The Murder of Mengqi Ji

February 10, 2025

In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the chilling case of Mengqi Ji, a talented engineer and devoted mother whose life was tragically cut short in 2019. What began as a missing person’s case soon unraveled into a disturbing tale of deception, abuse, and betrayal.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on spotify

No items found.

Case Sources

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast!

This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

And he's the husband.

I'm the husband.

Okay, quick—before we jump into things, if you're listening on audio and can give us a five-star review (nothing less!), that would be greatly appreciated. And if you're watching on YouTube, you have a couple more steps. You need to subscribe to the show, turn on notifications, and leave a comment. I don't make the rules here, you guys. I'm just the message deliverer, so don't blame me.

I support this 100%.

Well, January is over. We're already in February, and next thing you know, it's going to be 2026.

The month of love.

It is, it's true—Valentine’s Day is coming up.

I used to always call it Valentimes Day.

You still do sometimes.

Debatable. Very debatable.

I will win the debate.

We hope everyone's having a good week! We've kind of just been hanging out, nothing too crazy. I've just been relaxing. I can finally start exercising, going to the gym, and playing sports again, so I’m excited for that.

Oh, I will say—we got a couple of comments I think, um, just to clarify. So, the way a hair transplant works is they took the back of Garrett's hair and implanted it into the front. So what you're seeing now is not the hair transplant—that won’t fully be in for at least another—

I mean, you're seeing the hair transplant, but yeah, what P’s trying to say is it’s going to take like six months for those new hairs to grow in properly.

Yeah, and so a couple of people were like, "I liked your old hair." And I’m like, oh, it’s not—well, actually, it’s supposed to just look like his old hair, but a little better.

Super Bowl this weekend!

Oh, we got that coming up.

And I'm—I'm torn. Um, I don't like the Chiefs.

This is so weird. I can remember old episodes talking about old Super Bowls.

I know. I feel like we talk about it every year, kind of.

Yeah. Who’s playing?

The Chiefs versus the Eagles.

I don’t like the Chiefs, but can’t deny the fact that if they did win three in a row—

Is it the Eagles? That’s amazing.

The older Kelsey brother used to be on there, correct?

What?

Yeah, they’re a great team.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t know how many people even care, but that’s what we’ll be doing this weekend. We’re just going to kind of chill.

Actually, I just realized this episode comes out after the Super Bowl.

Oh, yeah! But who won?

So it depends who won—I mean, might take stands, I don’t know.

Honestly, I’m pretty indifferent this year. I don’t know if I really care.

I think that’s all I got for you guys.

I'm sorry, honestly—sitting inside is driving me insane. I can't do it. I can't sit inside anymore. I can’t not move my body anymore. But I can finally start doing that here, so I’m excited to get back in action.

I'm going a little stir-crazy in my house. Maybe some people like doing that, but I just—I can’t. It’s been almost three weeks of me just sitting inside, twiddling my thumbs, and hanging out with my wife.

Our sources for this episode are A&V, Columbia Tribune, South China Morning Post, CBSNews.com, Columbia Family Law Group, APNews.com, Columbian.com, KRCJTV.com, and KOMU.com.

Okay, Garrett, give the listeners the quickest version of our proposal day that you can. Go!

What? Tell them how I proposed to you? That part of the story?

Yeah.

Let me think. There’s a cabin up in the mountains that has a fire pit. I set it up with a bunch of roses and flowers around it. Then, we went up in the middle of the day, around 2 p.m. P and I were both already dressed up. I brought her over, led her by the roses, and one of our friends was hiding in the bushes with a camera taking pictures. Then, I proposed to you.

That quick enough?

That was great! I mean, you could’ve taken as long as you wanted. I just know you don’t love telling long stories.

Oh, you said quick! I could have added more detail, but you said quick, so I thought the point was like, "Give me the fastest version!"

Oh no, I just wanted you to tell them because I think getting proposed to is such a surreal day. For me, it was. Was it surreal for you to propose?

Oh, for sure. It’s definitely one of those days that doesn’t feel real while you’re living it.

Yeah, even though I knew Payton was going to say yes, I was still really nervous.

Right, even though we had been talking about it.

