The Last Ride of Britney Gregory

0:00 Speaker 1: On July twenty seventh, two thousand and four, sixteen days

0:03 Speaker 1: after sixteen year old Britney Gregory vanished from her father's

0:06 Speaker 1: home in Brick Township, New Jersey, a search team followed

0:10 Speaker 1: bloodhounds into a wooded corridor off Ridge Avenue in Lakewood,

0:14 Speaker 1: and there, in a shallow grave barely two feet deep,

0:17 Speaker 1: they found her. What investigators would eventually learn was that

0:21 Speaker 1: Brittany had not been taken by a stranger in the night.

0:25 Speaker 1: She had accepted a ride from a man she believed

0:27 Speaker 1: she could trust, and that decision, made in a moment

0:30 Speaker 1: of impatience, driven by the ordinary desire of a teenage

0:33 Speaker 1: girl to see her boyfriend, would cost her everything. Britney

0:37 Speaker 1: Gregory was born into a family that, like many families,

0:40 Speaker 1: had its complications. Her parents, Deborah Gregory and Joseph Dunn,

0:45 Speaker 1: did not live together. Her mother, Deborah, made her home

0:49 Speaker 1: in Beechwood, a small borough in Ocean County. Her father,

0:54 Speaker 1: Joseph Dunn, lived on Greenwood Loop Road in Brick Township,

0:58 Speaker 1: a modest community along the Jersey Shore about sixty miles

1:02 Speaker 1: south of New York City. Brittany had grown up between

1:05 Speaker 1: the two households, and by the time she was a teenager,

1:09 Speaker 1: she was living primarily with her father in Brick. She

1:12 Speaker 1: had a sister named Bobby Joe Dunn, who was nineteen

1:15 Speaker 1: at the time of Britney's death. Her other siblings included

1:18 Speaker 1: Brianna Gregory, Brian Gregory, and a brother who went by

1:22 Speaker 1: the nickname Boomer William Gregory. She was the youngest among them,

1:26 Speaker 1: and by all accounts, she carried that position with grace

1:30 Speaker 1: rather than expectation. Brittany had attended elementary and middle school

1:34 Speaker 1: in Tom's River before transferring to Brick Township Memorial High

1:37 Speaker 1: School at the start of ninth grade. The move suited her.

1:41 Speaker 1: She was the kind of student teachers remembered not because

1:44 Speaker 1: she was disruptive or difficult, but because she was genuinely engaged.

1:49 Speaker 1: She earned straight a's. She loved science, and she had

1:52 Speaker 1: already set her sights on a future career as a

1:55 Speaker 1: forensic scientist, a goal that, given everything that would follow,

2:00 Speaker 1: carry's a particular and heartbreaking weight. Her classmates at Brick

2:04 Speaker 1: Memorial described her in terms that went beyond academic achievement.

2:08 Speaker 1: John Barrett, a sixteen year old who knew her from school,

2:12 Speaker 1: would later say simply, she made everything nicer. It was

2:16 Speaker 1: not an elaborate tribute, but it was an honest one.

2:19 Speaker 1: She had a warmth to her, a quality that made

2:22 Speaker 1: the people around her feel better for her presence. Darlene

2:25 Speaker 1: and a Massaurus whose son attended brick memorial with Britney,

2:29 Speaker 1: described her as someone who consistently put others ahead of herself.

2:33 Speaker 1: Brittany was not your typical teenager, and a Massaurus told

2:37 Speaker 1: reporters she always put other people ahead of herself. She

2:41 Speaker 1: was very kind and wonderful. Her mother, Deborah Gregory, spoke

2:46 Speaker 1: of her daughter in terms that made clear just how

2:48 Speaker 1: central Brittany was to her life. She's the sixteen year

2:52 Speaker 1: old kid everybody wants, Deborah said, she was my prize.

2:56 Speaker 1: It was like she was plucked right out of heaven.

