Re: 12/4/00 - YDN: Two years later, Jovin murder still haunts Yale
Published Monday, December 4, 2000
Two years later, Jovin murder still haunts Yale
Police hunt for clues that may finally crack the mystery; Van de Velde, only named suspect, vows suit against Yale, NHPD
BY ANDREW PACIOREK
YDN Staff Reporter
[picture]
This plaque, which lies beneath a tree in Davenport College's lower courtyard, was dedicated in 1998 in memory of Suzanne Jovin '99. Jovin was stabbed to death two years ago today about a mile north of campus in the East Rock neighborhood.
MARIANNA MANCUSI-UNGARO/ YDN
She is no longer at the forefront of most Yale students' minds. Her classmates have graduated, and half of current undergraduates never got the chance to meet her. Some students may not even know her name.
But the murder of Davenport senior Suzanne Jovin '99 two years ago today will continue to haunt the students, faculty and administration of Yale long after the case is solved -- which may be never.
The odds of solving a two-year-old case are long in the best of circumstances, criminology experts said, and those in the Jovin case seem far from the best.
"In general, if murder cases are going to be solved at all, they're solved very quickly," said Andrew Karmen, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
The Jovin case, with little physical evidence and no apparent witnesses, was certainly not cracked quickly. Of the 15 murders committed in New Haven in 1998, it is one of only two that remain unsolved.
But the Jovins themselves, after a recent meeting with police, said in an e-mail to the Yale Daily News they are confident that the case will be solved -- soon.
Meanwhile, others, including James Van de Velde '82, the former Yale lecturer who is the only named suspect in the case, have called for outside agencies to aid the investigation.
Van de Velde said he is working for the Pentagon now, cleared for security purposes by government investigators.
With the lack of visible progress in the aging case, one expert said new tactics, such as an investigation by private groups of forensic experts, may be the only answer.
But any new investigation will not only have to cope with the apparent dearth of witnesses and usable evidence that has hindered the inquiry all along, but also the recent silence regarding the case from Yale officials and police.
Two years, no answers
Exactly two years ago today, at about 9:45 p.m. on Dec. 4, 1998, a still-unidentified assailant stabbed Suzanne Jovin 17 times in the head, neck and back. Less than 15 minutes later, police found her near death at the intersection of East Rock and Edgehill roads, a mile from central campus.
Police rushed Jovin to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 10:26 p.m.
Days after the murder, police investigators said they had no suspects, no strong leads, no weapon, no witnesses and no motive. For all the New Haven Police Department will reveal to the public now, that statement may remain true.
Police Chief Melvin Wearing has repeatedly refused to discuss the case with reporters in recent weeks. A year ago, he held a press conference on the anniversary of the murder but disclosed little new information. He chose not to do that this year.
"The chief's response to inquiries in regard to the case is that it is still under investigation," NHPD spokeswoman Judy Mongillo said.
Last month, the Jovins, who live in Goettingen, Germany, met with police officials, state prosecutor Michael Dearington, several Yale Corporation members and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr.
"The department's investigation is at this point probably as active as it has been at any time since the immediate aftermath of the crime, and the family is hopeful that this crime will be solved," said David Rosen, the Jovins' attorney.
Neither Rosen nor the Jovins would comment whether there had been further developments in the case, although Tom Jovin, Suzanne's father, told a reporter he thought her murderer would be brought to "in a time frame that would allow you to write about it."
The long history of the case has produced several potentially promising leads. A year ago, Wearing said police had "more than five" or "more than ten" suspects.
But there have been no arrests, and none of the leads have panned out.
The "only named suspect"
The one enduring element in the case is the status of Van de Velde, a former Yale lecturer and Jovin's thesis advisor, who has been "the only named suspect" in newspaper articles since shortly after the murder.
Van de Velde has repeatedly said he is innocent, himself the victim of a botched and prejudicial investigation by the NHPD and unfair treatment by Yale.
Yale administrators cancelled his spring term classes in 1999 after police revealed he was a suspect, saying his presence would distract students from learning. The political science department elected not to renew his one-year lecturer's contract at the end of that term.
Van de Velde, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, said in an e-mail yesterday he is currently working on a long-term military assignment at the Pentagon for the U.S. Defense Department.
"My security clearance was coincidentally up for renewal last year, as it is every five years," he added. "I was interviewed, and the case was examined by investigators and my clearance was renewed without reservation."
Van de Velde said he has sought several positions at Yale since not being rehired in 1999, including assistant dean, assistant provost, residential college dean and political science lecturer -- the job he formerly held.
Yale professor Ian Shapiro, chairman of the political science department, said he received a letter some time ago in which Van de Velde asked about available positions in the department.
"I didn't pursue [the letter] because we don't have a need," Shapiro said. "Our whole policy is to try to rely less on one-year visitors."
In an April e-mail interview with the Yale Daily News, Van de Velde announced his intention to sue both Yale and the NHPD. He said yesterday he will "absolutely" pursue those lawsuits.
"Every month that passes we learn more about the actions of the New Haven Police and the Yale administration," he said. "Every month our case grows stronger and my damages become larger."
Yale since the murder
Suzanne Jovin's death sparked an outpouring of grief from students, faculty and family members, including a plaque in her remembrance in the lower Davenport College courtyard. But the long-term effects of her killing are difficult to trace.