I think it’s safe to say that a proposal can be one of the best days of your life, whether it happens in your parents' backyard, on a scenic hike, or—like mine—in my parents' backyard. Or maybe even below the Eiffel Tower. It’s one of the most special, maybe even most important, places in your life story, because it marks the beginning of the rest of your life.

What no one ever imagines, though, in that glowing, happy moment when they say "yes," is that this will also be the place where they end up buried—after being viciously murdered.

And that is exactly what happens in today’s case.

Our story today actually begins overseas, in a city in central China known as Xi’an. That’s where Mengqi Ji is born in 1991. At the time, the nation was still enforcing its one-child policy, so Mengqi’s parents poured everything into their little girl—because she was the only child they were allowed to have.

Within the first few years of her life, it was clear that she stood out. She was someone special.

Not only was Mengqi proving to be exceptionally smart, but she was also a great artist—a painter and a calligrapher, to be exact—skills she started perfecting at the age of five.

In elementary school, she even began learning English, and by the time she was a teenager, she was also taking on photography. She had started singing and was playing a traditional Chinese instrument called the erhu.

Needless to say, Mengqi proved she could do it all before she had even graduated high school.

When the time came for her to choose her next steps, she decided to leave home to get her bachelor’s degree in engineering at the East China University of Science and Technology. But that meant a 14-hour drive anytime she wanted to visit her parents.

So, after leaving for college, she found herself quite a long way from home.

Despite this, Mengqi's parents embraced all of her dreams, no matter where in the world they took her. So when Mengqi was accepted into a student exchange program at the University of Missouri, she took the bull by the horns—with her parents' full love and support behind her.

By December of 2014, the now 23-year-old Mengqi had earned her master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

The following year, fresh out of college, Mengqi landed a job working as a supervisor at a company called Novu, which makes high-tech biomaterials, mainly for dental products. It was there that Mengqi was told she would be managing an all-American boy from Kansas City, Missouri—Joseph Elledge.

Like Mengqi, the 20-year-old Joseph also attended the University of Missouri for engineering, but it seems the two didn't officially meet until they started working together at Novu in September of 2015. Even then, it took a little while for their work relationship to turn into a friendship and then into a full-on romantic relationship.

By January of 2016, these co-workers, Joe and Mengqi, went on their first date in Missouri. Things seemed to go well for the couple over the next year because, in the summer of 2017, Mengqi asked Joe if he would come with her to visit her parents back in China. Joe said yes, but he also had his own motivations for going—he wanted to ask Mengqi’s parents for her hand in marriage.

Apparently, Joe really won them over on that trip because they gave him their blessing. When they returned to Missouri, Joe and Mengqi went for a hike in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park on September 8, 2017. That day, on this hike, Joe got down on one knee and asked Mengqi to marry him. She said yes.

They wasted no time—just 14 days later, they were married. Some people who knew the couple believed that this short engagement was because Mengqi’s visa was about to expire and that the marriage would help her secure a green card more easily. If they were going to get married anyway, why not just do it within 14 days?

This was important to Mengqi because, about five months after tying the knot, she was offered an exciting new job opportunity. While the details aren't clear, it was something Mengqi was really excited about—and apparently, Joe was too. By this time, he had quit his job at Novu to go back to school.

Since Joe was now in school, Mengqi became the sole breadwinner in their newlywed household. But life had other plans for them. Just as she was about to accept the new position, Mengqi learned she was pregnant.

Now, the tables had to turn. Mengqi wanted to stay home and be a full-time mom, which meant Joe would have to find a way to juggle school and work to support his growing family. This put significant pressure on their marriage, especially when their daughter, Anna, arrived in October 2018.

The issues in their marriage actually started with small cultural differences, and it was mainly due to communication. Joe often tried to describe his feelings and frustrations with metaphors that Mengqi had a hard time understanding. The way the two expressed themselves was entirely different due to their radically opposite upbringings.

When Mengqi's parents came to stay and help out with their new baby, Joe began to feel outnumbered. In fact, he also claimed he felt blindsided. It is traditional in Chinese culture for the grandparents to come stay and help the parents for 100 days after a new baby arrives, but Joe said he had no idea Mengqi's parents would be living with them until the day they arrived at their doorstep.

