Re: 12/4/03 - NH Register: Many at Yale know little about infamous crime
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Many at Yale know little about infamous crime
William Kaempffer , Register Staff 12/04/2003
NEW HAVEN — Mimi Macauley had never heard of Suzanne Jovin.
When Jovin, then a Yale University senior, was murdered five years ago, Macauley was a 13-year-old soccer star in Wilton.
"In 1998, I was an eighth-grader," said Macauley, a Yale freshman, almost apologetic for not recognizing Jovin’s name.
But she’s not alone. By collegiate standards, five years is an generation of students.
Most current Yale undergraduates were in high school when Jovin, 21, was stabbed 17 times in the back.
Freshmen, like Macauley, were in middle school.
So as the five-year anniversary of one of the city’s most notorious murders arrived, few students even knew.
"No one I know really talks about it," said Jay Driskell, a third-year graduate student, who was at the University of Wisconsin when the murder occurred. "Everyone who knew her is gone. It may be something that you just don’t talk about."
With the turnover of students and the passage of time, the murder mystery that once captivated the entire campus has, to a degree, faded from its collective consciousness.
The reward posters that plastered retailers’ windows up and down York Street when Driskell arrived at Yale have disappeared.
"I came here and saw posters up offering a reward for information pertaining to her murder," said Driskell. "They were up for a long time. Then they were gone."
That’s not to say that Jovin, a popular and ambitious political science major, has been forgotten by the Yale or New Haven communities.
Yale administrators and educators certainly remember her. New Haven police remember her. And to be sure, James R. Van de Velde, her senior thesis adviser and the only named suspect in the unsolved murder, remembers her.
In a case that drew international media attention, Jovin, 21, was killed Dec. 4, 1998, less than 90 minutes after she left a pizza party she helped host for mentally retarded adults at a local church.
A passer-by found her body at the corner of East Rock and Edgehill roads.
The murder remains unsolved, although early in the investigation police identified Van de Velde, who denies any connection to the slaying, as a suspect.
Since then, police have announced no major leads in the case or evidence supporting the belief that Van de Velde might be the killer. No arrests have been made.
Van de Velde, a former Yale lecturer, meanwhile, has accused police of incompetence and botching the investigation from the outset. He sued, among others, the city Police Department and officials at Yale, including university President Richard Levin and Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer.
At the Police Department, the investigation continues under a veil of secrecy.
According to Police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr., who took over the department in June, Detective Michael Quinn, a 16-year veteran, is assigned to the case "full time," although police sources say full time is subjective.
After being briefed on the status of the case by detectives, the chief said he was hopeful but realistic.
"We’re not there. We’re just not there," he said. "Are we closer to solving it today than the day it happened? I can’t say.
"There’s a lot in the (investigative) file that would lead you to believe this case could be solved. We have a very good circumstantial case."
Against whom, he wouldn’t say.
During the conversation, Ortiz never mentioned Van de Velde by name and wouldn’t address his status.
"I can’t say that he is the guy," Ortiz said. "I don’t think you ever really know until the case is solved."
Yale officials could not be reached for comment on the anniversary.
This week on the Yale campus, Driskell, the graduate student, said he wasn’t surprised that Yale might be reluctant to discuss the case.
Macauley, the freshman, said when she first arrived at Yale she heard something about a murder of a student but never knew any details.
But she never felt unsafe here, she said.
"I always wanted to go to a safe little college in a safe little town," she said. "I’ve been really surprised about how safe I do feel on campus."
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William Kaempffer can be reached at wkaempffer@nhregister.com, or 789-5727.
©New Haven Register 2003
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