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E152: Suzanne Jovin
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The fall semester was nearing its end in 1998 for Yale senior, Suzanna Jovin. On the evening of December 4th, she was at a pizza party celebrating with her friends in the Best Buddies program with plans to then head back to her place to work on final revisions to her senior thesis-- all while looking forward to finally getting some glorious sleep when all the work was complete. However, less than 90 minutes after leaving the pizza party, she was found brutally murdered. Police quickly honed in on a suspect but have since publicly admitted that the individual is no longer considered a suspect (and was awarded a monetary settlement for even being named as one). All clues pointed toward this being a crime of passion-- but who could have harbored such ill-will toward the beautiful, intelligent, and empathetic Suzanne?
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Transcript
Unsolved Murder of Suzanne Jovan
00:00:00
Speaker
Many people on the night of the unseasonably warm evening of December 4, 1998, in New Haven, Connecticut, heard nothing unusual that day. Local residents, Mr. and Mrs. Oxley, had spent the morning in the kitchen.
00:00:15
Speaker
box, classical music floating through the air. By all accounts, the entire day had been relaxing. That evening, Lajuna Oxley's daughter had just taken the dog for a walk from their home at the corner of Edge Hill and East Rock Roads. Around 10 p.m., there was a knock at the door. When she neared the door, she saw the lights flashing from the nearby police car.
00:00:39
Speaker
As the door swung open, Lajuna remembers the officer saying, there's a lady down. Lajuna immediately began worrying about her daughter Daphne, who hadn't yet returned from walking the dog. Had something happened to her? It was then that she saw the body of a young lady stretched across the grass on the curb by the street.
00:01:01
Speaker
It was not her daughter, but it was the body of a young woman in jeans and boots, lying lifeless there in the middle of the affluent neighborhood. How could something like this have happened in the midst of individuals out enjoying the evening air or walking their pets? And who could have committed the crime?
00:01:21
Speaker
Those were the questions that plagued those within the university town then and still haunt the investigation today. This is the case of Suzanne Jovan.
Podcast Introduction & Community Engagement
00:02:06
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:02:25
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week. Okay Maggie, before we begin the show, let me remind you,
00:02:49
Speaker
to stay tuned until the end of the episode because Maggie and I have some exciting announcements for you. Plus we have the most incredible love notes to share. Oh, this week is awesome. Yes. Okay. So let's get into the case.
Suzanne Jovan's Background
00:03:08
Speaker
To give you some insight into Suzanne Jovan, before I tell you a little bit about her upbringing, I want to start with what her parents told Susanna Edwards of Vanity Fair in one of the only interviews that they've conducted concerning their daughter. They said, quote,
00:03:27
Speaker
We tried to encourage self-confidence in our daughters to the extent of recognizing their worth and capabilities and of exerting their rights while avoiding arrogance. We encourage them to never feel limited by their sex." And that's exactly what they did, Maggie. By all accounts, they raised women who were unafraid to stand up for their beliefs
00:03:55
Speaker
and yet who were compassionate to an extreme. Well, I'm anxious to get to know Suzanne. To an outsider, Suzanne's childhood seemed like a fairy tale. Her parents are American scientists. Oh, fancy. Yes, fancy. Molecular and cell biologists, to be specific, who worked at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry.
00:04:21
Speaker
Again, fancy. The elder of the Jovans' two daughters, Suzanne, grew up traveling around Europe with her family and even living for some time in a 14th century castle.
00:04:36
Speaker
Okay, so fairy tale. Yes. Due to that upbringing, Suzanne was fluent in both English and German, was educated in German schools, where she double majored in biology and chemistry. Because you know, usually in European countries, you kind of pick your career path early, earlier than we do here.
00:05:02
Speaker
It seemed as though she was following in the family legacy, right? Double majoring in biology and chemistry. She seems like a genius. Right. And Suzanne was also a legacy when she made the decision to attend Yale because her mother had gotten her PhD there. Once there, she found her true passion and actually changed her major to a double major of political science and international studies.
00:05:28
Speaker
So I feel like a 180 kind of. Yeah, it's very different. And the driving force in this career decision, she never wanted to be wealthy. That wasn't what drove her passions. A friend of Suzanne's in that same Vanity Fair article noted, quote, she always came down to helping people and being influential as being more important, end quote.
00:05:54
Speaker
Well, that's a good quality to have, though. And I feel like you could see the truth and feel the truth behind that statement when you know how active Suzanne was on campus. She sang in choirs. She co-founded the German Club. She worked three years in Davenport Dining Hall.
00:06:12
Speaker
She volunteered for Yale tutoring in local elementary schools, and she became the president of Best Buddies, which is an international organization whose purpose is to bring together students and mentally disabled adults.
00:06:27
Speaker
It was right at the tail end of fall semester of her senior year. So the end was in sight, Maggie, but you know. Yeah, the lights at the end of the tunnel. Right. But you also know that exhaustion is the prevailing emotion of this time in the semester. Suzanne had been trying to finalize her 21-page senior thesis, and she had, yeah, she had some more revisions to make.
00:06:54
Speaker
Over the last few weeks, she got a little bit frustrated with her thesis advisor. She was feeling that he was kind of putting her off. She'd actually complained about it to her friends and to her parents because she wanted to get feedback on her draft and to stay ahead of the work. But she was struggling to get time for him to read it.
00:07:15
Speaker
Honestly at the end of the semester teachers or professors in this case are also I'm sure done super stressed and struggling. Yeah right because you're trying to get all the grading done and all of that stuff. So yeah I feel both sides now as an adult.
Suzanne's Activities on December 4, 1998
00:07:30
Speaker
On December 4th, 1998, she was finally going to get feedback from him on her essay, and she planned to both get some long needed sleep and then to continue working on her essay after she attended the Best Buddies pizza party that she'd been helping to coordinate.
00:07:50
Speaker
Between 4.15 and 4.30 p.m., this is on December 4th, Suzanne walked to Brewster Hall to submit the thesis to her advisor, Professor James Vanderbilt. After dropping it off, Suzanne made her way to Trinity Lutheran Church, where the best buddy's pizza party was to begin at six o'clock.
00:08:10
Speaker
Before it started, she needed to pick up the car she had borrowed from the university to carry some of the Best Buddies members to the festivities. She's wearing me out just listening to all she does.
00:08:24
Speaker
I never went, you know, my college didn't have a car that they could loan out, but that's pretty cool that there's a car you could borrow to, you know, do this. The party was a success and it allowed Suzanne to momentarily forget about all the stress and exhaustion that accompanies the end of a college semester. Around 830, the party had ended. The church had been cleaned up and Suzanne was headed back to her place on Park Street.