Mengqi and Joe disagreed on a lot of different things when it came to how to raise their daughter. Joe would often get frustrated when Mengqi talked to her parents in Mandarin because he hardly spoke any of the language. He soon found himself fighting with Mengqi and her parents over what he said was their imposing nature. Eventually, both of Mengqi’s parents left early due to the tensions that had escalated in the home.

That, along with their dwindling finances, definitely drove a wedge between the young couple. By the summer of 2019, they were spending more time apart. Joe had gotten an internship at a furniture manufacturing company in Carthage, about a four-hour drive from Columbia, Missouri, where Mengqi and Anna were living. This meant he would be in Carthage during the week, and it also meant Joe had to get a second place to stay. Now, the family wasn't just struggling to maintain one household—they were paying for two.

When Joe was back home with Anna and Mengqi in Columbia, the space they were taking didn't seem to help much. Mengqi was often on her phone or focused on Anna, giving less and less of her attention to Joe. It was clear the two had just grown apart at this point. But Joe, then 23, said he still tried to maintain intimacy with 28-year-old Mengqi—particularly on the night of October 8, 2019.

That evening, Joe was home. He claimed that after they put Anna to bed, he tried to give Mengqi a massage, hoping it would lead to some intimacy between them. But Mengqi rejected him. She told him she had plans early the next morning and didn’t want to miss out on sleep—it was already almost 11:00 p.m.

Yo, I need to tell you something—never mind.

Go ahead.

You know, you can't just force yourself in there, man. You got to be nice throughout the week, you got to be nice throughout the day. There's other stuff involved, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, it ain't just like, hey, I'm going to give you a massage, and we're going to do the deed.

Yep, a little bit more than that.

Good advice.

Thanks, everyone! Just in case anyone was curious and needed some advice on how to get things going in the bedroom. As we like to say, foreplay starts at the beginning of the day.

It's very true.

It's almost 11:00 p.m. Joe said he went to sleep that night with Mengqi by his side, but when he woke up the next morning, according to him, Mengqi was already gone.

Even though Joe still hasn’t heard from Mengqi by the afternoon, he doesn’t sound the alarm bells—but Mengqi’s parents do. They speak to their daughter every single day, and the fact that they haven’t heard from her by the evening of October 9th is worrisome. But they don’t call Joe. I mean, why would they? They don’t have the best relationship with this guy. They’re not even sure if he’s at the house.

Instead, they call one of Mengqi’s friends who lives nearby and ask them to go over to the house to check on her. Apparently, when the friend gets there, Joe is just like, yeah, I don’t know what to tell you, she’s not here.

So again, he does not seem too worried that his wife just up and left—days after their daughter's first birthday, no less—that she’s been missing all day and no one’s heard from her.

So crazy to me that there are literally just people out there like this.

By the following day, October 10th, an entire day has passed, and Joe still hasn’t seen her since the morning before. He lets the entire night go by before finally doing something about it. But he doesn’t call the police. He doesn’t call 911. He calls 311—the non-emergency line—where he files a missing person’s report.

I need to, um, file a missing person report.

But it doesn’t take long for police to show up at their house anyway because, if someone is missing, that actually is an emergency.

Here’s what Joe tells them: On the morning of the 9th, he woke up to find Mengqi no longer in bed next to him—she was gone. But when he got up, he noticed that she had left behind her car keys, her cell phone, and her wallet. And perhaps most alarming of all, she had left her one-year-old daughter, Anna, at the house.

Right then and there, that raises red flags with police. Why wouldn’t he have called in her disappearance right away?

Also, she’s not in her car.

The majority of moms with a small child like that, who are obviously already attached to that child, they’re just not gonna leave.

They’re not gonna leave the kid.

They’re also just not gonna leave their wallet and everything at home.

Yeah, this is stupid.

So they’re like, okay, why didn’t you call us right then and there when you woke up, and she was gone, but everything was still at home? They ask him, was there some kind of fight? Is that why you weren’t alarmed?

And he’s like, no, the last fight they had was a week ago, and it really wasn’t even a big deal.

But Joe says he didn’t call because there’s one thing he’s suspicious of—he thinks there is another man in Mengqi’s life.