2:59 Speaker 1: Brittany had blue eyes and long blonde hair. In photographs

3:03 Speaker 1: taken throughout her life, the expression she wore most often

3:06 Speaker 1: was a smile, not the posed, constructed kind, but the

3:10 Speaker 1: kind that seemed to come easily naturally, as though the

3:14 Speaker 1: false setting of her face was joy. By July two

3:17 Speaker 1: thousand and four, she had just completed her sophomore year.

3:20 Speaker 1: She was sixteen years old, doing well in school, and

3:24 Speaker 1: she had a boyfriend she was eager to see. It

3:27 Speaker 1: was a Sunday evening, it was summer. It should have

3:30 Speaker 1: been unremarkable. At approximately eight thirty in the evening on Sunday,

3:35 Speaker 1: July eleventh, two thousand and four, Britney Gregory picked up

3:38 Speaker 1: a phone and called her mother. She was calling from

3:41 Speaker 1: her father's house on Greenwood Loop Road in Brick. Joseph

3:45 Speaker 1: Dunn was not home at the time. His girlfriend had

3:48 Speaker 1: not yet returned for the evening either, leaving Britney alone

3:52 Speaker 1: in the house. She wanted a ride to her boyfriend's house,

3:56 Speaker 1: and she was asking her mother to arrange one. Deborah

3:59 Speaker 1: Gregory told her daughter she could not immediately come herself,

4:02 Speaker 1: but that Britney's sister could give her a ride if

4:04 Speaker 1: she was willing to wait about forty five minutes. It

4:07 Speaker 1: was a small asque forty five minutes, Britney said she understood,

4:12 Speaker 1: but Brittany was sixteen and she was impatient. Forty five

4:16 Speaker 1: minutes felt like a long time when all she wanted

4:19 Speaker 1: was to be somewhere else. Around that same time, a

4:22 Speaker 1: man named Jack Fuller Junior arrived at the Greenwood Loop

4:25 Speaker 1: roadhouse looking for Joseph Dunn. Fuller was thirty eight years old.

4:30 Speaker 1: He lived on Western Drive in the Ramtown section of

4:32 Speaker 1: Howell Township, about a mile and a half away. He

4:35 Speaker 1: and Dunn had known each other for years. Fuller's daughter,

4:39 Speaker 1: Cassandra was close friends with Britney's sister, Bobby Joe. In

4:44 Speaker 1: the world that Britney occupied, the network of fathers and

4:47 Speaker 1: friends and neighbors that constituted life in that corner of

4:50 Speaker 1: Ocean County, Fuller was a familiar face, not a stranger,

4:55 Speaker 1: someone her family knew. Fuller found that Dunn was not home.

4:59 Speaker 1: Brittany was the alone, and when the conversation turned to

5:02 Speaker 1: her needing a ride, Fuller offered to take her. She accepted.

5:07 Speaker 1: It was the last decision Britney Gregory would ever make.

5:11 Speaker 1: When her father's girlfriend returned to the house later that night,

5:14 Speaker 1: Britney was not there. When her mother tried calling back

5:18 Speaker 1: later in the evening, there was no answer. By morning,

5:21 Speaker 1: the family knew something was wrong. Britney Gregory was reported missing.

5:26 Speaker 1: What followed was one of the most extensive missing person

5:29 Speaker 1: searches in the recent history of Ocean County, New Jersey.

5:33 Speaker 1: Brick Township police, alongside officers from throughout Ocean and Monmouth

5:37 Speaker 1: Counties began combing the area almost immediately. Police helicopters swept

5:42 Speaker 1: over heavily wooded and swampy terrain. Bloodhounds were brought in,

5:47 Speaker 1: volunteers joined professional search teams. At the peak of the effort,

5:51 Speaker 1: hundreds of law enforcement officers were involved, many of them

5:55 Speaker 1: donating their own time beyond their regular shifts. For the

5:59 Speaker 1: community of brick Day Township, which had long prided itself

6:02 Speaker 1: on its safety. It had been cited as the second

6:05 Speaker 1: safest city in the country. The disappearance of a sixteen

6:09 Speaker 1: year old girl was deeply destabilising. Residents posted flyers bearing

6:13 Speaker 1: Britney's image throughout the area. Her description was submitted to

6:18 Speaker 1: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Her face

6:22 Speaker 1: appeared regularly on television news programs across the metropolitan region.

