Suzanne Jovin – Yale Student

When Suzanne Jovin, a popular, intelligent senior at Yale University was murdered she left behind a lot of heartache and questions.  Who would want to kill Suzanne?  Was she in the wrong place at the wrong time or did someone intentionally want to kill her?  Listen to the fascinating mystery that surrounds the murder of a girl that was taken far too soon.

Location

Yale University is located in New Haven, Connecticut. It’s about 90 minutes from New York City. Yale was founded in 1718. 25 Yale men served in the Continental Congress and 4 signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1969 Yale College admits women for the 1st time. Women had already attended other schools at Yale since 1869, such as the School of Fine Arts

New Haven is a coastal city, along the Long Island Sound. It’s the 2nd largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport. It was the 1st planned city in America by the English Puritans in 1638. New Haven is known as “The Elm City” because New Haven held the 1st publicized tree planting program in the United States.

Suzanne Jovin

Suzanne Jovin was born on January 26, 1977, in Gottingen, Germany. She was raised in Germany by her American scientist parents. Her father Thomas a molecular scientist and her mother Donna was a cell biologist. She fluently spoke 4 languages and traveled throughout Europe growing up.

Friends described her as beautiful, smart and compassionate, and not shy or hesitant. Suzanne stood 5’5’’ tall and weighed approx. 125 lbs. She was accepted to Yale in 1995 and sang in the freshman chorus & Bach Society Orchestra. Suzanne co-founded the German Club. She volunteered through the Yale tutoring program in city elementary schools.

Suzanne also worked for 3 years in the Davenport dining hall and ran the Yale chapter of the Best Buddies program. She had volunteered with this program since her freshman year. It is an international organization that brings together students and intellectually disabled adults.

She had a double major in Political Science & International Studies

December 4, 1998

At 4:15 PM Suzane dropped off a draft of her senior essay to Professor/Advisor James Van de Velde office on Prospect Street. She then began preparations for a pizza party at Trinity Lutheran Church located at 292 Orange Street for the local chapter of Best Buddies International Organization

At 8:30 pm she drove volunteers home in a borrowed university station wagon after staying behind to clean up from the pizza party.

At 8:45 PM she returned the car to the Yale-owned parking lot on the corner of Edgewood Avenue & Howe Street. Then she walked 2 blocks to her apartment at 258  Park Street. It was on the 2nd floor of a Yale owned building.

At 8:50 PM friends passing below Suzanne’s window asked if she would like to join them as they were going to the movies. Suzanne declined, saying she was staying in to work on some more school work. Regular classes had ended that week and students were preparing for finals.

At 9:02 PM Suzanne logged onto her Yale email account and wrote a female friend (in German) that she was going to leave her some GRE (Graduate Record Examination) – a standardized test you take for entering graduate school – testing materials in the lobby of her building for her once she got them back from “someone”.  She gave her the code to her building to gain access the next day as she felt she would have those materials back by then. She never named who “someone” was.

Suzanne Leaves Her Apartment

At 9:10 PM Suzanne logged off of Yale email account. It’s unknown if she made a phone call or received any phone calls due to the fact that calls made within the Yale telephone system were not traceable. She left the apartment wearing jeans, low cut hiking boots, and a maroon pull-over. December 4th, 1998 was an unusually warm night averaging 64 degrees. She walked to the Yale Police Communication Center located at Phelps Gate to return the borrowed car keys.

At 9:22 PM Suzanne ran into classmate Peter Stein. He was out walking, just prior to reaching the communications center in the commons area of the Old Campus. Peter Stein is quoted as saying in the Yale Daily News. “She did not mention plans to go anywhere or do anything else afterward.  She just said she was very, very tired and that she was looking forward to getting a lot of sleep.”

Suzanne was not wearing a backpack only holding some white sheets of paper in her right hand. She was walking at a normal pace and did not appear to be nervous or excited. Their interaction only lasted 2 to 3 minutes

At 9:25 PM Suzanne returned keys to the Yale Police Communications Center on College Street between Elm and Chapel Streets. She was seen by a female student returning from the Yale vs. Princeton Hockey Game along College Street which Princeton won 5 to 2. Suzanne was walking North along College Street towards Elm Street coming from Phelps Gate.

Suzanne Is Found Bleeding Out

At 9:55 PM a New Haven Hospital medical resident, out walking with a friend, came across a woman bleeding out at the corner of Edgehill Road & East Rock Road. The East Rock area is a wealthy area with stately homes. It is located 1.9 miles from Yale’s campus. The medical resident rendered medical aid while the friend phoned 911. At this time, the woman was reported to still be alive.

At 9:58 PM Police arrive on the scene to find Suzanne stabbed 17 times in the back of her head, upper back and neck area and her throat was slit. She was lying on her stomach. Her feet were in the road and lying across the parkway – the grassy area between the sidewalk and the road. Suzanne was fully clothed and was still wearing her watch and earrings. There was a crumpled up $1 bill in her pocket.