He shows the police Mengqi’s phone and her computer, along with texts she had sent to someone using a Chinese-based messaging app, most of which were sexually explicit and inferred some sort of emotional relationship.

Now we have motive.

So he’s like, this is why I’m not that worried—because she’s probably just with him.

Joe then shares with police that he and Mengqi have separate bank accounts, so it would be kind of easy for her to take off and start a new life with someone else without him really being aware of it.

Joe is then brought down to the police station to put his statement on record. He shows up without a lawyer and offers up pretty much the same details that he did back at the house. But he does add in a few new details—details that definitely raise some eyebrows around the station.

Like, the situation is already a little weird, but now the motive just starts to get a little weirder.

For example, Joe says that in the hours after his wife went missing—he wakes up, notices his wife is gone, takes his one-year-old daughter, Anna, puts her in the car, and goes for a long drive through remote parts of mid-Missouri looking for new hiking trails.

Okay.

So when police ask him, "Did you lock the doors to your house when you left?" he says yes.

Well, that tells them that he obviously wasn’t expecting his wife to come back home—because she didn’t have her keys. So how would she have gotten in the house if he wasn’t there?

It’s so crazy, the little things that can trip you up, right?

And I think this is a major, major red flag.

When a wife goes missing and the husband is nonchalant?

Well.

And also—okay—Josh Powell did the same exact thing, right? His wife goes missing, and in the middle of the night, he puts his kids in the car and goes on a camping trip where there’s no service, in the middle of nowhere, all day long. And then he comes home and goes, oh yeah, I guess my wife is missing.

But I was camping.

And who takes their one-year-old? No one’s going to take their one-year-old for that.

I mean, Joe says he was just going for a drive, but Josh had two little kids camping in a snowstorm.

No. He was dumping the body.

That’s insane, dude.

And I just think—insane.

Like, why?

I mean, Joe’s literally admitting that he was in remote parts of Missouri where he could easily hide a body.

It’s just a very big red flag.

And the whole thing just gets even weirder when, later that day, Joe agrees to an interview with a local news channel.

So again—another red flag that we see among fathers who kill their wives and the mother of their children.

He goes before cameras to say he wants his wife returned home soon for the sake of their one-year-old daughter.

He also implies on air that she very well may have run off with another man: "Yeah, I just hope that she's safe. I hope that she's with at least somebody who cares for her, you know, enough to keep her safe."

So it's just not the way you would expect a husband to talk about a missing wife, to air the dirty laundry, to imply that maybe the person she ran off with might kill her. I feel like at this point, it's pretty obvious to cops or detectives what's going on. Especially, honestly, the fact that she was talking to another man just gives way more motive for him to be like, "Hey, I'm going to kill you."

Yeah, like if he found the messages that night, yeah, he found those messages. Like, yeah, 100%.

So there's also more things that he said during this interview that detectives key in on, most specifically the fact that Joe refers to her in the past tense more than once during that press conference. Again, we know this is an obvious sign when people are lying about someone being alive. They will refer to them as the last time they saw them, which was dead. So she was, instead of "she is," that type of thing: “But yeah, she, I guess, she was just always kind of a reserved person and, um, sometimes she didn't talk to me a lot about what was going on in her life.”

So the police, at this point, do not have a good feeling about Joe, to say the least. But right now, there's nothing really to indicate foul play. Sure, Mengqi has been missing for about 48 hours. There's no blood, no weapon, no witnesses, no body. We are back to Josh Pal, the case. So now they start looking for a trail. If Mengqi really did go back to China to be with this man, they are going to follow that lead. There would have to be some sign of that—so a plane ticket, an Uber, money deducted from her personal account. But when they look into it, there's none of it, which is why police have no choice but to drop that theory and zoom in further on Joe and Mengqi’s past, their relationship.

So as we already know, things were not looking good for the couple's marriage. They were growing apart. Mengqi was possibly seeing someone else. But police found evidence that it wasn't just fights about money and parenting that drove a wedge between the couple. When Joe willingly handed over his phone as evidence, police found 10 hours' worth of recorded conversations between Mony and Joe on Joe's phone.

Crap.

So he was secretly recording their conversations, hours and hours. And guess what? They found four more hours of recorded conversation on Mengqi's phone.