6:27 Speaker 1: On July eighteen, exactly one week after Britney was last seen,

6:31 Speaker 1: Ocean County authorities arrested Jack Fuller, Junior and charged him

6:35 Speaker 1: with murder. The arrest came before her body had been found,

6:39 Speaker 1: an unusual step that reflected the strength of the evidence

6:42 Speaker 1: investigators had already assembled. Fuller was booked into the Ocean

6:46 Speaker 1: County Jail on one million dollar bail. He had initially

6:49 Speaker 1: denied any involvement in Britney's disappearance, but investigators had more

6:54 Speaker 1: than they were revealing. A police informant had made a

6:57 Speaker 1: secret audio tape in which Fuller was recorded asking whether

7:00 Speaker 1: burying someone four foot underground was deep enough to protect

7:03 Speaker 1: a body from animals. On the same recording, Fuller referenced

7:07 Speaker 1: Thomas Long, a longtime friend also from Howell Township, in

7:11 Speaker 1: a way that suggested Long needed to be silenced because

7:14 Speaker 1: he had last seen Britney alive and in Fuller's car.

7:17 Speaker 1: Thomas Long was thirty nine years old. He confirmed to

7:20 Speaker 1: investigators that on the evening of July eleventh, he had

7:24 Speaker 1: been with Fuller, and that Fuller had given him a

7:26 Speaker 1: ride home to Howell before Britney moved from the back

7:29 Speaker 1: seat to the front. Long described the brief moment he

7:32 Speaker 1: had observed between them, noting that Brittany had not engaged

7:36 Speaker 1: with him at all, that she had been focused entirely

7:38 Speaker 1: on Fuller. He told investigators he was cooperating fully. On

7:43 Speaker 1: July nineteenth, Fuller appeared in court before State Superior Court

7:47 Speaker 1: Judge James Sida, wearing a red jail jumpsuit, his eyes

7:51 Speaker 1: avoiding the packed courtroom gallery filled with Britney's family members

7:54 Speaker 1: and friends. Deborah Gregory was in that court room. She

7:58 Speaker 1: had spent the prior day driving streets around brick and Howell,

8:02 Speaker 1: searching for any trace of her daughter. On the morning

8:05 Speaker 1: of Fuller's court appearance, before his arrest, he had ridden

8:09 Speaker 1: in the back seat of her car and offered her

8:11 Speaker 1: a hug. She would later recall that embrace with visceral revulsion.

8:15 Speaker 1: He gave me a hug, and I just felt cold,

8:19 Speaker 1: she told reporters, like, you don't mean this. If I

8:22 Speaker 1: had known then, he wouldn't have made it to the courthouse.

8:26 Speaker 1: Standing on the courthouse steps, Deborah was direct. She was

8:30 Speaker 1: just a good kid. She said, I want her back.

8:33 Speaker 1: I want her back, Just give her to me. Inside,

8:37 Speaker 1: she positioned herself at the end of a third row

8:39 Speaker 1: bench and told family members she needed to see his face.

8:43 Speaker 1: I want to look right in that man's face, she said,

8:46 Speaker 1: I want him to see me. On July twenty fifth,

8:49 Speaker 1: two weeks to the hour after Britney's disappearance, several hundred

8:53 Speaker 1: people gathered at Windward Beach Park in Brick Township for

8:56 Speaker 1: a twilight prayer. Vigil Estimates placed attendance as high as

9:00 Speaker 1: two thousand. Classmates wore shirts bearing Britney's photograph. Her sister Brianna,

9:06 Speaker 1: read a poem written in Britney's voice, describing her passage

9:09 Speaker 1: into death. Sobs moved through the crowd as she read.

9:13 Speaker 1: Brick Township Mayor Joseph Scarpelli called it the worst tragedy

9:17 Speaker 1: the town had ever seen. Two days later, on July

9:20 Speaker 1: twenty seventh, two thousand and four, the bloodhound teams found her.

