Post by Scumhunter on Sept 14, 2015 8:36:14 GMT -5
(Pictured: Above: Left: Suzanne Jovin (Photo Credit: nhregister.com) Right: Sketch of possible suspect Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
Suzanne Nahuela Jovin was a German-born American senior at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut when she was brutally stabbed to death off campus. The city of New Haven and Yale University have offered a combined $150,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Jovin’s killer. The crime remains unsolved. At Yale, Jovin volunteered as a tutor through the Yale Tutoring in Elementary Schools program, sang in both the Freshman Chorus and the Bach Society Orchestra, co-founded the German Club, and worked for three years in the Davenport dining hall.
The case is featured on the website of the new national syndicated crime show- "Crime Watch Daily"- which is why I'm placing it on the Unsolved on TV section.
Below is the Wikipedia description of the night of the murder:
"After dropping off the penultimate draft of her senior essay on the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, at approximately 4:15pm on Friday December 4, 1998, Suzanne Jovin began preparations for a pizza-making party she had organized at the Trinity Lutheran Church on 292 Orange St. for the local chapter of Best Buddies, an international organization that brings together students and mentally disabled adults. By 8:30pm, after staying late to help clean up, she was driving another volunteer home in a borrowed university station wagon. At about 8:45pm, she returned the car to the Yale owned lot on the corner of Edgewood Ave and Howe St and proceeded to walk two blocks to her second floor apartment at 258 Park Street, upstairs from a Yale police substation.
Sometime prior to 8:50, a few friends passed by Jovin's window and asked her if she wanted to join them at the movies. Jovin declined, stating that she planned to do school work that night. At 9:02, Jovin logged onto her Yale e-mail account and told a female friend in German (together with the access code to her door) she was going to leave some GRE books for her in Jovin's apartment building's lobby, once she had retrieved them from an unnamed person who had borrowed them from her. This unnamed person has never been identified. It remains unknown whether Jovin did indeed meet this unnamed person that night. At 9:10, she logged off. It is uncertain if she made or received any calls. Calls within Yale's telephone system were not traceable. She wore the same soft, low-cut hiking boots, jeans, and maroon fleece pullover she had worn at the pizza party.
Very shortly thereafter, Jovin headed out on foot to the Yale police communications center under the arch at Phelps Gate on Yale’s Old Campus to return the keys to the car she had borrowed. Shortly before reaching her destination, at about 9:22, Jovin encountered classmate Peter Stein who was out for a walk. Stein is quoted by the Yale Daily News as saying "She did not mention plans to go anywhere or do anything else afterward. She just said that she was very, very tired and that she was looking forward to getting a lot of sleep." Stein also said Jovin was not wearing a backpack, was holding one or more sheets of white 8 ½ x 11 inch paper in her right hand, that she was walking at a "normal" pace and did not look nervous or excited, and that their encounter lasted only two to three minutes.
Based on the timeline, it is presumed Jovin returned the keys to the borrowed car at about 9:25. She was reportedly last seen alive at between 9:25–9:30pm walking northeast on College Street, but not yet past Elm Street, by another Yale student who was returning from a Yale hockey game. The two did not speak.
At 9:55, a passerby dialed 911 to report a woman bleeding at the corner of Edgehill Rd and East Rock Rd, 1.9 miles from the Yale campus where Jovin was last seen alive. When police arrived at 9:58, they found Jovin fatally stabbed 17 times in the back of her head and neck and her throat slit. She was lying on her stomach, feet in the road, body on the grassy area between the road and the sidewalk. She was fully clothed and still wearing her watch and earrings, with a crumpled up dollar bill in her pocket; her wallet was later found to be still in her room. Suzanne Jovin was officially pronounced dead at 10:26 at Yale New Haven Hospital."
The most notable physical evidence appears to be: 1) DNA found in scrapings taken from under the fingernails of Jovin’s left hand. 2) Jovin’s fingerprints and an unknown person’s partial palmprint found on a Fresca bottle in the bushes in front of where her body was found and 3) the tip of the knife used in the attack that was lodged in her skull.
The most notable observations appear to be 1) "a tan or brown van stopped in the roadway facing east, immediately adjacent to where Suzanne was found.”, 2) "a man in his 20s or 30s with an athletic build, well-groomed hair, dark pants, a loose-fitting greenish jacket, running like his life depended on it in the opposite direction from where Suzanne Jovin was killed" and 3) "A mysterious, nondescript 'someone,' whom Jovin mentioned in an e-mail she sent less than an hour before she was found stabbed" to whom she had lent a friend's GRE test study materials.
The only speculation about the murder weapon came on the March 1, 2000 broadcast of ABC's 20/20 television program. According to the show, the weapon was a four-to-five inch, nonserrated, carbon steel knife. The New Haven police have never revealed whether any tests have ever been done to determine a precise make and model of the knife.
Since the murder, the case has obviously gone cold. There were suspects, Jovin's thesis adviser was initially the prime suspect, and after he was cleared, multiple lawsuits clearing his name were dropped in exchange for settlements.
Thoughts? The fact that Suzanne was stabbed but not assaulted raises many questions. Did she have a stalker or obsessed ex-lover. Was it an attempted abduction gone awry?
Admin Note #1: According to various online websites, If you have information about this case, contact the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice Suzanne Jovin Homicide Investigation Team at 1-866-623-8058
Admin Note #2: If you have any news-related updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form
crimewatchdaily.com/2015/08/26/a-murder-at-yale-suzanne-jovin/
www.ct.gov/csao/cwp/view.asp?a=1801&q=400160
www.cbsnews.com/news/police-seek-new-info-in-1998-killing-of-yale-student/
www.nhregister.com/general-news/20141122/police-re-examine-yale-student-suzanne-jovins-murder-new-haven-forum-set-for-dec-4