The Jovin murder was the second of a Yale student in a decade, after Christian Prince '93 was fatally shot on the steps of St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue in 1991. The Prince case, solved in three months, led the University to reform its security practices and bolster its police department. It also caused a significant short-term decline in applications to Yale and reinforced stereotypes of New Haven as a violent and crime-ridden city.
Unlike the Prince murder, however, Jovin's killing seems to have had less of an impact on New Haven's image, particularly because most believe it was an isolated act committed by someone who knew her.
In the April YDN interview, Van de Velde said the NHPD and Yale have failed to clear him because it allows these assumptions to continue unchecked.
"Vice President [and University Secretary Linda] Lorimer glibly and immediately repeated the New Haven Police's assessment that Suzanne 'knew her killer' both on campus and in alumni meetings to allay Yale concerns," he said.
Yale administrators have been extremely reluctant to discuss the effect that the Jovin and Lasaga cases have had on the University in the realms of admissions, fundraising or attracting new faculty.
Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead would not comment on this issue, saying only, "Her death is a source of constant regret to me, constant sorrow."
Richard Shaw, dean of undergraduate admissions, likewise declined to comment.
Any effect on admissions numbers in the past seems to have disappeared since early admissions applications grew by 19 percent this year, the highest in the Ivy League.
But there is little doubt that the murder has brought negative publicity to Yale. Some, including both the Jovins and Van de Velde, have argued much of the bad publicity is the University's own fault.
In March, ABC's 20/20 aired a special report on the Jovin murder and reported a University spokesman had said paying more attention to the murder "can only hurt Yale," and that the University wanted to put the matter behind it.
ABC later said the spokesman had been Thomas Conroy, now Yale's deputy director of public affairs, but Conroy denied making the statements and a press release by Lorimer said 20/20 was mistaken.
"It is inconceivable that [Lorimer and Yale President Richard Levin], having learned of ABC's interest in a Yale representation for the show, simply told Conroy to handle it himself," Van de Velde said in the interview yesterday. "I have no doubt, therefore, that Levin and Lorimer specifically wrote or approved the Yale statement."
"Mr. Van de Velde's comments contain a false premise and a false inference," a senior Yale administrator said.
In a letter to the editor published in the March 30, 2000 edition of the YDN, the Jovins similarly criticized the University.
"The statements by the Yale College administration -- in reaction to the outcry on and off campus to the callous position of the University reported in the 20/20 program are disingenuous, hypocritical [and] self-serving," the Jovins said.
"It was a tragic mistake to send our daughter to Yale College for an education," they said at the end of the letter.
The future: thinking outside the box
Although the odds of solving a case this old are long, Karmen said that some large police departments have had success in setting up "cold case" divisions to revisit older crimes. The New York Police Department's cold-case squad, set up as crime rates decreased and officers were freed up from immediate duty to help with investigations, has helped to boost the rate of solving older crimes significantly.
New Haven does not have a specialized department handling older cases. Detectives from the Investigative Services division continue to work on the Jovin case, Mongillo said.
Cases such as this often are solved when a witness comes forward, someone with information accidentally reveals it, or some new scientific method offers new evidence, Karmen said.
He cited the case of 26-year-old Amy Watkins, a student at Hunter College Graduate School of Social Work in New York, who was robbed and stabbed to death in March 1999 as she walked down the street carrying groceries near her Brooklyn apartment.
As in the Jovin investigation, police had exhausted every lead they had and the identity of the killer remained a complete mystery, even after a reward for information was posted.
Finally, this August -- over a year and a half after the crime -- police solved the Watkins case, arresting the stabber and an accomplice. Tips from a police informant and the NYPD's violent crime hotline came after the stabber talked about the murder.
Such a resolution usually depends a great deal on luck, Karmen said.
But despite "undeniable police mistakes," Tom Jovin said the family has faith the New Haven Police will solve the case.
"The case is very active, it is not 'cold,' despite the two years that have elapsed," he said.
A possible tactic to supplement the NHPD investigation would be to bring in outside forensic and criminology experts to examine the case.
One example of such a group of experts is the Philadelphia-based Vidocq Society, named for legendary French detective Eug*ne Fran*ois Vidocq. The society consists of exactly 82 experts in forensics and criminology, one for each of the years of Vidocq's life.
In their spare time, the members of the organization take mysterious murder cases and discuss and investigate them, free of charge. The case stays with the police department, but the society helps its investigation by reanalyzing evidence and evaluating suspects.
"We may give the best advice in the world, but if the police department doesn't chose to benefit from that, it doesn't go any place," said Richard Walter, a forensic psychologist -- or profiler -- and Vidocq Society founder.
The Vidocq Society usually takes cases only when a family member or the investigating police department refers them and they have gone unsolved for at least two years.
Van de Velde and his attorney, classmate David Grudberg '82, said they favor bringing in anyone who could provide a perspective different from that of the NHPD.
The problem, Grudberg said, would be to get the police to agree.
"Any professional forensic expert would want access to all the forensic evidence in the police's possession, and it is unlikely that the NHPD would allow that access," Grudberg said. "I would hope that, in the interest of advancing the cause of justice, they would open up, but I really don't see that happening."
But Jovin said there is no reason for Vidocq or any other such agency to get involved.
"We have no reason to doubt the assertion by all interested parties that human and technical resources will not be spared in pursuing the investigation," he said.
"For her family, Suzanne's brutal death is still impossible to comprehend or accept," he said later.
"We call upon the concerned citizens of New Haven and Yale University to regard the identification and successful prosecution of the culprit, whoever he may be, as a matter of personal responsibility. For their sakes, not just for ours."
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