MUSKEGON, Mich. — A Muskegon County judge has ruled the sheriff’s office has the right to destroy a van that was key to both murder convictions against Jeffrey Willis.
51-year-old Willis is serving two life sentences at Michigan's Saginaw Correctional Facility for the murders of Jessica Heeringa in 2013 and Rebekah Bletsch in 2014.
The judge filed an opinion on March 24, after the prosecutor filed a motion to destroy the van last year. It had been in storage since 2016 and was accruing storage costs nearing $100,000.
The judge denied a legal brief submitted by Willis to turn the van over to his representative.
It's not clear when the van will be destroyed.
The Dodge Caravan and evidence removed from inside the van was used by Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson to secure guilty verdicts.
Both Norton Shores Police and Muskegon County Sheriff's Office support destroying the van.
The effort to dispose of the van has the support of the two police agencies that investigated the homicides, Norton Shores Police and Muskegon County Sheriff's Office.
Muskegon County Sheriff Michael Poulin previously told 13 ON YOUR SIDE he hopes "this van never sees the light of day, we'd like to see it destroyed."
Poulin doesn't want the van to become a reminder of the crimes Willis committed. "It's an image and it's a remembrance of just pure evil, it needs to be removed and it needs to be destroyed," he said.
Two separate Muskegon County juries reached guilty of first-degree premeditated murder verdicts after long trials in Muskegon County Circuit Court. The conviction on the Bletsch case happened in 2017, and the Heeringa case the following year.
In 2020 the Michigan appeals court affirmed the convictions of Jeffrey Willis.
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