9:24 Speaker 1: Britney's body was recovered from a shallow grave beneath a

9:27 Speaker 1: power line off Ridge Avenue in Lakewood, approximately one and

9:31 Speaker 1: a half miles from Fuller's home and not far from

9:34 Speaker 1: where she had lived with her father in Brick. She

9:36 Speaker 1: had been buried without clothing. An autopsy conducted by doctor

9:40 Speaker 1: hydeout Park confirmed blunt trauma to Britney's head. However, sixteen

9:45 Speaker 1: days of summer decomposition had progressed to the point where

9:48 Speaker 1: a definitive cause of death could not be established. Doctor

9:52 Speaker 1: Park could not rule out asphyxiation or suffocation as contributing

9:56 Speaker 1: or primary factors. The head injuries alone were not deter

10:00 Speaker 1: Jerman to be fatal. Whatever had killed Brittany had happened

10:03 Speaker 1: inside that car. Blood recovered from Jack Fuller's vehicle was

10:07 Speaker 1: subsequently confirmed through forensic analysis to belong to Britney Gregory.

10:11 Speaker 1: Her private funeral was held on August second, two thousand

10:14 Speaker 1: and four, in Brick Township. An impromptum memorial grew near

10:18 Speaker 1: the school. Online condolences came in from strangers who had

10:22 Speaker 1: seen her photograph on the news and found themselves undone

10:25 Speaker 1: by her smile. All around the funeral home were photographs

10:29 Speaker 1: of Britney captured in moments of ordinary life, moments that

10:33 Speaker 1: now felt unbearably precious. To understand what happened to Britney Gregory,

10:38 Speaker 1: it is necessary to understand who Jack Fuller Junior was,

10:41 Speaker 1: not as a monster in the abstract, but as a

10:43 Speaker 1: specific person with a specific history that had been visible

10:46 Speaker 1: for years. Fuller had an extensive criminal record. In May

10:51 Speaker 1: and August of two thousand, he had been sentenced to

10:54 Speaker 1: five years in prison on two separate theft cases in

10:57 Speaker 1: Ocean and Monmouth Counties. Those sentences ran un concurrently, and

11:01 Speaker 1: he was released in two thousand and two. In the

11:03 Speaker 1: two years Between that release in Britney's murder, he had

11:06 Speaker 1: been returned to custody for three months on a probation violation,

11:10 Speaker 1: had pleaded guilty to assault, and had been indicted on

11:13 Speaker 1: a drug charge. He was most recently released from prison

11:16 Speaker 1: in April two thousand and three, just fifteen months before

11:20 Speaker 1: the night he offered Brittany a ride. Neighbors and acquaintances

11:23 Speaker 1: described Fuller to reporters as a temperamental man with a

11:26 Speaker 1: known addiction to crack cocaine. He lived with his father,

11:30 Speaker 1: His daughter Cassandra's friendship with Bobby Joe Dunn had inserted

11:34 Speaker 1: him into the peripheral orbit of the Gregory Dunn family,

11:38 Speaker 1: not close but familiar known. After his arrest, Fuller maintained

11:42 Speaker 1: his innocence for over a year. He pleaded not guilty.

11:46 Speaker 1: His defense attorney, John Goyn's filed motions to suppress evidence,

11:51 Speaker 1: to change venue, and to dismiss the indictment on the

11:54 Speaker 1: basis that no cause of death had been definitively established.

11:58 Speaker 1: Ocean County executive assists and Prosecutor Ronald E. F. Diggy countered,

12:03 Speaker 1: each of them, maintaining the state had ample evidence and

12:06 Speaker 1: that the decomposed state of the body. The very result

12:09 Speaker 1: of Fuller's own actions was the reason cause of death

12:12 Speaker 1: could not be precisely identified. By July two thousand five,

12:16 Speaker 1: the one year anniversary of Britney's disappearance, the family was

12:20 Speaker 1: still waiting for a trial. Joseph Dunn told reporters he

12:23 Speaker 1: missed her every single day. Her brother William, offered a

12:27 Speaker 1: more conflicted reflection, one marked by regret as much as grief.