Oh, so they were both recording. This is just like a bad sign for a marriage.

Oh, wow.

When Joe was asked why they kept these recordings of their conversations, he actually says it was a way to better help them communicate, so they could listen back after they fought and cooled off to see how they spoke to each other, maybe improve on their relationship, which, like, I guess it's not that dumb if you want to record a fight and then give it to your therapist and be like, "Here's a look in."

But if you are doing it in a marriage, it almost just feels like more... it just feels like it's that, a spite, right? Like, yeah, um, just ammo. "Look how you said this while we were fighting," type thing.

So let me just preface this by saying the conversations that are recorded do not look good for Joe, so it is a little weird he's recording them. The first recording happened back in late October 2018. This was right after Anna was born, and Mengqi's parents came to help out. One evening, Mengqi 's mother was making them dumplings for dinner, but Joe didn’t like...

I love... What's that really popular place that makes dumplings? I've been there once. Always busy. Um, Din Tai Fung.

Yeah, yeah, that place is so good. I do feel like we're sounding quite uncultured right now, but no, neither I nor Garrett have been. No, they have the best dumplings in all of the world.

Oh, that's—no, but I know they’re really popular. If anyone's been there, they know what I’m talking about. I actually have never been.

It's really good. I mean, it's a chain, so I’m sure there are way better, like mom-and-pop shops in more populated areas that...

Everyone—Garrett was joking about that being the best dumplings in the world.

No, they're good, yes, but people are going to see—okay, no, they're not the best in the world. I’m just saying.

I know, I was saying he was being sarcastic. I’m also not extremely cultured, but I do like Asian food. I’m not extremely cultured... what I’m saying is, we haven’t really had the opportunity to go.

If anyone wants to invite me to their house to have Asian food, I will come.

Okay, okay. So these conversations aren’t looking good for him.

Okay, so, she—her mother is making dumplings, and Joe does not like the way that she’s using their cutting board. It seems that he pulled Mengqi aside and started screaming at her. This is something that Mengqi caught on her phone. In the audio, you can hear him telling her there are going to be problems if she lets her parents stay.

When Mengqi tells him that he isn’t a god and doesn’t get to call the shots, he snaps back, saying he is a god and that Mengqi is brainless and incapable because she’s a woman.

Oh, kill Joe.

Oh, yeah, okay, okay. And sorry, these recordings of Joe's blatant emotional abuse and attempts to control Mengqi—they go on and on. As police discover in them, Joe says everything from threatening to physically kick Mengqi’s mother if she ever steps foot in their house again to Joe threatening to get Mengqi deported, to Joe then saying that M abuses him. It’s a lot of yelling, a lot of nonsense, a lot of toxicity, and a lot of gaslighting, honestly, on Joe’s part, is what police find, to the point where Mengqi actually says in one of these recordings, "You are brainwashing me."

So she knows—she's aware that she's stuck.

But there's one statement from Joe that really sets off alarm bells for investigators. During one of these conversations, it's when Joe tells Mengqi, "You think you are so empowered because of this society? Well, don't forget that nature exists and you're still just a woman."

So basically, he's saying men are stronger than women. You think because of the day and age we have, where women have all these rights and power—which is so ironic because she was making more money than him, yeah, like when they met, and he was just... he had an internship somewhere. Not that that matters, but it's just like his idea... his idea... he's acting like he's a billionaire and she’s some nobody.

You know what I’m saying? Even—I mean, obviously, even that’s not okay, but do you see where I’m coming from? Right? Like, it’s ridiculous. It’s when, like, it’s the idea of him touting that he is a man, which makes him correct, amazing, when, like, there’s no hard facts to back it up, type thing, is what you’re saying?

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I get that.

So he brings up this nature concept again later to Mengqi, basically survival of the fittest. This time he says, "You know how I conquer nature? I kill it. I grab its head and break its neck. That’s how you conquer nature." And he’s saying nature, but he’s referring to it in the context of like survival of the fittest, as in like, "I’m a man and you’re a woman." So technically, she’s nature.

This is so embarrassing. Yes, he’s very... he is very much like, "This is Alpha." This is cringing me out a little bit.

