Re: 12/17/03 - [WTNH] Fingerprints may help solve Jovin murder
Fingerprints may help solve Jovin murder
(New Haven-WTNH, Dec. 17, 2003 6:15 PM) _ The case of Yale student Suzanne Jovin, who was murdered five years ago, has not yet been solved. News Channel 8 has uncovered exclusive details about the existence of crime scene evidence that could offer some crucial clues in the case.
The evidence concerns a bottle of Fresca. Witnesses have said the last time they saw Jovin alive she wasn't holding a bottle. She wasn't carrying a back pack or anything to put a bottle in. But at the crime scene police found a bottle nearby with her fingerprints on it.
Five years ago this month, Suzanne Jovin was found bleeding to death on a New Haven street corner after being stabbed in the back 17 times. No one has been arrested although police insist they're on the trail of the killer.
"We do have a certain road we're traveling with this," said Lt. Herman Badger.
But the lieutenant in charge of the investigation won't say where that road is leading. To date the only publicly named suspect in the case has been James van de Velde, a former Yale lecturer and advisor to the 21-year old Yale student. But authorities long ago announced his DNA didn't match that found underneath Jovin's fingernails.
Team 8 has learned there is other evidence from the crime scene that may help solve the mystery of who killed Suzanne Jovin; a bottle of Fresca found in the bushes near Jovin's body.
Police disclosed early on Jovin's fingerprints were found on the soda bottle. What they didn't mention and what hasn't been publicly known until right now is there were two sets of fingerprints on the bottle.
"Yes that would be an important clue," said Dr. Henry Lee.
Connecticut's renown forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee says it could mean everything or nothing. It depends, he says, if police can find out if she bought the soda at this nearby convenience store or if someone gave it to her
"Any potential witness saw her bought that bottle, or somebody with her, or somebody else bought the bottle for her."
Police have run the prints through law enforcement databases. They've also compared them to James van de Velde's prints.
Still fighting to clear his name, van de Velde, in a series of e-mails to News Channel 8, is calling on authorities to conduct a new kind of DNA test on the soda bottle prints that can determine ethnicity and age.
"Any kind of evidence is going to be fully looked at. To be specific it's an open investigation and I really can't comment on the technique we're going to be employing," Lt. Badger said.
Dr. Lee says this test can be done on fingerprints but it's an emerging science and the process can destroy the print. And that, he says, can raise huge legal issues if an arrest is ever made and the case goes to trial.
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