In 2011, 12-year-old Jessica Maple was outraged that her great-grandmother's house had been ransacked and robbed.
She was double outraged when the cops didn't aggressively pursue who had done it.
So she used skills she had learned at a Junior DA summer camp at the Fulton County District Attorney's office and figured it out herself.
My colleague Alexis Stevens wrote a story about it in 2011 and it went national.
Now the cable network Investigation Discovery highlights Jessica's case on its hit show "Karma's a B*tch" with an elaborate re-enactment on Thursday, May at 8 p.m. (repeated at 11 p.m.)
Executive producer Liz Massie told me the show itself in its second season is not about murder and mayhem (the primary focus of the network) but softer crimes that involve some level of karma. "It's more of a feel-good show," she said. "These are people who were wronged and were able to obtain revenge or turn the tables or get their own justice."
Jessica's great grandmother had recently died and her home in Fitzgerald was empty. This made it easier for robbers to steal most of the valuables out of the house.
Showrunner John Larose said the karma comes in because Jessica had just gone to a camp to learn about how to solve crimes. She found broken glass and fingerprints. She visited local pawn shops and found some of her great grandmother's stuff. The sellers used their actual names and addresses. She confronted one of the two burglars who stole the furniture. He confessed.
According to the AJC story from 2011, Jessica wished she could get the police to place the two men under arrest, which hadn't happened at that time.
"It's been a month and five days, and they haven't been arrested," Jessica said. "It's really frustrating. If you have all of the evidence right there, why can't you go arrest them?"
TV preview
"Karma's a B*tch," 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Thursday, ID
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