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


To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (939)4/25/2001 5:29:59 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell  Respond to of 1400
 
"The brown van . . . the bottle . . . that’s Homicide 101 — we passed that test," said Wearing... "There’s a reason the officers here are under my tutelage — because I’m the best. We don’t need his (Van de Velde’s) help solving investigations."

ROFLMAO!*

Let's try a little Homicide 101 of our own here...

First, according to a press release put out by the New Haven police themselves: "Other witnesses have said that as they approached the corner of East Rock and Edgehill Roads, they saw a tan or brown van stopped in the roadway facing east, immediately adjacent to where Suzanne was found." (source: cityofnewhaven.com In other words, more than one person saw a tan or brown van parked exactly at the odd spot Suzanne Jovin was found. Yet, somehow, more than two full years go by before the police think this information is important enough to bring to the attention of the public! Maybe they teach that stuff in Homicide 201.

Second, the fact that Suzanne's fingerprints were found on a Fresca bottle near her body -- a bottle that witness Peter Stein emphatically said she wasn't carrying when he ran into her on the way to dropping off keys on the old campus (and given her clothing would have been highly impractical for her to have concealed) -- obviously implies that at some point on her walk back home she must have purchased it. The only store open at the time and within walking distance that sold bottles of Fresca was Krauszer's Market. If Suzanne was indeed on her way back home (meaning, gasp, she was telling the truth about wanting to relax at home that night), given the roundabout route we know she had begun to take, she'd have walked right by Krauszer's at a time that perfectly fits the timeline of the crime (I'll discuss the timeline in a future post). The manager at Krauszer's personally told me the police had questioned his staff about such a purchase. Yet, to this day, the police have never asked the public's help in reporting any suspicious activity in and around the York and Elm Street intersection on the night in question. Forget Homicide 201; perhaps Wearing should have taken Common Sense 101.

Lastly, as regards "tutelage", perhaps "teacher" Wearing momentarily forgot that his (former) top "student", Captain Brian Sullivan, was charged with withholding evidence in another high-profile murder case after a very rare Grand Jury investigation. There are I'm sure many very good cops on the New Haven police force. The problem is that when one of them speaks out to set the record straight, such as Detective Keith Wortz, Wearing goes after the whistleblower instead (see: siliconinvestor.com. One day soon we'll learn the truth about the abominable Jovin murder investigation. Given that Wearing seems to be taking credit for it right now, it should be interesting to see who he tries to blame when the house of cards collapses at his feet.

- Jeff

*ROFLMAO = "rolling on floor laughing my ass off", a very common Internet acronym



To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (939)4/25/2001 6:39:42 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1400
 
A couple of general comments about the Register articles...

1. Having personally spent time with Les Gura of the Hartford Courant and Andrew Paciorek of the Yale Daily News I can at least say that no matter how they interpret the available evidence when writing their stories about the Jovin case that they at least took the time to consider it and to try to place everything in context. I get the feeling that the Register reporters haven't made it beyond the "he said-they said" stage. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure they took great pains to try to capture what both sides said as accurately as possible, and for that they should be commended... it's just that their questions themselves don't at all appear to me to show a deep understanding of events and circumstances surrounding the investigation.

2. If I'm the Jovin family, I'm probably getting pretty tired of reading "Van de Velde said this" and "Van de Velde said that." I'm sure they'd much rather be reading stories about how wonderful a person their daughter was and how the police were hot on the trail of her killer(s). They can blame the New Haven police for that, not Jim.

Every time I urged Jim back in '99 and '00 to be aggressive and speak out about how the police were wasting valuable time focusing on him he would tell me it was best to work behind the scenes to get the state, the FBI, PIs, etc. to help out or perhaps take things over. Note that in the Dartmouth Murders the local police immediately enlisted the help of others and solved that apparently random crime very quickly. Here is Connecticut renowned forensics expert Henry Lee was literally on standby to reenact the crime yet the New Haven police never availed themselves of his services save for analyzing a few fibers. To this day, to my knowledge, the investigation is still almost entirely being run by the local police.

I would hope the Jovin family understands that Jim's attitude is not "you have nothing on me so stop calling me a suspect," but rather "if you stop focusing on me and analyze the available evidence you'll not only conclude I couldn't possibly have been remotely involved but you'll be that much closer to finding the real killer(s) as well." Sadly it has come down to sabre rattling in order to prevent stagnation in the investigation. However, the bottom line is that all of us want the same thing: closure. At this point, more than two years after the crime, everyone (the police, the Jovins, Jim, Yale, the press, etc.) need to do whatever it takes to find the real killer(s), decorum be damned.

- Jeff



To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (939)4/27/2001 4:58:50 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1400
 
Re: 4/25/01 - NH Register Letter: Break in Jovin slaying may never materialize

LETTER
Break in Jovin slaying may never materialize

Letter to the Editor April 25, 2001

The December 1998 murder in New Haven of Yale student Suzanne Jovin has not been solved. At 28 months, the trail may be cooling.

This particular case appears to have received more media coverage than others. Her family is "constantly devastated over the loss." The reward for information has been increased to $150,000. Why has this murder been singled out for so much attention?

Many families are just as devastated under similar circumstances and there have been multiple losses due to violence. Children have witnessed murders of both parents.

One suspect, James Van de Velde, has been mentioned, but never charged. There are others. Why are they not identified?

To date, no one has made a call to report more details. In spite of the substantial reward, the anticipated call to the police "hot-line" may never materialize.

Jean T. Rubin

Hamden

©New Haven Register 2001

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