Re: 11/7/01 - NH Register: Van de Velde wants name off cops' list
Van de Velde wants name off cops' list
Randall Beach, Register Staff November 07, 2001
NEW HAVEN — James Van de Velde, long ago named by New Haven police as a suspect in the murder of Yale student Suzanne Jovin, has demanded he be removed from the suspect list in light of recently revealed DNA evidence.
In an e-mail to the New Haven Register, Van de Velde said Police Chief Melvin Wearing should also apologize for the "gross negligence, if not criminal misconduct" of his department in the case.
Wearing declined to comment.
The case has frustrated police, Yale officials and the community ever since the Yale senior was found stabbed to death Dec. 4, 1998, on a corner in the city's East Rock neighborhood.
New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington issued a statement Oct. 26 announcing a sample of male DNA had been recovered from under the fingernails of Jovin's left hand.
Dearington said the DNA did not match that of Van de Velde, who was Jovin's instructor and thesis advisor at Yale.
But Dearington also said Van de Velde still could not be eliminated as a suspect. Forensic officials said the DNA sample could have resulted from innocent contact, such as ruffling somebody's hair.
In his e-mail, Van de Velde said he volunteered to provide a DNA sample to police when they questioned him four days after the murder. He said they turned down his offer.
According to Van de Velde, it was private investigator Andrew Rosenzweig who asked him to provide a DNA sample, not the police.
Van de Velde said Rosenzweig, who was hired by Yale to conduct his own investigation, made the request last April. "I immediately complied," he said.
Van de Velde asked about the fingernail DNA, "Why has it taken more than two years for this important evidence to surface?"
He alleged New Haven police and Yale officials "have been conspiring to scapegoat an innocent person to feign competence and progress in the case and deflect criticism of their incompetence."
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy Tuesday said the university has no comment.
Although Yale officials have said they presumed Van de Velde's innocence, they removed him from the classroom for the spring semester after the murder because they said he would be a "distraction" in the classroom. This came after police named him as a suspect.
Yale officials did not renew Van de Velde's one-year contract at the end of that academic year. He now works at the Pentagon and just recently returned from an assignment in Egypt.
Van de Velde said "no motive, testimony or evidence remotely links me to the crime and in fact, all the evidence points decidedly away from me."
However, he said, Wearing "disgraces himself and discredits justice in New Haven, continues to injure the investigation and me personally" by not repeatedly calling for assistance from the public, the state and the FBI.
©New Haven Register 2001
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