00:08:52
Speaker
She returned to the car close to 845 and it was sometime between 840 and 850 that she was already safely back at her place because some of her classmates saw her in her window and they actually stopped to ask if she'd like to go to the movies with them. But she declined the offer because she said, you know what, I'm going to stay in to work more on my essay.
00:09:19
Speaker
So just to be completely honest, I don't really know a lot about this college town. Is this a safe place to go to school? I don't know if New Haven is necessarily the safest, but I feel like that's true of a lot of college towns. But then generally if you're staying like
00:09:45
Speaker
in a pretty small area geographically, then you're fine. I mean, students are walking near her place. There was a hockey game that night, I'll talk about here in a second. So, I mean, there were a lot of people kind of out and about, okay, on this night. So they stop in, she says, no, you know, no thank you, I'm gonna stay, I'm gonna work on my essay.
00:10:10
Speaker
Before getting back into the thick of it though, it seems, she decided to check her email and that's totally me. I'm like, oh, you know what? Before I really get started, let me just check Facebook one more time. Yeah. Let me just crawl through TikTok for two more hours. Let me just check my email.
Timeline of Suzanne's Evening
00:10:27
Speaker
At 9.02 p.m., she responded to a friend who had emailed to ask to borrow Suzanne's GRE study book. No, I guess in PTSD. The GRE, yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yes, Suzanne actually responded that she had loaned it out to someone, but that she would get it back and leave it in the foyer for her friend. And then she proceeded to give that friend the code to get into her building. At 910, she logged off of her computer. So I mean, we've got, with her case, we've got a lot of
00:11:02
Speaker
timeline details. Exactly. Yeah. She had one more thing to do before settling into her work. She had to return the keys to the car that she had borrowed. At 922, another classmate, Peter Stein, passed by Suzanne near the Yale police station at Phelps Gate on College Street. Do we know why she didn't drop the keys off?
00:11:29
Speaker
I'm wondering- Like on her way to her apartment? I don't know. I'm wondering if where the car maybe is left in, say, a parking lot or a gated lot maybe is a different place than where you take the keys. Okay. You know, and maybe she went home and then was like, oh, I've got to take these keys. You know, I'm not sure on that part.
00:11:51
Speaker
But she told Peter Stein that she was taking the keys back and that then she was going to go crash because she was so exhausted. And he recalls she was holding a few pieces of white paper in her hand. And he said that she looked tired, but she didn't look distressed or anything like that. You know, just looking forward to getting some sleep.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, an average college kid. Right. Five minutes later, between 9.25 and 9.30, Suzanne was again seen walking, this time north, on College Street toward Elm Street. She was seen by a witness who would recall these details later, who didn't know Suzanne, but later made the connection based upon the timing and on Suzanne's description.
00:12:38
Speaker
Suzanne had been walking behind a, quote, Hispanic or black guy in a hooded sweatshirt. But behind her was a blonde man with glasses, a white guy dressed nicely, end quote. Like when I picture this, I'm picturing like three people walking in a line. I'm wondering how close they were. Was it close enough that they could have been friends or, you know,
00:13:05
Speaker
they were forcing her to go a certain way or were they far enough apart that it just happened to be three random people walking at the same time. Right and I you know I also so this witness she had just left the Yale Princeton hockey game so again there's lots of people out. Oh yeah right and she was headed to an off-campus party but I know you know we talk about memory and
00:13:33
Speaker
we talked about it last week and I just, it seems odd to recall seeing three people who you don't know and recalling details. I'm not saying that she didn't, I'm just saying there had to have been something about either Suzanne or one of the, like maybe this blonde guy, like maybe she thought he was attractive or something, you know what I mean, that would jog her memory.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I'll also wonder at what distance did she see these people were they like she was on one sidewalk and they were across the street because then I feel like at that distance you could easily say.
00:14:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they had similar features as Suzanne, but it may not have actually been her, especially if it's after a game, because there's gonna be a lot of people walking. Yeah, yeah, I'd agree with that. And I'm gonna go ahead and stop here too, Maggie, because this sighting of Suzanne in the direction that they say she was walking is an odd one, not because of any behavior, because the witness didn't say that, you know, Suzanne was doing anything bizarre or anything like that. But
00:14:36
Speaker
It's odd because of the direction that they said Suzanne was walking, because Suzanne had not five minutes earlier told her friend, Peter Stein, who would recognize her, that she was exhausted
Murder Discovery and Investigation Challenges
00:14:49
Speaker
and that sleep sounded glorious, and yet here she was taking a route that didn't directly lead back to her place. Why was she walking away from where she needed to head? Did she have another stop to make?
00:15:05
Speaker
Was she planning on making a pit stop to get that GRE book that she promised a friend she would pick up? Did she just need some fresh air? And unfortunately, we'll never know because less than 30 minutes later, around 9.55, Suzanne Jovan was discovered 1.7 miles away murdered. Wow. Mm-hmm.
00:15:31
Speaker
A couple had been out walking in this affluent, well-lit neighborhood that I mentioned in the introduction. And remember, this was an unseasonably warm night, so there were many people out. And again, this is a well-lit neighborhood.
00:15:48
Speaker
Lejeune Oxley's daughter had been out walking the family dog and then others like this couple who discovered Suzanne decided to take advantage of the weather to go for an evening stroll to look at Christmas decorations. I love doing that. I do too. And that's when they made the horrific discovery of a woman bleeding and lying face down on the grass between the sidewalk and the road. Okay. So you answered my question that I mentally asked myself because I was wondering since it's such
00:16:18
Speaker
a well-lit and populated area if maybe she was murdered somewhere else and then brought there. But I'm assuming if she's still bleeding, there aren't two different crime scenes or potentially. There potentially is because I never read in a single one of the reports how much blood was there.
00:16:41
Speaker
I think maybe if she was murdered somewhere else, and we'll talk about that, there is hypothesis that she was driven here from someplace. Oh, that's what I was about to say. Maybe it was in the car or something. Because of the short time period between the sightings and then where she's found almost two miles away, people are like, I don't know if she would have gotten that far.
00:17:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I'm good. But this couple who discovered Suzanne, they didn't see anyone running from the scene. They didn't see a vehicle speeding away, just Suzanne. They immediately called 911. Officers from the New Haven Police Department arrived within minutes. And Suzanne was rushed to Yale New Haven Hospital. She was pronounced dead at 10.26 PM.
00:17:34
Speaker
So I'm assuming because she was bleeding, she was stabbed. She was. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about the crime scene. And there were many details about the crime scene that only time would reveal, but there were a few details that were more immediately obvious. Since Suzanne was still fully dressed and there was no evidence of sexual assault, that motive was dismissed.
