Sixteen years and investigators are still searching for someone who can help them find the person who killed Suzanne Jovin.
The Yale student was found stabbed to death in New Haven on December 4, 1998. No one was ever arrested.
Jovin, 21, was found dead near a tree at Edgehill and East Rock roads. She had been stabbed 17 times in the head, neck and back. That was a half an hour after she left Phelps gate on the College Street side of the Yale campus, according to Kevin Kane, chief state's attorney.
The Jovin Investigative Team held a public forum Thursday evening at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven hoping to learn new details that might help them with the case.
"We tried to get the word out. We were looking to solicit information from anybody who lived in the neighborhood, visited in the neighborhood or worked in the neighborhood 16 years ago tonight," Kane said of the meeting.
Specifically, the team is asking people who were in the area of Whitney Avenue and East Rock Road that Dec. 4 and remember any unusual details like an argument or a raised voice.
Investigators know she was last seen leaving Phelps Gate on Yale's campus around 9:30 that December evening
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"Between 9:25 when Suzanne drove and left Phelps gate on College Street on the campus of Yale and at 9:55, a half hour later when she was found lying at the intersection of East rock and Edgehill Roads," Kane said.
State authorities have multiple reports of an argument in front of this Whitney Avenue apartment building where Jovin lived. There was also a report of a man running away
"It’s a jigsaw puzzle with a small pieces and people may not recognize the significance of any one of those pieces all by itself," Kane said.
Retired Connecticut state police detectives started independently investigating the murder in June 2007 at the request of New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington, reviewing past "inquiries into the murder" and searching for new information to help authorities crack the case, according to the state's cold case website.
Then, in 2009, Jovin's family learned that DNA evidence collected in the case was contaminated by a former worker at the state forensic lab.
Now, a team known as the Jovin Investigative Team, continues to volunteer time "as unpaid consultants" in the investigation.
The Division of Criminal Justice Cold Case Unit is handling the investigation of the reopened case with the help of the Jovin Investigative Team and the state is offering a $50,000 reward for any information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Jovin's killer, the state cold case website states. Yale University is also offering a $100,000 reward.
Information about the case can be reported to the Cold Case Unit at 1-866-623-8058 or jovin.case@ct.gov or mailed to the Cold Case Unit at P.O. Box 962 in Rocky Hill, CT 06067.