12:32 Speaker 1: I missed this kid every day, he said. He described

12:36 Speaker 1: realizing too late how little time he had invested in

12:39 Speaker 1: his family. I was never there when I was supposed

12:42 Speaker 1: to be, he said. I feel like I have failed

12:45 Speaker 1: as a brother. On October eighteen, two thousand five, one

12:48 Speaker 1: week before his trial was scheduled to begin, in Tom's River,

12:52 Speaker 1: Jack Fuller Junior, entered a court room and stood before

12:54 Speaker 1: Superior Court Judge Vincent J. Grasso. He pleaded guilty to

12:58 Speaker 1: a single count of murder. What came next was one

13:01 Speaker 1: of the most chilling judicial confessions in Ocean County's modern history.

13:06 Speaker 1: Responding to questions from his own attorney, John Goyns, Fuller

13:10 Speaker 1: described the events of July eleventh, two thousand and four,

13:13 Speaker 1: in methodical, emotionless detail. After dropping off Thomas Long at

13:18 Speaker 1: his home in Howell, Britney moved from the back seat

13:21 Speaker 1: to the front seat of Fuller's car. Shortly afterward, Fuller

13:25 Speaker 1: stopped the vehicle and produced a crack pipe. Britney, a

13:29 Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl who had been raised to have standards,

13:32 Speaker 1: reacted as any decent person might. She raised her hand

13:36 Speaker 1: toward the pipe, raised her voice, and demanded that he stop.

13:40 Speaker 1: She told him she did not want him smoking crack

13:42 Speaker 1: cocaine in front of her. Fuller's response was to punch

13:46 Speaker 1: her in the head at least twice. He admitted this

13:49 Speaker 1: without hesitation in open court. When Goyins asked whether he

13:53 Speaker 1: had struck her with the intent to incapacitate her, Fuller responded,

13:58 Speaker 1: I did. Brittany began to bleed profusely from her nose

14:01 Speaker 1: and mouth. She lost consciousness. According to Fuller's own account,

14:06 Speaker 1: she began making gurgling sounds, the sound produced when blood

14:10 Speaker 1: or fluid enters the airway of an unconscious person. Her

14:14 Speaker 1: head slumped to one side, and Jack Fuller continued to

14:17 Speaker 1: smoke his cocaine. He did not call for help. He

14:21 Speaker 1: did not attempt to revive her. He did not stop.

14:24 Speaker 1: Only after he had finished getting high did he turn

14:27 Speaker 1: to check on the girl sitting next to him. By then,

14:30 Speaker 1: she was no longer breathing. The court room was not

14:33 Speaker 1: prepared for the specificity of what Fuller revealed. Joseph Dunn

14:37 Speaker 1: stormed out of the room when Fuller acknowledged hearing the

14:40 Speaker 1: gurgling sound and doing nothing. Outside the courtroom, one of

14:44 Speaker 1: Britney's sisters collapsed and required medical attention. Others sat weeping, quietly,

14:50 Speaker 1: absorbing words that had been held in silence for more

14:52 Speaker 1: than a year. Fuller kept his account confined to what

14:56 Speaker 1: he had to disclose. He offered no explanation for why

14:59 Speaker 1: Brittney was buried without clothing. He said nothing about the

15:03 Speaker 1: specific sequence of events between her death and the grave.

15:07 Speaker 1: The audio tape filled in some of the silence, but

15:09 Speaker 1: not enough. Executive Assistant Prosecutor Ronald eff Delgny had discussed

15:15 Speaker 1: the plea agreement with Britney's family before it was finalized.