00:18:02
Speaker
Suzanne also still wore several pieces of jewelry, which also told them that robbery wasn't a likely motive. However, because Suzanne had been stabbed 17 times in the back of her head and neck,
00:18:21
Speaker
and her throat had been cut. Many, including law enforcement, felt that her murder was not random. Yeah, this is personal. The belief was that, as revealed by the overkill, that she had known her killer. Oh. Obviously, because those stabbings were in the back of her head and neck, they believed that Suzanne had been stabbed from behind. And I have to say, though,
00:18:48
Speaker
I think that is a weird detail because to me, if there's a crime of passion, usually that happens face to face. So I don't know because of that detail, really whether we can absolutely rule out the theory of a random attacker, but obviously there had to have been a reason. But before they explored anything, they first needed to contact the family.
00:19:13
Speaker
Law enforcement went back to Suzanne's apartment where they located a list of phone numbers. They were looking for someone who could look at the body to verify her identity. One of the numbers was Suzanne's boyfriend, Roman, who had spent the night in New York City and was headed back to New Haven. So he was obviously not in town to be able to identify her. Close to midnight, they moved to the next name on the list.
00:19:45
Speaker
Amy's phone jangled at close to midnight. When she answered, she was asked the question that no one thinks that they will ever be asked. Could she come downtown to identify her friend who had just been murdered? Within a few days, investigators had a few more details to go on. They scraped under Suzanne's fingernails and sent that for DNA testing.
00:20:12
Speaker
The tip of the knife that was used to attack Suzanne was still lodged in her skull. And near her body, there was a Fresca bottle.
00:20:23
Speaker
So little no little unknown fact about me I actually grew up drinking fresca and I mentioned that Like where we live now and people think i'm crazy, but my mammy Loved a good oscold fresca. Is that like a southern thing? I don't know. Is this where you said you'd like is it peach peach fresca? No, no, that's no that's knee-high. Oh, you're right. Peach knee-high There's another kind of like
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my God. Listen, if you are anywhere where you can find a peach knee high, it's a Southern thing. You need to try it. And if it's in the glass bottle, welcome to heaven.
00:21:01
Speaker
I mean, OK. Anywho, Fresca is kind of like in it. It's kind of like Sprite from what I remember, like a little more, but a little more strongly flavored. OK, OK. But that bottle, what they found not only had Suzanne's fingerprints on it, but also a partial palm print from someone else. So now they're thinking, could that print help identify the killer?
00:21:28
Speaker
They also deduced that given the short, and this is what I was talking about a minute ago, given the short amount of time between the last sighting of Suzanne and her death, law enforcement theorized that it would have been merely impossible for her to walk or even run that far in that timeframe. And as a result, they believe she either took a ride with someone she knew or was forced into a vehicle. Hmm.
00:21:54
Speaker
In their interviews with those in the area the night of the murder, and in putting out a call for anyone with information to come forward, there were several details for which police were not yet sure of the connection. Here are some things that people said, but they're thinking, I don't know if this is related to the case, but it could be, so we'll take down the notes. Several witnesses were called a tan or brown van near the intersection where Suzanne's body had been discovered.
00:22:25
Speaker
multiple witnesses came forward to tell if overhearing a couple, a man and a woman arguing loudly, fighting about something, and all of this in front of the luxury apartments at 750 Whitney Avenue, which was right where Suzanne was found. That was what I was about to ask. Yes, at least one witness also believed they heard a woman scream. However, we don't know if the woman involved in the argument or the scream was Suzanne.
00:22:56
Speaker
According to an article by William Camper in the New Haven Register, published on November 8th, 2001, New Haven Police Department impounded a Brown van as part of their investigation into the case, but did not confirm a link. It was a 1982 Dodge E250, and the last owner had been a Guilford resident, but the van at the time it was seized was unregistered.
00:23:25
Speaker
So we still don't know if they found anything in this brown van. And it may be pretty smart on the killer's part if it was an unregistered vehicle. Right. Yeah. Because then it came traced happy coincidence. Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker
While police were still waiting for DNA results, because remember they've got scrapings under her fingernail, they've got the partial palm print, they began looking into who they considered the more likely suspects, if this were a crime of passion.
Was Professor James Vanderbilt Involved?
00:23:58
Speaker
But what they found was it didn't seem like Suzanne had any enemies. She was beloved by her friends and her classmates.
00:24:06
Speaker
And while law enforcement did consider both Suzanne's mentoring buddy in Best Buddies, as well as her boyfriend Roman, both of them were ruled out nearly immediately.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Roman wasn't even in town. Right. So they began examining anyone with whom there had been any sort of disagreement recently, which was a hard task indeed because Suzanne was so well-liked. But there was one name that came up several times in their investigation. Do you remember who I said she had been frustrated with?
00:24:41
Speaker
Oh, her professor? Yes, her thesis advisor, Professor James Vanderbilt. So, Vanderbilt himself had grown up in the area, in a suburb of New Haven called Woodbridge. In high school, he was the golden boy. He was a multi-sport athlete, a national honor society student who dated one of the most popular girls in school.
00:25:04
Speaker
He later attended Yale, where he graduated with honors and with a degree in political science before earning his PhD in international security studies at Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Well, I feel like Suzanne would really like this dude, though, because they share the similar interests.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yes, she looked up to him so much. And Maggie, his accolades didn't end there. He was actually chosen for an internship in 1988 that landed him work with the Pentagon. OK. Yes. And the State Department, positions for which Vanderbilt held top secret clearance.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yes, with the political shift, though, from Bush to Clinton in office, however, Vanderbilt pursued another career path when he became dean of Yale's Saybrook College.
00:25:57
Speaker
As Dean and as a professor, van de Velde, and not just with Suzanne later at Yale, but van de Velde was both respected and loved by all of his students. He was a man who took his job as seriously as he had taken the previous one with the Pentagon and the State Department. Yet he also showed his empathetic side by often eating in the dining hall with the students where he learned nearly all of their names.
00:26:26
Speaker
And while personal to some extent, he was also very strict in his role. Vanderbilt himself only rarely drank and never used illicit drugs. And he expected the same of the students on his campus. And the reason I'm telling you this background is because I think it shows he has that personal empathetic side, but he's very professional and he takes his job very seriously.
00:26:53
Speaker
This was the man whom police were now looking at as a potential murderer. So what reason was there that law enforcement would turn their attention to such a man? They had their reasons.
00:27:06
Speaker
In the previous year in 1997, Vanderbilt had taken a leave of absence to go to Italy as part of his duties with the Naval Intelligence. We're coming back and briefly leaving Yale to serve as director of Stanford's Asia Pacific Research Center, but he hated it there. It was far too informal.
00:27:27
Speaker
and he didn't know anybody. He had suffered from depression and was seeking therapy, so he decided to come back to Yale. According to Vanity Fair, upon returning, Vanderbilt had rekindled a relationship with a woman, a local television reporter, whom he had dated before that brief stint in California.
