Re: 11/29/07 - Hartford Courant: Super Sleuths In Jovin Probe; Decorated Ex-Cops Tackle 1998 Killing Of Yale Student
Super Sleuths In Jovin Probe
Decorated Ex-Cops Tackle 1998 Killing Of Yale Student
By DAVE ALTIMARI
Courant Staff Writer
November 29, 2007
For the past seven months, a team of decorated former state police officers has been quietly re-investigating the 1998 slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovin.
In addition to poring over thousands of pages of documents, the four-member team has been interviewing police officers involved in the initial investigation, witnesses, former Yale students and Jovin's parents, who flew in from their home in Germany over the summer to meet with the group.
Under an unusual arrangement with the New Haven state's attorney's office, the investigators have been given the freedom to take the investigation in whatever direction they see fit, sources said.
Officials are planning to hold a press conference Friday in New Haven to officially announce the formation of the new investigative team. Ellen Jovin, one of Suzanne Jovin's sisters, is expected to be present to emphasize that a $150,000 reward is still available for information leading to the conviction of the killer.
The team consists of John Mannion, a former head of the central district major crime squad, Patrick Gaffney, a former sergeant in the same unit, Richard Wardell, a former longtime member of the eastern district major crime squad, and Joseph Sudol, a retired state police sergeant who also worked at the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory under Henry Lee.
Mannion declined to comment on the investigation.
It is the second time that New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington has agreed to employing an unusual tactic to investigate the homicide. In 2000, Dearington gave two former New York City cops-turned-private-investigators, Patrick J. Harnett and Andrew Rosenzweig, access to the case files. The men were hired by Yale University. Harnett would later become Hartford's police chief.
Harnett and Rosenzweig worked on the case for more than a year before running into a dispute with New Haven prosecutor James Clark, who is overseeing the investigation. The dispute centered on tests the men tried to get the state forensic lab to perform on some evidence without first seeking Clark's approval.
The private investigators did obtain a DNA sample from James Van de Velde, Jovin's senior thesis adviser and the only named suspect in the case, which prosecutors compared to DNA found under one of Jovin's fingernails. The samples did not match.
Jovin, 21, was killed on Dec. 4, 1998. She was stabbed 17 times from behind in the head and back.
Her slaying quickly became national news. New Haven police identified Van de Velde as being in a "pool of suspects" after a four-hour interrogation of him at police headquarters.
A few weeks later, Yale University canceled Van de Velde's class, claiming the murder investigation would be a distraction for students. He left the university a few months later.
Van de Velde has vehemently denied any involvement in Jovin's slaying. He has frequently criticized New Haven police, claiming they focused exclusively on him and ignored leads that could have led to the killer. He also has criticized the chief's state's attorney's office, claiming it has dragged its feet on bringing in the office's cold case unit.
Law enforcement sources close to the case said Dearington decided to form the special team of former state police officers instead of giving the investigation to the cold case squad. The New Haven Police Department still has a detective assigned to the case. Mannion and Gaffney have worked with Dearington's office on several high profile cases, including the investigation of an East Haven police officer's fatal shooting of New Haven resident Malik Jones after a car chase, and a triple homicide involving a Guilford woman and two children.
Sources said Van de Velde hasn't been made aware of the new investigation. Officials have kept the group quiet until now. There is no timetable on how long it will investigate the case. The group is expected to produce a final report for Clark and Dearington.
Van de Velde has resurfaced over the past few weeks, asking the chief state's attorney's office to conduct new scientific tests on some of the evidence recovered from the scene, including a Fresca bottle with a smudged fingerprint on it and unidentified male DNA mixed with material found under Jovin's fingernail.
In a recent letter to the editor of the Yale Daily News, Van de Velde, who now works for a private government contractor in the Washington, D.C., area, spelled out his frustrations with the investigation.
"If indeed there have been numerous meetings concerning the case, as State's Attorney Michael Dearington claims, such meetings suggest that there is a dearth of evidence and leads to work with. If so, this strongly suggests that naming me a suspect in the crime just days after the event was foolish, wrong and deeply injurious to the larger goal of getting assistance from the public," Van de Velde wrote.
Contact Dave Altimari at daltimar@courant.com.
Read more stories and see more photos from the Jovin case at www.courant.com/jovin
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Suzanne Jovin Case Timeline
Friday, Dec. 4, 1998
• 8 p.m. Pizza party for local mentoring program "Best Buddies" ends. Yale senior Suzanne Jovin, 21, drives home her "buddy" in a van she rented from the university.
• 9:25 p.m. A student walking down College Street passes Jovin near Phelps Gate on campus.
• 9:30-9:35 p.m. A Yale biology student returning to her apartment hears a man and a woman arguing on the street, about two miles from where Jovin was seen walking.
• 9:45-9:50 p.m. The student, a doctor out for a walk and a young boy in a nearby home hear a woman screaming, they later tell police.
• 9:56 p.m. The doctor finds Jovin's body on the corner of Whitney Avenue and Edgehill roads and calls 911.
• 10:26 p.m. Jovin is pronounced dead at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Late December 1998 - Forensics expert Henry C. Lee is asked to aid in the investigation.
Jan. 11, 1999 - Students arrive for Yale University lecturer James Van de Velde's classes to find that they have been canceled. Officially, he is reassigned to research duties because he is, according to New Haven police, among a "pool of suspects in the murder."
Jan. 12, 1999 - Van de Velde releases a statement proclaiming his innocence.
December 2000 - Yale hires private detectives Andrew Rosenzweig and Patrick Harnett to assist in the search for Jovin's killer.
January 2001 - Van de Velde files lawsuits against both The Courant, for libel, and Quinnipiac University, for defamation, in relation to his dismissal from the school's graduate journalism program. Quinnipiac later pays an $80,000 settlement to Van de Velde.
Oct. 26, 2001 - New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington reveals that DNA taken from under one of Jovin's fingernails did not match Van de Velde's DNA.
December 2001 - Van de Velde files a civil rights lawsuit again the city of New Haven and Yale University for defamation. The suit is later dismissed.
Aug. 23, 2006 - Dearington announces that he's turned over the investigation to the cold case unit of the chief state's attorney's office. But sources say the unit does little work on the case.
Sources: Courant reporting; The Associated Press; research by Sandy Csizmar
Copyright © 2007, The Hartford Courant
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