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Pastimes : Murder Mystery: Who Killed Yale Student Suzanne Jovin? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (853)	12/11/2000 9:57:33 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Respond to of 1397

John, if I thought getting my editorial reply published might somehow advance the murder investigation or the Register's coverage of it I'd very much consider it. Somehow I doubt alerting the public that an editor at the New Haven Register is either clueless or a total moron accomplishes either objective (g). Yes, on the one hand it would be nice if the general public got some sense of just how badly the investigation was botched from day one, but, on the other, I don't want to detract from a newfound spirit of cooperation I hope exists between Yale's new private investigator, the Jovins, Professor Van de Velde, and the police. However, I still reserve the right to vent in "private". :) - Jeff

To: John Sladek who wrote (853)	1/26/2001 10:02:11 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1397

John, I reconsidered and actually did send the Register a response to their editorial, which was a modified version of what I posted. No, the Register did not run it. This is what I wrote: ----- New Haven Register clueless as usual How many things can one local paper get wrong in one editorial? In the New Haven Register's December 8th editorial about the murder of Suzanne Jovin we had a chance to find out. The Register begins by asserting Jovin was "stabbed to death in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven". No, she was found stabbed to death in that area. Lest we think this was just an inadvertent error, they go on to write "It is not even known why Jovin was walking in the neighborhood." Huh? First of all, no one has ever reported seeing Jovin walking in the area in which she was found. Second, anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the facts knows that the odds Jovin walked the entire 1.9 mile route there that evening are next to none. And third, the position of her body across the grass, perpendicular to the curb, feet just touching the road, with no trail of blood, strongly suggests she was pulled, already wounded, just inches from a car. The Register goes on to categorize gross ineptitude by the New Haven police as a series of "setbacks". First they mention how "sophisticated tests of animal hairs taken from Jovin's coat failed to offer any clue." Is the fact such fibers were important enough to make front page headlines in the Register on March 1, 1999, yet were never sent to be tested until early November 1999, when they made headlines yet again, just a setback? Is the fact results were known from these tests in December of 1999 but reported on April 20, 2000 only because an Associated Press reporter took it upon herself to call the investigating scientist just a setback? Speaking of withholding evidence, on Tuesday the Regsister reported that a Grand Jury recommended prosecutors arrest the former lead investigator of the Jovin murder, Captain Brian Sullivan, on "charges he hid evidence from another police department in a murder case." Does the Register view this as just an unfortunate coincidence? And what about on April 19, 1999 when Sullivan told the Register the police had found "forensic evidence" in front of Van de Velde's residence that if not for a tip from a treasure hunter we might never have known was in fact a drivers manual tossed from Van de Velde's car during a break-in a month prior? Why no editorials by the Register about how they were blatantly manipulated by Sullivan to make it appear the police were closing in on their prime and perhaps only suspect? The Register then quotes the New Haven police as saying they "believe Jovin knew her killer. The fact that she was stabbed 17 times suggests a violent, personal passion." Exactly who said this? Might it have been one of the four detectives and supervisors originally assigned as investigators the Register notes no longer remain on the case? Might the fact the primary reason Yale has had to hire their own private investigator, again mentioned by the Register, be because Yale also recognizes those same policemen had totally botched the investigation? The Register points out that Yale's other two murders involved "muggings that went awry." Yet they somehow conclude that "robbery does not appear to have been a motive in Jovin's death." Based on what? Most muggers want cash or credit cards. Jovin's wallet was back in her Park Street apartment. Who is to say she wasn't killed because someone didn't get enraged she wasn't carrying it? Here we have an editorial lamenting about how a two-year murder investigation -- focused totally around one member of the Yale community -- has gone absolutely nowhere from day one, yet the author somehow concludes "The answer to the mystery of Jovin's death may be found on the Yale campus." One thing is certain, wherever answers are to be found, one place they won't be is in the New Haven Register. Jeff Mitchell