00:27:48
Speaker
And while we don't know the details, something went wrong in that relationship. And she reportedly went to police, attesting that Vanderbilt was harassing her. And she never actually filed a complaint. And Vanderbilt says this incident never happened. Hmm.
00:28:12
Speaker
Despite no solid evidence of the claims in the court of public opinion, the rumor alone was enough for individuals in law enforcement to question if it happened before, could it have happened again, but with Suzanne. So I think that's why they kind of honed in on him.
00:28:37
Speaker
Vanderbilt had known Suzanne because she was one of the 40 students out of 169 applicants who had been awarded a seat in his strategy and policy and the conduct of war class. God, that sounds awful.
00:28:54
Speaker
According to classmates, Suzanne was fascinated by the same topics as Vanderbilt, with one student even telling journalist Susanna Andrews, quote, I think he liked Suzanne's enthusiasm. It was flattering that a student would be so deeply involved in his topic, end quote.
00:29:14
Speaker
So I think they just got along well because they were interested in the same stuff. But according to accounts of both friends and family, something in Suzanne and van de Velde's relationship had also shifted. Yeah, but like you said, it's the end of the, well, I don't know what you're going to say. So maybe my statement will change, but it is the end of the year and emotions are really high. And, you know, when I get over-simulated and I feel like
00:29:43
Speaker
things are weighing down on me and I have so much stuff to do I can get really snappy with people and just have a really short fuse because I want things done like on my timeline and I know when things need to get done and I'm wondering if maybe that was why the relationship had shifted but you tell me. Okay so law enforcement they kind of go to an extreme law enforcement wondered you know because they're trying to figure out if they're
00:30:08
Speaker
is something deeper, if that's why she was complaining about him was, you know, maybe, maybe their relationship, this is what they're thinking, maybe it had become something sexual. And so they actually questioned previous students from both Saybrook and Yale, if Vanderbilt had ever
00:30:27
Speaker
had an affair or been untoward with any students and all had responded, both those who adored him and those who despised him, that he would never have had such a relationship with students. So I think, by the way you described him, I can see him being a professor that, you know, you could sit down and have lunch with when they're in the cafeteria with you or, you know,
00:30:56
Speaker
that you would get along with but you talked in pretty good detail about how he kept this manner of professionalism and he didn't like the job that he went to because it was too informal and you know he held his students to really high standards he held himself to really high standards i don't see him getting sexually involved with student right yeah i don't i don't see that either
00:31:19
Speaker
But by November 1998, so this is just the month before Suzanne's death, the professional and cordial relationship that the two shared, like I said, was crumbling.
00:31:31
Speaker
Even though just the previous month, in October, Van de Velde had written Jovan a letter of recommendation for graduate school. By November, she was less enthusiastic about his class. She stopped attending field trips. She called them a, quote, waste of her time, end quote. And she even objected to a project that they were working on in class.
00:31:55
Speaker
he had asked them to see how easy it would be to use the internet to find a way to build a chemical weapon. And they actually found all of the information, all of it, except how much water to add to the mixture. A question that Suzanne knew her parents with their background could answer, but she thought it was a moral dilemma to even ask them to find out.
00:32:22
Speaker
Oh, other students in the class as well objected and he did drop the project. You know, he said, you know, if this many people object to it, then we're just going to drop it. But he said that Suzanne never individually spoke with him about any objection. So but she was feeling kind of weird towards him before this project was initiated. Yeah, I think it's right around the same time.
00:32:53
Speaker
I was wondering if maybe that kind of springboarded this kind of rocky relationship. It could have. And by the end of November, early December, that's when Jovan was feeling slighted by Vanderbilt. She indicated to friends that he was putting off meeting with her and helping her with her senior thesis. As cited by Andrews, one friend, the week that Suzanne was murdered,
00:33:20
Speaker
said that she, quote, complained bitterly about a bunch of things in that class and especially his lack of support for her project. He had shown no interest in her work, end quote.
00:33:35
Speaker
And her parents reported something similar that when Suzanne saw them over Thanksgiving with her senior thesis submission date looming on December 8th, quote, Suzanne indicated to us during the Thanksgiving break how deeply she resented the lack of mentoring by the senior thesis advisor, end quote.
00:33:57
Speaker
However, yeah, because he felt bad about not giving feedback over Thanksgiving break on Suzanne's paper, when the two had met on December 1st, he made a plan to meet with her again on December 2nd with comments to be made by that time. So, I mean, he started, he's feeling bad about it and he's starting to kind of give her feedback. And so she just trying to make those final revisions.
00:34:27
Speaker
I do have to say, if I was Suzanne, I would also be extremely nervous and a little impatient that we're leading up into the wire. Yeah, I think nervousness can come out as frustration and anger a lot. While Vanderbilt was under the impression that all was well, Suzanne's friends reported to police that she was still fuming, even after he had given her feedback.
00:34:55
Speaker
And they said that while she didn't want to file a formal complaint against Vanderbilt, she said she would deal with the concern herself. So law enforcement is hearing all of this, right? And then that she said, well, I'm not going to file a formal complaint. I'm going to deal with it myself. And then you add to that history that law enforcement was hearing from those close to Suzanne, the fact that she went to Vanderbilt's office
00:35:25
Speaker
on the day that she was murdered. Oh, and we hear that argument. People say that argument. Right. Could that have been them? Right. And that's what they're thinking. So police really didn't need much more convincing at that moment. While Jovan was attending the Best Buddies pizza party, Vanderbilt was spending the rest of the day in his office.
00:35:47
Speaker
When a friend popped in around six to see if he wanted to take in a movie, he politely declined because he planned on working the rest of the evening. He has stated that he looked over Suzanne's revisions, stepped out for some fresh air, and walked to Enfall's rink to see part of the hockey game, and then came back to the office before retiring alone to his home.
00:36:16
Speaker
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00:36:45
Speaker
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00:37:11
Speaker
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00:37:34
Speaker
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00:38:00
Speaker
It was only four days after the murder, Maggie, that law enforcement brought Vanderbilt in for a four hour interrogation.
Impact of Accusations on James Vanderbilt
00:38:10
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. He cooperated fully. He had no history of anger issues or violence. And he even said to police, you know what, feel free to search my place. He even offered to take both a polygraph and to hand over the keys to his red Jeep Wrangler.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, which doesn't sound like anything a guilty person would do. Right. Like search my place, give me a polygraph, search my car. Here's the keys to my car. And the reason they were interested in that red Jeep Wrangler was because one witness who came out later recalled seeing what he called a quote, small red car, end quote, racing from the scene. So. But Jeeps aren't small cars. No, they're not. But police were convinced
00:39:00
Speaker
you know, that the perpetrator is Vanderbilt and that the car was none other than Vanderbilt's Wrangler, as evidenced by the fact that they asked the witness no fewer than 14 times if the vehicle matched Vanderbilt's vehicle.