At 10:26 PM Suzanne was officially pronounced deceased at the Yale New Haven Hospital.

Investigation

The Medical Examiner would identify only one of the stab wounds as fatal out of the 17 she received. The murder weapon was a non-serrated knife, approximately 4 to 5 inches long made of carbonated steel. The Tip of the blade was logged into the left side of Suzanne’s head.

Other evidence collected at the scene includes a Fresca soda bottle and a cigarette. There were no reports of Suzanne entering or exiting any vehicles either at Phelps Gate or at the murder scene. The police believe that it would be virtually impossible for Suzanne to have reached that intersection without getting there by car. It was almost 2 miles from where she was last seen.

Suzanne’s boyfriend since freshman year, Roman Caudillo, had an alibi as he was on a train back to New Haven at the time of the murder. Four days after the murder the New Haven Register prints an article entitled “Yale Professor Grilled in Killing.” No one’s name is mentioned, but enough details were given to point to Professor James Van de Velde.

The interrogation was done prior to any analysis of the evidence. Professor Van de Velde was questioned for four hours. He did not have a lawyer present and even offered investigators the keys to his red Jeep Wrangler. He also offered to let the police search his apartment – which they took him up on. Professor Vane de Velde offered a blood sample and also offered to take a polygraph test – they did not take him up on these offers.

A Witness Comes Forward

Prior to Suzanne’s body being discovered a witness came forward to report that a white man and a white woman had been arguing outside the luxury apartments at 750 Whitney Avenue (at the corner of East Rock Road) around 9:35 pm (20 minutes prior to the 911 call). There was no confirmation that the woman was Suzanne.

This argument was also reported by a taxi driver who was in the area at the time.  He told police that a black woman, late 30/40s wearing a healthcare worker’s uniform was his fare. The Police looked for this woman to come forward to collaborate the driver’s account and perhaps add some new details.

The medical student told police that they and a friend were walking up to the intersection of Edgehill Road around 9:50 pm when they heard screams. They found Suzanne lying on the ground alive, but unable to respond to them. The police do not feel this was a random attack and that Suzanne knew her killer. It could possibly be a crime of passion due to the instrument used.

January 1999

Professor Van de Velde is relieved of all of his classes in January 1999. Yale felt that he would be a “distraction” to students on campus .

August 1999

In August 1999, Vanity Fair published an article entitled “Murder Most Yale” by Suzanne Andrews. She was interviewed La Jueane Oxley, who lived at the corner of Edgehill and East Rock. She claims that the night was unseasonably warm and that the neighborhood is well lit and lots of neighbors were out walking around, even her own daughter was out walking the family dog at the time of the murder.

Amy Chiou was a freshman roommate of Suzanne’s and she was awoken by police at 12 am.  They had gone to Suzanne’s apartment and started calling all the phone numbers on a list next to her phone and Amy was the only one that answered. They asked her to identify the body. The article goes on to talk about the relationship Suzanne had with Professor James Van de Velde.

James Van de Velde was a 1982 graduate of Yale. Suzanne was accepted into Van de Velde’s seminar Strategy & Policy In the Conduct of War in September 1998. She was one of 40 students accepted out of 169 applicants. She also attended another of Van de Velde’s classes “The Art of Diplomacy.”

Van de Velde had a reputation as one of the best lecturers at Yale. Van de Vade was also Suzanne’s senior essay advisor. Suzanne had picked the topic of Osama bin Laden to write about. This was pre 9/11, but at the time Osama bin Laden was the suspected mastermind behind the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Were They Having an Affair?

Throughout the police investigation, they believed that Suzanne and Van de Velde were having an affair. It was one theory as to why their professional relationship seemed to break down by November 1998. Although Van de Velde wrote Suzanne a glowing reference for graduate school he didn’t seem to be available to her to review her senior essay that was coming due on December 8, 1998. This lack of support and availability frustrated Suzanne and confused her as Van de Velde had a reputation for always being available to his students.

It got so bad Suzanne talked to a Yale administrator about her frustrations and Van de Velde’s lack of availability, but she failed to file a formal complaint. Suzanne was worried about her essay because she felt a second reviewer would find faults with it and it could affect the outcome of her grade. The night of the murder a friend, Ira Grudberg stopped by Van de Velde’s office to ask if he wanted to join him at the movies, but Van de Velde declined. He stated that he planned to work on Suzanne’s essay so that he could give it back to her the next day for revisions. 

Witness Come Forward

After the murder, a witness came forward to claim that a small red car was seen leaving the area of the murder rather quickly. This witness, according to Ira Grudberg, was asked by police 14 times if the car they saw was in fact a red Jeep Wrangler and was shown pictures of Van de Velde, but the witness told them no that wasn’t the vehicle they had seen. In January 1999 NHPD confirmed that Van de Velde was in a “pool of suspects” although he was the only one named.

