Re: 11/6/01 - AP: Suspect demands his name be cleared
AP STATE WIRE
Suspect demands his name be cleared
November 6, 2001
Associated Press
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Two weeks after authorities disclosed that DNA found under Suzanne Jovin's fingernails did not match his, the only named suspect in the Yale student's murder is demanding his name be cleared.
In a letter to The Hartford Courant, James Van de Velde demanded an apology from New Haven Police Chief Melvin H. Wearing and asked that police acknowledge he is no longer a suspect in the 1998 stabbing of Jovin.
Van de Velde, Jovin's thesis adviser, also called for an independent investigation of the New Haven Police Department's handling of the Jovin investigation.
"It is obvious to me that from the outset of this high profile case, the New Haven Police Department and Yale University have been conspiring to scapegoat an innocent person to feign competence and progress in the case," Van de Velde wrote. "My lawyer has written New Haven Chief of Police Melvin Wearing three times since the crime, demanding communication and that he clear me from it. Chief Wearing has refused to communicate back to my lawyer or me in any manner and has made no requests to see me, ever."
Wearing declined to comment on Van de Velde's letter.
Jovin was found stabbed to death on Dec. 4, 1998 in the East Rock section of the city, blocks from Van de Velde's apartment. Days following the killing, Van de Velde was questioned for hours by police and named a suspect.
His contract as a lecturer was not renewed by Yale.
Two weeks ago, New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington disclosed that investigators had recovered DNA from under Jovin's fingernails and that it did not match a sample provided by Van de Velde. He said investigators would be asking colleagues, friends and acquaintances of Jovin to provide DNA samples.
The sampling, Dearington said, is intended to either match the DNA with a man Jovin would have come across through normal circumstance or rule out those men. If friends and acquaintances are ruled out, it increases the odds that the DNA belongs to her killer, he said.
Van de Velde's DNA sample was taken in Grudberg's office in April. Van de Velde said he was willing to provide police with a DNA sample the night he was questioned by investigators soon after the slaying. But police declined the offer, he said.
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