Re: 12/4/01 - NH Register: After 3 years, mystery goes on
After 3 years, mystery goes on
Register Staff December 04, 2001
NEW HAVEN — Suzanne Jovin was known to frequent the Daily Caffe, and now police investigating her murder are asking questions about another former customer.
Last month, a New Haven detective contacted at least two former workers from the now-closed coffee shop and showed them pictures of a man who may have known Jovin.
"They just showed me a bunch of mug shots and asked me if I recognized anyone," said Steven Shapiro, the former owner. He said Monday he didn't know anyone in the pictures. "It seemed pretty routine to me."
Asked what he thought police were looking for, he replied: "They were looking for the killer, obviously."
Today marks the third anniversary of one of New Haven's most notorious murders. On Dec. 4, 1998, the popular Yale student was brutally stabbed and left for dead on a small patch of grass along East Rock Road.
The case remains unsolved.
Another former employee at the Daily Caffe, who chose to remain anonymous, said the investigator, Detective Michael Quinn, also showed her several photographs and asked if she recognized anyone. Later, he showed her what appeared to be a surveillance photograph, she said.
The employee said she vaguely recognized the man but not with any degree of certainty.
What significance the man has to the investigation, if any, wasn't immediately clear.
Contacted Monday, authorities wouldn't say why they are interested in the man or whether they consider him a possible suspect in the murder. Neither New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington nor Assistant State's Attorney James Clark would discuss the case.
Likewise, police Chief Melvin H. Wearing said only that the murder is "an ongoing investigation and detectives are working the case." He would not comment on the photographs or on the prospect of any arrest.
In 1998, Jovin lived on Park Street, just around the corner from the Daily Caffe, formerly at 316 Elm St.
The business closed in August of that year, about four months before the murder.
Some longtime law enforcement officers are calling on authorities to be more forthcoming with the facts of the case.
"There needs to be some sort of disclosure" to the public by authorities on the status of the case, said a longtime law enforcement officer, who asked not be named. "Instead of dancing around the situation, it's time for them to sit down and answer the questions. Where are they on this case? If this is a cold case, they should tell us."
Police have named only one suspect in the case, former Yale lecturer James R. Van de Velde. Van de Velde, Jovin's thesis adviser, has consistently denied any involvement and demanded police withdraw his name as a suspect.
His demands gained steam when Dearington in October revealed that DNA had been recovered from under the fingernails of Jovin's left hand and that it didn't match Van de Velde. Dearington said, however, that didn't eliminate him as a suspect because investigators don't know if the DNA belonged to the killer.
In an attempt to identify the genetic material, investigators have collected samples of DNA from about a dozen friends and associates, law enforcement sources said.
Jovin was murdered in the city's East Rock neighborhood, an affluent enclave that is home to hundreds of Yale students and teachers. What remains somewhat of a mystery is how Jovin ended up at the corner of Edgehill and East Rock roads that night.
The killing immediately generated international attention, intensifying when the primary suspect was identified as a Yale teacher. The murder posed a compelling mystery, with the victim a popular Ivy League student who had traveled the world and was fluent in four languages and the suspect an enigmatic teacher with a history as a naval intelligence officer.
The brutality of the murder intensified the intrigue. Jovin, 21, was stabbed 17 times in the back and neck that was so savage, it suggested to police a crime of passion. Within days, police acknowledged they believed Jovin knew her killer.
But investigators found barely a shred of physical evidence. The murder weapon was never recovered.
Last year, Yale hired a private investigator, Andrew Rosenzweig, to work on the murder.
And friends of Van de Velde, whose contract was not renewed at Yale, also have launched their own investigation.
"We — Jim and me and other people associated with him — decided to do our own investigation," said Van de Velde's friend, Jeff Mitchell.
Mitchell believes Jovin's death was "a random act of violence. She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Meanwhile, Michael Blum, a longtime friend of Jovin's, said he still has "some hope" the murderer will be found, but he is not optimistic.
Blum, who now lives in California, said Jovin's death "leaves a dark shadow on those years." "I continue to hope this case will be solved," Blum said. "For Suzanne's sake, for her family's sake and for her friends' sake."
©New Haven Register 2001
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