00:39:18
Speaker
And see, that makes me think that they are doing that in hopes that they'll say, well, maybe it was a G. Right. Yeah. They even showed the witness pictures of Jim Vanderbilt. However, the witness repeatedly denied that the car was a Wrangler and said that Vanderbilt was not the person who they saw driving. Good for this person for being persistent. Yeah. Stick into their guns.
00:39:47
Speaker
Those denials did not stop the media from running with the accusations. Of course. On December 9th, the New Haven Register ran the article titled Yale Teacher Grilled in Killing. And while the article did not name Vanderbilt, the specifics about the Yale teacher that were given in the article left little doubt.
00:40:15
Speaker
Adding to Vanderbilt's troubles was the reaction of one woman, the one who had seen Suzanne walking down College Street around 925, the one who said that she had seen one man walking in front of her and another behind her. She stated, quote, I got chills. I didn't know this, Vanderbilt. I go home and turn on the news and I see him.
00:40:41
Speaker
This guy talking to reporters, he was blonde with glasses. I could not believe what I saw. I went back to my notes and saw the description I wrote that I saw a blonde man with glasses. Okay. But we're acting like it's really just a strange coincidence. It's so, it happens so infrequently to see a blonde man with glasses. Oh, I know. And I think that's what's,
00:41:11
Speaker
so hard here because for police, they're like, okay, this is at least tentatively an identification of the perpetrator. But like you just said, Maggie, you've got to admit blonde man with glasses. I mean, that's very vague.
00:41:27
Speaker
Like if he had a scar on his cheek and she could have seen that and then Van de Velde had a scar on his cheek, then I'll be like, okay, cool. It's a blonde man with glasses with a scar on his cheek. That one I can kind of believe. It was just a blonde man with glasses. There's literally a million of those people. Right. Especially in a college town. Yeah.
00:41:45
Speaker
These accusations and subsequent actions by the police destroyed Vanderbilt's career. Oh, I don't doubt it. New Haven PD even went so far as to contact Vanderbilt's primary employer, the US Navy, and told them that they should reconsider working with the professor. Not that I feel like it's a little unprofessional on behalf of the police department. I completely agree.
00:42:12
Speaker
However, after they conducted an investigation, the Navy conducted an investigation into the police department's claims. Not only did Vanderbilt keep his job with the Navy, but he also kept his top secret security clearance. And I feel like their investigation was probably pretty thorough because they're the US Navy. Right. But Vanderbilt was at his wit's end. He maintained his innocence, but no one other than his close friends seemed to believe him.
00:42:41
Speaker
he publicly begged another agency to take over the case and test the DNA evidence. So he's like, please, somebody else take over and test the DNA. After all, despite any comments that tentatively linked him to a motive or to a location, much of the evidence pointed in opposite directions, including other eyewitness statements.
00:43:09
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yes. There was a woman who had seen someone running from the direction of the crime scene. And I'll come back to her here in a bit. But this woman saw somebody actually running like their life depended on it coming from the direction of the crime scene. She was shown a picture of Vanderbilt and she told law enforcement that unequivocally the man she saw running was not him.
00:43:39
Speaker
According to Dave Altamari's article published in The Current on July 2, 2008, police even took her in an unmarked van to Vanderbilt's office.
00:43:53
Speaker
to get a look at him in person. Like this is how the police are like trying to make everything fit Vanderbilt. But she again maintained that the person she saw was not a Vanderbilt. And according to that article in the current, after she said that law enforcement never contacted her again. And you know, I get it in a way from
00:44:19
Speaker
their point of view because they want to solve the case, you know? And so I'm sure they do try to make the pieces fit in places maybe that they shouldn't. Right. But then on the flip side, I know you're trying to help one family because you're trying to find out who killed their daughter, but you're also damaging another family. If this isn't the killer, you're ruining this man's livelihood. Oh yeah.
00:44:45
Speaker
So in the meantime, Yale canceled Vanderbilt's string classes and asked him to leave the university because him being on campus would be a quote, distraction for students. Wow. And all of this, despite the fact that Vanderbilt also did not match evidence found at the scene like the palm print on the Fresca bottle.
00:45:12
Speaker
so i did google this while you were um while we've been talking and fresca is a predominantly southern drink so i wonder if one if she got this from someone's house or this person like you know had some in their car i feel like that would be a very identifying thing to have in that area
00:45:35
Speaker
So I wonder if they kind of looked into that. They did because, and I'll get to it here in a minute, there was only one market in the area that sold Fresca. Okay. So we'll come back to that. But good eye, Maggie. Thank you. Not only were the accusations catastrophic for Vanderbilt, it also shifted the investigation in a damaging way by potentially stopping people from coming forward
00:46:04
Speaker
because of a mistaken belief that police had already solved the case because they were honing in on a single suspect. Because you're like, oh, that thing I saw, obviously that wasn't connected because they've found the guy. But it wasn't until years later that the focus shifted away from Vanderbilt.
00:46:26
Speaker
Sergeant John Placatus of the New Haven Police Department told reporter Les Gura of the New Haven Current, quote, from a physical evidence point of view, we had nothing to tie him to the case. I had nothing to link him to the crime, end quote.
00:46:45
Speaker
And Yale's former head investigator, Andy Rosenzweig, told Randall Beach of the New Haven Register of Vanderbilt, quote, he never should have been a suspect. He was a convenient suspect. They looked at who the victim had any conflict with. She had some disagreements over his feedback, or lack thereof, on her senior thesis. That's such a stretch, to extrapolate from there to a motive for murder, end quote.
00:47:15
Speaker
Vanderbilt did eventually sue Quinnipiac University for wrongful dismissal from their graduate program. So he was enrolled in a graduate program. And after all this was happening, they kicked him out. Oh my God. Uh-huh. And he was awarded $80,000 in that lawsuit. He also sued New Haven police department for violating his civil rights because he was the only suspect named
00:47:43
Speaker
when they admitted that they had other suspects. Wow. And on June 3rd, 2013, both New Haven and Yale awarded Vanderbilt with a monetary settlement. At the same time, they publicly admitted that he was no longer considered a suspect. So does he still work at Yale? No. And by then, though so much damage had been done,
00:48:10
Speaker
So to illustrate, I want to read you actually a portion of an article that van de Velde published in his own words. It was published in the Yale Daily News on April 22nd, 2003. He said, quote, on the morning of December 9th, 1998, the police briefed the Council of Masters and senior Yale officials that I was the prime suspect in the crime.
00:48:36
Speaker
Not a single Yale official bothered to ask why or demand any evidence to support the accusation. There is nothing to support the speculation that the Jovan murder was committed by someone she knew. In fact, all facts suggest the opposite.
00:48:56
Speaker
After a month of official statements by the police that there were no suspects in the crime, the university issued a public statement on January 11th, 1999, announcing that it had been informed by the New Haven police that I was in a pool of suspects.