So, to police, this sounds like a blatant threat. Like, listening to these fights, they’re like, this guy is blatantly threatening her life, like saying, "I am stronger than you and could kill you, basically, no two ways about it."

At one point, things get so intense between the couple that Mengqi actually called Joe’s mother, Jean, to come over and try to talk to her son. Sensing her urgency, her mother-in-law made the 2-hour drive to the couple’s house that day, but to be honest, she didn’t seem to help much. By the way, that meeting was recorded as well.

And while Jean says she’s not taking sides, that she’s just a mediator, she really doesn’t do anything when her son threatens Mengqi. She—right in front of his mom—asks if he should just smack her or beat her down to get her to behave the way she wants. He says that in front of his mom, and the mom really doesn’t say anything.

So, whether... what’s up, Mom? Whether or not we got some problems going on here... well, I mean, never mind what I was just going to say. Sometimes we like to repeat trauma behavior.

Oh, I get what you’re saying. Like, maybe it’s happened to her?

Yes, so maybe he learned this behavior. I’m not saying I have no evidence to back that up. I’m just saying, statistically, we know that we do repeat trauma behavior. We like to marry our mothers or our fathers. That’s just the way it goes.

I mean, I could see... I know what you’re saying.

So, whether or not there were a series of physical altercations between Joe and Mengqi, I am not sure. It doesn’t seem like any of those were caught on tape, but I can safely say, as with any domestically abusive partnership—whether that’s physical or just verbally abusive—there’s usually a big reason why someone sticks around, and oftentimes, it is financial.

Yeah, but in Mengqi’s case, it may have been because of her immigration status.

Oh, yeah, 100%. Just five months... that’s scary. After she went missing, she was supposed to have another interview to secure her green card. So, it’s very possible she was waiting for that last hurdle before leaving Joe, because if she left him, she could have easily been deported. And then what is she going to do with Anna? Does she lose custody? It’s a whole thing.

So, while there was no concrete evidence that Joe Elledge had done anything to his wife at this point, those recordings were more than enough for police to consider him their prime suspect. About two weeks after her disappearance, the Columbia Police Department publicly stated they were opening up a criminal investigation on her disappearance. And that same day, October 25th, 2019, police came knocking on Joe Elledge’s door with a warrant—but not for Mengqi’s death. This was on completely different charges. It was for child abuse.

Trigger warning: I’m just very quickly going to be talking about child abuse, so if that is a trigger, just go ahead and skip.

An anonymous source had called the police to say Mengqi had confided in her before her death that Joe had hit one-year-old Anna so hard—spanked her—that he had left a bruise on her bottom. And a statement that was actually validated when detectives found pictures of that bruise on Mengqi’s iPad.

While Joe argued he was playing and maybe pinched her a little too hard, investigators knew a pinch doesn’t make that large of a bruise, and it rarely turns purple, blue, and yellow like the one in the photo. And I just can’t with that. I can’t.

So, Joe was brought down to the station and charged with a felony for child abuse. What could a one-year-old do? Yep. His bond was set at $500,000, a price officers knew Joe couldn’t afford.

Except this is obviously all part of their plan. With Joe behind bars, they are one step closer to nabbing him for Mengqi’s disappearance. But that wasn’t all the detectives accomplished that afternoon. See, they didn’t just show up at the house with an arrest warrant for Joe. They also showed up with a search warrant for the property. So, while he’s in jail, they are searching his property.

They find some pretty interesting stuff—like Mengqi’s passport, all of her luggage. This is a very clear indicator that Mengqi had not fled the country to be with someone else, as Joe had initially theorized to police.

But there was also a backpack full of notes belonging to Joe. One with the heading, "What to tell the police." There was another note in this backpack that seemed like a reminder he had written to himself to “speak to Mengqi in the present tense instead of past.” But yeah, she... I guess she was just always kind of a reserved person.

Wow, this is crazy. Something he had already dropped the ball on. It’s almost like he had flashcards that he was studying on how to act after.

But there was one thing officers collected that, at the time, might not have seemed too significant but would actually end up playing a huge role in the case later. And that was a pair of muddy hiking boots.

