody believed the police the family friends that strangers had broken into the house and killed Melinda in fact there was so little suspicion on Jeff after her murder that Jeff actually served as a Paul Bearer in Melinda’s funeral but ultimately the police would discover the knife and some bloody clothes in the back of Jeff’s car and so they would arrest him and they would present this mountain of evidence against him and Jeff would confess to killing Melinda however he wouldn’t give any additional information about the crime he would just basically say yes I did kill her he would also never give an apology or explanation to the family he would ultimately be sentenced to life in prison with the opportunity for parole after 33 years during Jeff’s trial there was this totally heartbreaking moment when Bruce Melinda’s husband spoke and he would say their son Kyle does not understand that his mother is gone and so now every time they go out to eat which is something Kyle really likes to do and he used to love doing with his mother he’ll just sit and stare out the window eagerly expecting his mother to show up any minute but of course she never does