00:49:16
Speaker
By publicly branding me a suspect again in January 1999, Yale University caused immense and irreparable damage again to the investigation and to my reputation and ended my career.
00:49:33
Speaker
Despite now 52 months of investigation, nothing, absolutely nothing links me to this crime. Nothing then did. Nothing now does. Nothing ever will." End quote. Wow. And Vanderbilt was right. Nothing has. Yeah. The partial palm print, you know, it didn't match his. It has yet to be identified with anyone.
00:50:04
Speaker
And the DNA that was collected from underneath her fingernails, though it did reveal foreign DNA, ended up being the result of contamination as it came back matching a lab technician who had been testing the DNA in this case. Yeah. Despite the setbacks, there are several other alternative theories to have been presented.
00:50:30
Speaker
To illustrate, as Randall Beach noted in his December 2, 2018 article in the New Haven Register, Andy Rosenzweig, former Yale investigator and also NYPD lieutenant and former chief investigator of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, said that he had, quote, identified half a dozen suspects who should be looked at, not including Vanderbilt, end quote.
00:50:58
Speaker
So I'm going to go through those theories. Are you ready? OK, yes. This proposed theory was that Jovan was murdered by a terrorist. Oh, OK. Coming out of left field. But they were questioning could a terrorist have killed her because her senior thesis was on Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. And this was in 1998. Yes.
00:51:24
Speaker
So early, early on. Yeah. Rosenzweig himself wrote, quote, I'd be looking for someone from or sympathetic with the fringe element of the Muslim Middle Eastern community in and around Yale and New Haven, a bartender, a waiter, a cab driver, a student, a store clerk who may have crossed paths with Suzanne and who she decided to confide that she was doing research on Al-Qaeda.
00:52:07
Speaker
So I wonder if she had made any new friends since she'd started researching
00:52:14
Speaker
like Osama bin Laden. Right. I mean, especially if you're talking about, say, Middle Eastern culture, and then you meet someone who's from that culture, you might say, you know, Oh, I'm writing a paper, would you care to?
Exploring Theories and Suspects
00:52:26
Speaker
Yeah, right. Certainly, such a motive would have resulted in a crime of passion.
00:52:33
Speaker
And if the person were someone familiar with Jovan and she did take a ride in a car, you know, then obviously she would have trusted them to get into a vehicle with them. So that's the first theory. A second theory is the GRE book borrower. Okay. I thought about this too, cause they also, are we talking about the initial book borrower or the second book borrower? I'm going to say the initial one. Okay.
00:53:03
Speaker
And I bring this theory up because she had just commented to her friend that she would retrieve the book from the quote unquote someone whom she had allowed to borrow it.
00:53:15
Speaker
And there are many people who believe this theory that it's a GRE book borrower, but they say they believe it because Jovan called the person someone. Like she told her friend, I let someone borrow it and she didn't name the person. And they think that that indicates that she herself was not familiar with them. But I feel like it could also be that the person she was emailing wasn't familiar with the person.
00:53:40
Speaker
You know what I mean? So like, if I work with somebody, you know, named George, and you don't know George, then I wouldn't say if you ask me, Hey, can I borrow that microphone? I wouldn't say George has it because you don't know who George is. Right. So you'd be like that. So instead I would say, Oh, I let someone at work borrow it, but I'll get it back.
00:54:06
Speaker
You know what I mean? So I don't think that someone could just be that whoever she's emailing didn't know them. We also know and have no explanation for why Suzanne was walking that evening potentially in a direction that was, you know, not the direction of her, of her place.
00:54:25
Speaker
you know, particularly when she told a friend how exhausted she was and that she was looking forward to rest and relaxation. So I feel like if she told her friend that she would get this book from the someone and leave it in the foyer and then gave them the code to her building, that to me says she was obviously planning on getting the book back either that evening or the next day.
00:54:48
Speaker
in my mind. And I wonder if we could find out who this someone was and maybe their house or apartment was in the direction that she was walking in. Right. And so far we have not identified that person. And I feel like that person would come forward. Oh, I was the someone who had that book. I actually live on Maple Street, which was like the opposite direction she was walking in. Right. Right. So could she have been retrieving the book from someone who would then go on to take her life?
00:55:17
Speaker
The third theory is that her death could have been the result of a random attack. In an interview with the New Haven Register, Jeff Mitchell, who's a friend of Vanderbilt's, told the reporter that he thinks it was random. And to give some context, and this is what I was mentioning earlier, the Fresca bottle that was found at the scene turned out to be more specific of a clue
00:55:41
Speaker
than most would normally consider because Fresca was only sold at, and this is what I told you before, one nearby market, Krauser's. And since Peter Stein hadn't seen Suzanne holding the bottle when he ran into her, logical deduction meant that she must have stopped somewhere to purchase it.
00:56:06
Speaker
Or met someone who had it. Right. Or met someone who had it. Or it could have been if she took a vehicle in the vehicle and had fallen out and they didn't even notice. Oh, yeah. Even though Krauser's had security camera footage.
00:56:23
Speaker
That footage was never requested by law enforcement. That makes absolutely no sense. Nor were any of the Crouser employees questioned to find if they had seen anything of note that evening. Again, it makes no sense. Yep, whether they saw someone matching Suzanne's description or anything, for that matter. OK. To the reporter, Mitchell pointed toward the area of Crouser's and pointed up Elm Street to Park Street, where Jovan lived.
00:56:51
Speaker
As he said that in 1998 that strip of road was quote dangerous end quote. So I was going to ask you if you live like in a pretty good neighborhood but now I'm kind of sensing she didn't if we're describing the strip of road as dangerous.
00:57:13
Speaker
Well, and I'm wondering too, if, you know, and this is true again in a lot of college towns, the, the line between safe and dangerous is sometimes one cross street. Right. So it could have just been the case that like, this was a more dangerous side or whatever. So he believes that Jovan could possibly have been abducted by several and forced into a vehicle. Now, why do you think several instead of one? I don't know.
00:57:42
Speaker
But he proposed that they then may have attempted to sexually assault or to rob her. But Madden, when she resisted or they realized that she didn't have any cash, they stabbed her repeatedly and then dumped her body on East Rock Road. This is his theory. That's so horrific. A fourth and in my mind, very strong theory is that of the running man,
00:58:10
Speaker
AKA Green Jacket Man. The Jovan Task Force, which was a group of law enforcement who were assembled to take a closer look into the case, revealed at the end of 2008, so now we are 10 years after the crime. 10 years.
00:58:29
Speaker
They are now finally coming forward to say that there had been that witness. They're re-looking at her. Remember the one who said that she saw someone running? Oh, yes. They're only now coming back to her to get some more details about what that man looked like.