Now, at the same time, officers are analyzing Joe’s cell phone data, because remember, he told them that instead of calling the police when he woke up that morning and found his wife missing, he drove around with his daughter looking for new hiking trails. One plus one equals two. They’re hoping if they can ping his cell phone, they might know where to search. And they find that Joe visited the area along the Lamine River. This is about a 40-minute drive from their house, and he was there for about 30 minutes according to his cell phone records—something that Joe never mentioned in his conversations with police.

So naturally, they think, “Okay, he went to a river. It is very possible that he left Mengqi’s remains there.” So, they conduct several searches of the area—from highway patrol and cadaver dogs scanning the perimeter, to dive teams searching the water—but nothing turns up. Still, police know they have the right guy. Those voice recordings, especially, are haunting them, as they are for the prosecutors who are now looking at Mengqi’s case. With Joe behind bars for child abuse, they take their chances, even though they still don’t have a body. This is rare in cases like this, but prosecutors feel confident that a court will see their side of things. So, on February 19th, 2020, they file first-degree murder charges against Joe.

Okay, but that doesn’t mean they’re giving up the search for Mengqi. Investigators still believe her final resting place has to be somewhere along that river where his phone was pinging. So much so that Mengqi’s parents even hold a memorial for her there, around March of 2020. That’s so sad.

But for the next year, that’s how things stand. Joe and Mengqi’s daughter, Anna, stays with Mengqi’s parents until their visa is up, and they have to go back to China. Afterward, she goes to Joe’s mother’s house, which I’m sure is just absolutely devastating.

Oof, I don’t know how I feel about that. I know people probably have a lot of different opinions, but that is so hard. That’s so difficult. I’m sure it’s case by case. But I guess for me, if my... like, should the kid really go to the killer’s parents?

No. Like, I know that’s probably more complicated than that; it doesn’t mean the parents are killers, obviously, so on and so forth. But the other parents’ daughter just died, and they should probably get the granddaughter.

Well, I just guess I don’t understand how there’s not a rule in place in immigration, where if there’s like a court case or something going on that is unsettled, you can’t extend your visa. Just give them, like, a five-year residency or something. Right? ‘Cause it’s like they’re obviously going to want to be there for the court hearings. Like, they’re here because their daughter just got killed—murdered, is missing in the US. Yeah. So it’s like, to me, I just don’t quite understand how there’s not some loophole or even just... I don’t know how I feel about the daughter going to Joe’s parents, especially after he’s the prime suspect and has been charged.

Well, not even that—I mean, there are recordings of the mom obviously not doing anything while Joe’s threatening her. Yeah, like that should raise red flags where it’s like, “Hey, we probably shouldn’t put that kid in that household.” I don’t know, just my thoughts. I’m not a parent. I don’t know how hard that would be to hear your kid threaten someone’s life. I just know, like, if I know personally, if one of our parents heard one of us do that, it would raise alarm bells and they would be like, “Absolutely not. No. Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Right, so I don’t know.

Meanwhile, Joe Elledge sits behind bars awaiting his trial, while the hope of ever finding Mengqi’s body kind of dwindles. But that’s until March of 2021. On the 25th, a hiker named Steven Roberts is strolling through a wooded area of Rockbridge Memorial State Park. Obviously, this is the same park that Mengqi and Joe got engaged in back in 2017.

As he makes his way further down a path lined with juniper trees, he spots something in the dirt. It's actually a pop of color that's just standing out. He gets closer and sees that it's a woman's purse. The hiker uses his walking stick to poke around a little further, and then he spots a pair of sneakers. That's when he finds human remains lying face down in the dirt in this park.

Steven reported the discovery as soon as he could, and within hours, he was leading detectives to the site. Once they looked inside the purse, they found identifying documents belonging to Mengqi. Not only that, the red, white, and blue purse and black shoes found at the scene fit the description of the items Joe said Mengqi had taken with her the day she disappeared.

Finally, after 17 long months, Mengqi’s body was found, and the final pieces of the puzzle would soon fall into place. But given that Mengqi had been left to the elements for so long, there was only so much they could learn from an autopsy. One thing was clear, though: Mengqi had three broken ribs on her left side and one broken rib on her right.

To the prosecution, this was clear evidence that Mengqi had been beaten before she died. There was just one detail they needed to prove: that Joe was, in fact, the one who caused these injuries. Shockingly, that connection didn't come from a piece of hair or blood or even fingerprints left on Mengqi's items. It came from a tree.