15:18 Speaker 1: They had agreed to proceed. They wished to proceed with

15:22 Speaker 1: this plea agreement. Delini said in court. It was a

15:25 Speaker 1: decision made, as such decisions often are in exhaustion and

15:29 Speaker 1: grief by people who needed the legal process to end

15:32 Speaker 1: so that something, anything resembling closure, might begin. On January thirteenth,

15:37 Speaker 1: two thousand and six, Jack Fuller Junior, now forty years old,

15:41 Speaker 1: returned to Superior Court in Tom's River to be sentenced

15:44 Speaker 1: before Judge Grasso. He arrived in red prison scrubs, shaved head,

15:49 Speaker 1: wrist shackles, a vein pulsed visibly at his temple. He

15:53 Speaker 1: sat motionless and said nothing. The courtroom gallery was filled

15:57 Speaker 1: with Britney's family, her parents, her siblings, her extended relatives,

16:03 Speaker 1: all of them present to witness the formal conclusion of

16:05 Speaker 1: a legal process that had begun the morning she did

16:08 Speaker 1: not come home. Judge Grasso imposed the sentence agreed upon

16:12 Speaker 1: in the plea thirty years in prison without the possibility

16:15 Speaker 1: of parole. Executive Assistant Prosecutor Robert Gasser addressed the court.

16:21 Speaker 1: It was a horrible, senseless killing. He said, it was

16:24 Speaker 1: an intensely tragic event, particularly because of the fact that

16:27 Speaker 1: she was sixteen, a good student, and had a good

16:30 Speaker 1: life ahead of her. It really gripped not just Ocean County,

16:34 Speaker 1: It gripped the entire metropolitan area with the horror of

16:37 Speaker 1: seeking out the body, and the lapse of sixteen days

16:40 Speaker 1: until the body was found. Under new Jersey law, at

16:43 Speaker 1: the time, Fuller had been eligible for the death penalty.

16:46 Speaker 1: The plea agreement took that option off the table. He

16:49 Speaker 1: would not seek parole. He would not be a freeman until,

16:53 Speaker 1: at the earliest he was well into his seventies if

16:55 Speaker 1: he lived that long. The case had consumed nearly two

16:59 Speaker 1: years of legal persons, mobilized hundreds of officers, and drawn

17:03 Speaker 1: national media attention. It had produced a confession so cold

17:07 Speaker 1: that even those trained to hear such things found it

17:10 Speaker 1: difficult to fully absorb. Deborah Gregory did not make a

17:13 Speaker 1: formal statement that day. She had already said what needed

17:17 Speaker 1: to be said in court rooms on courthouse steps, in

17:20 Speaker 1: the raw and unvarnished language of a mother who had

17:23 Speaker 1: lost the child she called her prize. No sentence she

17:26 Speaker 1: knew would restore what had been taken. The murder of

17:29 Speaker 1: Britney Gregory demonstrated with devastating clarity that the greatest threat

17:33 Speaker 1: a person can face is not always the unknown. Sometimes

17:37 Speaker 1: it is the man who already knows your father's name,

17:40 Speaker 1: the one who shows up at the door looking for

17:42 Speaker 1: someone else and stays just long enough to offer a favor.

17:45 Speaker 1: Britney Gregory had done nothing wrong. She was a sixteen

17:49 Speaker 1: year old girl who wanted to see her boyfriend and

17:51 Speaker 1: did not want to wait forty five minutes. She trusted

17:54 Speaker 1: a man who had been woven into the edges of

17:57 Speaker 1: her family for years. She got into his car, and

18:00 Speaker 1: when he behaved in a way that was beneath human decency,

18:03 Speaker 1: she said so that act, the simple, ordinary act of

18:07 Speaker 1: standing up for herself, cost her her life. Her brother,

18:11 Speaker 1: William said losing Brittany taught him to stop taking time

18:14 Speaker 1: for granted. Her classmates said she made everything nicer. Her

18:19 Speaker 1: mother said she was a prize plucked from heaven. She

18:22 Speaker 1: had wanted to be a forensic scientist. She was sixteen

18:25 Speaker 1: years old, with straight a's and blue eyes and a

18:28 Speaker 1: future that had barely started. Jack Fuller Junior took all

18:32 Speaker 1: of it and gave nothing back.