00:58:45
Speaker
According to an article in the New Haven Register by William Camper published on July 2nd, 2008, the task force was going door to door asking witnesses if they recognized an artist's sketch based off of this witness account. So on the night of the murder, this is what she told police.
00:59:04
Speaker
Quote, she was driving in the area of Whitney Avenue and Huntington Street at about 10 p.m. when she saw a white male sprint past her and disappear into the church property, end quote.
00:59:17
Speaker
Okay, and that would have lined up timeline wise. Yes, it would. And while this witness has never been publicly named, New Haven Register reporter Randall Beach was able to contact and interview her for his article, Jovan Murder Mystery Continues 20 Years Later, that was published on December 2nd, 2018.
00:59:39
Speaker
She reported to him that, quote, she was driving slowly at the time. Suddenly, the man ran up to the front passenger window, briefly peered inside, then turned and jumped over the plantings of a new garden in front of a church that's now the site of the Worthington Hooker Middle School. I never saw anybody run so fast, she said.
01:00:03
Speaker
She described a fierce look on his face when he looked into her car, but she only saw the side of his square jaw for just a second or two. Thus, she cannot say who he was."
01:00:19
Speaker
And so the sketch that was drawn based upon her memory, which now when she was re-asked about it by the Jovan task force 10 years later. Okay. That's what I was about to say. So did they take, do this at the time, but no, okay. 10 years later. So that is when a sketch is made. And based upon her memory, it was of an athletic 20 to 30 year old man who looked well groomed.
01:00:44
Speaker
He wore a loose fitting green jacket and dark pants. And that's how he came to be called the green jacket man or the green jacket killer. But you know what sucks. So one not only could her memory have altered what this guy looks like in that 10 year span. Right. Yes.
01:01:03
Speaker
Which essentially could mean this drawing looks like nobody. But say her memory is perfect and it looks exactly like the man that ran up to her window. It sucks because it's been 10 years. And so people are gonna have to think, well, I may have saw somebody who looked like that 10 years ago. That kinda looked like Billy, but now that doesn't look anything like him. Because it's been so long ago. Yeah, now he might look completely different. Yeah. And that's weird that you said Billy.
01:01:32
Speaker
Oh. Because there are some out there who propose that they know the potential identity of this green jacket killer.
Could Billy Be Involved?
01:01:41
Speaker
Is it a Billy? It is a Billy. He will round out our theories at number five, Billy. Although Vanderbilt's name was public and in nearly every mouth during the investigation into Suzanne's death, all we know of this theory is the name Billy.
01:02:00
Speaker
Billy was a graduate student in the Yale School of Architecture who reputedly told several friends that he was quote unquote obsessed with Suzanne's case. In another article by Randall Beach in the New Haven Register titled tips in 1998 slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovan focus on mentally disturbed grad student
01:02:25
Speaker
that was published December 8th, 2012, the theory of Billy's link is explored. So Beech interviewed East Rock resident Giles Carter, who along with several other people argue that the image of the green jacket killer closely resembles a college yearbook photo of Billy, who was also known to be a runner and notably often wore a green jacket.
01:02:53
Speaker
So potentially green jacket and Billy could be the same person. Right. Now I'm going to say this again, just like I did with blonde hair and glasses. Those two details aren't that specific. Lots of people run, not me. Not me. Lots of people and several have green jackets. But there is a story from Giles Carter who knew Billy that does give pause. It happened in October, 2011. So this person knows this,
01:03:22
Speaker
quote-unquote Billy. Yes, here is Carter's memory of that day as reported in Beech's article. And this is a bit of a long quote. Quote, he started yelling about how angry he was with his parents, who he was estranged from. I said, let's go for a walk. As they entered nearby Edgerton Park, Carter recalled, he turned to me and said,
01:03:48
Speaker
There's something I have to tell you. I'm obsessed with the murder of Suzanne Jovan. Carter said Billy then recalled that shortly after the slaying, his roommate at their Chapel Street apartment was watching a TV news report on the case. And Billy remembered saying to his roommate, they'll never catch me. Billy told Carter it was a joke and very poor taste.
01:04:13
Speaker
But Billy was convinced this joke led to police trying to trap him into confessing to the crime. He almost started to cry, was breaking up and telling me how totally, utterly unhappy he was and that his obsession prevented him from ever having a relationship with a woman, Carter said. He didn't know how to deal with women on an emotional level, Carter added. It was his lifelong story, end quote.
01:04:42
Speaker
Okay. So Carter and this Billy and Billy's not his real name, correct? Well, as far as I know, he's just called Billy. Yeah. Go on a walk in October. And that's when he's like, I'm obsessed with the murder of Suzanne Jovan. And then joked with a roommate, they'll never catch me. Okay.
01:05:04
Speaker
but he said it was just a joke. But I mean, a lot of people say things that are in very poor taste. And I wonder if, I mean, it's completely inappropriate, but I wonder if that's what that was. Right. And I mean, he was, well, I mean, the title of Beeche's article indicates that Billy is mentally disturbed. So it could be the case that he's not even aware
01:05:33
Speaker
of what he's saying, but Giles Carter, Alan Rosner, and Jeff Mitchell actually penned an 11-page document of all of the reasons why Billy should be considered a suspect in the case.
01:05:47
Speaker
One other detail included in that document was that about a year after this incident with Carter, Billy had called up Alan Rosner, who was an attorney, to ask about creating a will so that some of his property could go to a niece of his. And Rosner asked him why he was suddenly worried about a will when he was so young. And Billy reportedly said to Rosner, quote, they're out to get me. They're closing in.
01:06:15
Speaker
End quote. So, I mean, these could be delusions. Well, yeah, it sounds like he maybe needs some help. Mm hmm. That same evening while driving on I-95, Billy drove into a barrier, got out of his car,
01:06:33
Speaker
and walked into traffic where he was struck by an oncoming car and pronounced dead on arrival. So now we're questioning, was this the action of a mentally disturbed person who needed help dealing with delusional fantasies? Or was this someone whose guilt had gotten the better of him? In terms of the details of the crime, Billy's prints have never been compared with that found on the Fresca bottle.
01:07:02
Speaker
What's more, they wonder, those who wrote this report, if the tip of the knife that was found still lodged in Suzanne's skull could have been from an exacto knife, something architectural students often carry. Oh. Finally, after Billy's funeral, Beach also reported another recollection of Carter's. Quote, shortly after the funeral, Carter called Billy's mother to discuss his concerns.
01:07:32
Speaker
According to Carter, she said she was deleting Billy's emails and disabling his computer's hard drive for closure. Quote, I asked her not to do that because he could be linked to a crime, he recalled. She said, oh, Jovan. So she knew he had this obsession. She told me he couldn't possibly have done this. He would have told us, end quote.