Remember how I briefly mentioned that pair of muddy hiking boots police collected from Joe and Mengqi's apartment the day of his arrest? Well, it turns out that caked and dried mud on those boots held everything the prosecution needed to place Joe at the scene of the crime. FX found 12 different types of vegetation in his boots, and plants—just like people and animals—have their own unique strands of DNA.

Detectives took samples from Mengqi's burial site alongside Joe's boots and sent them to the Missouri Botanic Garden. There, they were analyzed by plant population geneticists. Once they were finished with their analysis, they concluded the juniper needles in Joe's boots came from the exact trees surrounding Mengqi’s grave.

I know you could even do that! So, this is what Joe tells the jury at trial when he took the stand: He said, on the night in question, October 8th, 2019, he gave Mengqi a massage. He tried to initiate sex, but when he went to undress Mengqi, she stopped him. She told him she was meeting with someone the next morning, and that’s when Joe confronted her about the messages he had found on her devices—the messages she had been sending to another man.

Joe said he got dressed and planned to leave for the night, but when he told Mengqi he was taking Anna with him, she forcefully pushed him. So, he pushed her back, and that’s when she hit her head against the kitchen cabinet. She was still conscious, he said, so he led Mengqi to the couch to rest, got Anna, and left the house for 45 minutes to cool off.

When he came back, he said Mengqi had moved herself to the bed. She was still fully dressed but asleep. Finally, he woke up at around 5:00 a.m. when he heard Anna cry. But when he came back to the bedroom and checked on Mengqi, he realized she had died in her sleep.

Oh, give me a break.

Now, I'm not sure why Joe or his defense team thought this would be convincing to the jury. There are just so many plot holes in this story. She has like five broken ribs. Also, if you find your wife unresponsive, you would probably call 911. You wouldn't bury her.

Also, keep in mind, while he's burying Mengqi, his one-year-old daughter is alone in the car. That's some of the most messed up stuff. For at least 30 minutes, he leaves his one-year-old daughter alone in the car to bury his wife—the mother.

Okay, the details of this case just get worse and worse and worse. After 10 days of testimony, closing statements were made, and the jury left to deliberate. They found Joe not guilty of first-degree murder but guilty of second-degree murder. They think that it was in the heat of the moment. It was a fight that turned ugly. What is wrong with juries these days, man? Last week, I mean, it's possible the jury dropped the ball. This week, the jury dropped the ball. I'm getting sick of you guys.

So they recommended the judge give him 28 years in prison. This is one for every year of Mengqi’s life, and the judge agreed. But that wasn't it for Joe. He still had to face trial for those child abuse charges—charges he pleaded not guilty to initially. But in February of 2022, he finally changed his mind. He was then given an additional 10 years to his sentence, bringing his total time behind bars to 38 years.

As of June 2024, Joe Elledge was trying to appeal his second-degree murder conviction, stating ineffective assistance of counsel. He said the defense brought in unqualified evidence and photographs that were irrelevant to the case. He also said he was called as a witness by the defense when he wished to stay silent. Really, what he wanted was a last desperate attempt to control the narrative, just like he tried to control his wife. But in August of 2024, Joe's appeal was denied. As of this recording, he remains behind bars at the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Missouri.

And that is the closing of the case. I don’t know… you know, people will always disappoint me. I just think— I just think Joe’s a bad dude. So many bad people out there. It’s crazy. And like, honestly, Mengqi is not the only victim in this case. Like we often say, her parents, but also, there is a one-year-old daughter who not only was being abused—or at least once, that we know of—but also now grows up without parents. And like, has to learn all this? Yes, and like, your dad killed your mother while you were sitting in the car? Like, that is actually awful.

Yeah, it’s horrible. It’s just completely heartless. And there were so many minutes and hours that he could have changed that—he could have decided not to do that.

That is the case of Mengqi Ji. Please keep her family in your thoughts today. You know, just remember that this is more than a true crime case. These are real people involved, and I just want to maybe take today to honor that.

Thank you guys so much for listening to this week’s episode, and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.

And I hate it.

Goodbye.

‍

Sorry, no sources available yet.