Murder of Teresa Bradish by her dad, Jerry Joe Bradish, detailed on Into The Darkness

Into the Darkness on Investigation Discovery details the murder of 13-year-old Teresa Bradish, who was sexually assaulted and murdered by her own father, Jerry Joe Bradish.

In September 1985, Teresa was living in a group home in Fremont County, Wyoming, for troubled teens when her father picked her up and drove her to a secluded area, where they talked for a while before he sexually assaulted and strangled her to death.

Afterward, he dumped her nude body near Wyoming Highway 789 north of Hudson, where she was found hours later. Homicide detectives recovered sperm samples from the victim’s body in an effort to help find her killer but to no avail.

In 2007, more than 20 years later, William Braddock — a detective with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department — asked the Wyoming State Crime Lab to retest the evidence found in the victim’s body. When the results indicated that the donor of the sperm had to be a parent, he went to Texas, where the girl’s father was living, to retrieve a sample of his DNA.

Braddock was able to find a pair of work gloves that Jerry had discarded in a garbage can outside his home. When testing showed that his DNA matched the DNA found at the crime scene, he was arrested and extradited to Wyoming to face criminal charges. He was held on a $1 million bond.

After Jerry raped and murdered his daughter, police said he put her body in a location where she could easily be found because he wanted to collect on a $10,000 life insurance policy.

To avoid the death penalty, Jerry pled guilty to first-degree murder and second-degree sexual assault in 2008. He was sentenced to life in prison with an additional 18 to 20 years.

Into The Darkness airs at 10/9c on Investigation Discovery.