01:08:02
Speaker
Okay, that's just weird. Yeah, the deleting of the emails and the clearing of the hard drive is an odd move. But to be, yeah, weird for closure. Yeah, to be fair, other than speculation, there's no evidence that Billy was involved, though, and he could very well be just like van de Velde, a victim himself.
01:08:25
Speaker
So in thinking about all the possibilities, my final question is this. This is what's in my head. What happened to the papers that Peter Stein saw in her hand? So I'm questioning what were those papers and where did they go? And did they have any link to what may have happened to her? Because there aren't papers found at the crime scene. I wonder if the papers really could have been the GRE book. See, I don't know. Because I think he said it was just a few
01:08:53
Speaker
Oh, oh, yeah. But what was on them? And where did they go? Right. So Maggie, what theory makes the most sense to you or what are you thinking in your head? So I really think to me the theory that makes the most sense is the green jacket killer. Mm hmm.
01:09:13
Speaker
I don't know that I'm fully convinced yet that I can make the green jacket killer and Billy the same person. Billy's story is really weird to me, but almost seems just more obsession stalker ish kind of weird to me and not murder weird to me. But again, I really don't know, but I definitely think.
01:09:35
Speaker
the green jacket man could be this killer. And I wish they would just freaking do the partial palm print stuff. I know. Because I think that would tell us a lot. And then could at least rule Billy out. Yeah. For good. By May 24th, the rest of Suzanne Jovan's graduating class were in their black caps and gowns on the New Haven green. Diplomas were conferred and celebrations were about to ensue.
01:10:04
Speaker
But the empty seat where Suzanne would have been seated was on the mind of many. To honor her, she was given a degree that day and classmates placed a black stone as a memorial in Davenport courtyard in a flower bed. But her story isn't over because her family and friends still have no more answers today than they did then.
Public Appeal for Information
01:10:27
Speaker
There is still so much information that law enforcement needs. Specifically, they still need to ID the person who borrowed the GRE materials. Additionally, the couple who had been out walking, who had heard the screams, found, jovin, and called 911, had a driver by stop to ask if they needed help. The driver's offer was captured on the 911 call.
01:10:52
Speaker
Police would like to speak with that person to ascertain if they witnessed anything pertinent to the investigation. They are also looking for a taxi passenger who took a cab on December 4, 1998 and was picked up around the 333-337 area of Blatchley Avenue to the Newhallville section of New Haven around 930.
01:11:17
Speaker
The taxi driver heard a man and woman arguing, and law enforcement are seeking this individual to corroborate details. The passenger was described as a black woman in her late 30s or early 40s wearing a healthcare worker's uniform. Finally, police also want corroboration on any details concerning the man seen sprinting past motorists near Whitney Avenue and Huntington Street.
01:11:44
Speaker
Of continued focus on the case, the Suzanne Jovan homicide investigation team wrote, quote, we want to hear from anyone who has heard something, seen something.
01:11:56
Speaker
or who may even have repressed the knowledge of something that could be related to the murder of Ms. Jovin, do not assume that someone else has already provided the information. Even if you've already made a call in response to previous requests for information, you should do so again so that the team may follow every possible lead." Witnesses or anyone with information about the case is asked to call the tip line at 1-866-623
01:12:26
Speaker
or send an email to jovin.case at ct.gov.
01:12:38
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from
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01:13:07
Speaker
you soon.
01:13:07
Speaker
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Speaker
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01:14:04
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
The our audio on an oxygen channel television show was surreal. It was. Yeah. And Maggie's right. That is 100% the truth that we owe it all to you. And we also got what is possibly one of the best
01:15:12
Speaker
five-star written reviews yet from Princess Gecko who wrote, quote, I love this podcast so much. I am currently a senior in high school in Kentucky, and I wish Maggie and Allison were my teachers.
01:15:28
Speaker
Maggie's accent reminds me of my French teacher, who was one of my favorite teachers. I love how they mentioned Versailles, Kentucky. The love notes are an amazing addition to the podcast. Today, I'm binging this podcast to celebrate finishing my college essays.
01:15:45
Speaker
Maggie and Allison just seem so genuine. They really are passionate about this podcast and their episodes always focus on the victims. This isn't one of those podcasts that's just focused on money. They are genuinely passionate about this topic. I hope you all have an amazing school year. My school had a snake fall out of my English teacher ceiling, so I hope your schools are pest free.
01:16:07
Speaker
I hope that I'm like these two when I'm older they're amazing sorry about any typos and quote is that not the best I mean other than the snake story because I would have peed my pants and cried at the same time I mean seriously that
01:16:24
Speaker
one it's just an amazing review for the podcast probably i think the best one we've ever gotten but just as like an educator i don't even have this child but this made me tear up a little bit yeah so
01:16:39
Speaker
freaking sweet. Yes. Also, I read the article about your high school's experience with snakes falling through the ceiling and my as if it's the same high school that I'm thinking about. Oh, no. Yeah. Mm hmm.
01:16:54
Speaker
But I mean so sweet love it the best review and I'm sure obviously that you will do fantastic on all of those college essays so much love going out to you and we also hope that you have a fantastic school year and today.
01:17:12
Speaker
We wanted to give you a little sneak peek into our next few weeks as well. So over the next few weeks, it's crazy how much we have going on. So instead of the normal four episodes this month, we are going to drop some bonus content for you. We will be doing an episode on the 17th.
01:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, one of our yeah. Yeah. Yes. We'll be dropping an episode from one of our podcasting friends On the 17th so you can hear her show and a little more true crime to get you through the week So that will be dropping in addition right to the nightly schedule. Yes. Yes
01:17:51
Speaker
And then we also have an interview with a movie director that will drop on October 25th. And that will be based on the topic of our October 20th regular episode and on October 31st,
01:18:08
Speaker
We will be dropping a special Halloween episode that we are doing alongside several other big name true crime podcasters who you know and love. So it is going to be an awesome month. So get ready.
01:18:26
Speaker
And if that's still not enough for you, please head on over to Patreon, where for only $5 a month, you can enjoy even more content. And we have been delayed, not gonna lie, with September, it is coming. Those are in the process of being edited. We've just had so many other things going on, interviews and working with other podcasts that
01:18:47
Speaker
Patreon has been like I feel continually kind of pushed back pushback, but it they are coming But by this weekend for sure but on there you'll find funny stories to get to know us There are some solved cases on there. We do book recommendations. We do all kinds of stuff Plus if you are part of the 12 or $15 a month tiers and you are paying that for the months of October and November Then you will get
01:19:15
Speaker
a swag box shipped to you at the end of November and Allison has actually shown me things that she's been working on that's going to go in this box and I want a box and you will want a box. Yes. I like, I want to keep a box. Yeah, me too. So with all of that being said, all of our love is going out to each and every one of you. Until next week, Sleuthounds.