Another Witness Identifies Van de Velde

The female student who identified Suzanne on College Street contacted the police the next night after hearing about the murder of Suzanne Jovin. She was asked to write down everything she could remember and this is what she said:

• Walking in front of Suzanne was a Hispanic or black male with a hooded sweatshirt going north on College Street.
• Behind him going in the same direction was Suzanne.
• Several paces behind her, walking in the same direction, was a blond guy with glasses, white and nicely dressed.

This witness would tell police that when she saw a news report in which James Van de Velde was being interviewed as to what type of student Suzanne was (prior to him being named as a suspect) she felt that the blonde guy she saw was Van de Velde (the one following Suzanne). This tentative id leads police to focus on Van de Velde.

The article goes on to report that the police believe Suzanne was stabbed from behind at the spot where she was found. They don’t believe that she was running away or tried to call for help. The police believe that she was murdered by a man whose motives were either jealousy, desire, or anger.

Suzanne Jovin would graduate with her class in the spring of 1999 cum laude with distinction in both majors. Classmates placed a black slab in her memory in the Davenport’s smaller courtyard

Suzanne N. Jovin

In Loving Memory

January 26, 1977-December 4, 1998

December 2000 (2 years later)

In December 2000, Suzanne’s parents persuade Yale University to hire their own investigators. They would hire Andrew Rosenzweig, a former Lieutenant and former Chief Investigator of Manhattan’s District Attorney’s Office. They also hired Patrick Harnell, a former Commander of Major Crimes Squad with the New York City Police Department.

Both recommended having the state forensics lab analyze Suzanne’s fingernail scrapings and fingerprints from the Fresca bottle as this was not done yet. It would turn out that nothing matched James Van de Velde. Harnett would compare Van de Velde to Richard Jewell. The only difference is that Van de Velde held a Ph.D.

Richard Jewell was a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, GA who discovered a backpack filled with pipe bombs in a park and alerted authorities, and helped to evacuate people out of the park before the bombs detonated. At first, he was heralded as a hero then he was named as a suspect but was eventually cleared by the FBI.

Rosenzweig felt that when the New Haven Police focused solely on Van de Velde it had some devastating effects. One it damaged an innocent man’s reputation. Two if shut down any potential witnesses from coming forward with tips because they thought it had been solved.

Rosenzweig’s theory is that perhaps a terrorist had killed Suzanne because of her senior essay on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Perhaps someone sympathetic with a fringe element of Muslim/Middle Eastern community. “Doing their part for Jihad.”

January 12, 2001

In January 2001, James Van de Velde sued Quinnipiac University for wrongful termination from a graduate program he was enrolled in. He dropped the suit on January 26, 2004, for $80,000.

March 27, 2001 (2 ½ years later)

Police release information about a tan/brown van being seen leaving the area of the crime scene asking for the public’s help in identifying the driver. No reason was given as to why they waited over two years to release this information. 

April 1, 2001

Les Gura, a reporter with the Hartford Courant reported that a Fresca soda bottle was found near the crime scene. The only market in the area at that time that sold Fresca was Krauszer’s market on York Street near Elm Street, which was one block south of Jovin’s apartment. Police never secured videotapes from the market nor spoke to any of the employees. Suzanne’s fingerprints were found on the bottle, as well as, an unidentified partial palm print. Peter Stein reported to police that Suzanne was not carrying any type of bottle with her when he spoke to her.

October 26, 2001

Suzanne’s fingernail scrapings were finally tested. No reason was given as to why it took close to three years for the scrapings to be tested for DNA .

December 7, 2001

Van de Velde sued the New Hartford PD in federal court in CT in December 2001. He Claimed that the NHPD violated his civil rights by naming him and claiming there were other suspects as well, but only putting his name out there. He would add Yale University to this lawsuit on April 15, 2003.

US District Court Judge Robert Chatignay dismissed the federal claims with prejudice, but state claims were dismissed without prejudice in March 2004. Van de Velde asked Chatignay to reconsider his ruling in May 2006 and both federal and state claims were reinstated on December 11, 2007.

September 1, 2006 (nearly 8 years later)

Suzanne Jovin’s murder is classified as a cold case. The case is turned over to the Cold Case Unit in the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office.

August 1, 2007

Van de Velde writes Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, who oversees the Cold Case Unit, to post Suzanne’s case on the cold case website. A team of retired investigators form a cold case unit and reopen Suzanne’s case.

June 2008 (9 ½ years after the murder)

The Jovin Task Force revealed that days after the murder a female motorist had come forward saying that she was driving on Whitney Avenue in the area of Huntington Street around 10 pm the night of the murder. She witnessed a white male sprint past her. He ran alongside her car like the devil was chasing him and turned into the church property jumping over a garden in front of the church, which is now Worthington Hooker Middle School.

He was described as clean-cut, blond or dark blond hair, wearing dark pants and a green jacket. Sources claim that she was shown a photo of James Van de Velde and the witness said that he was not the man she saw running.

July 16, 2008

The Jovin Task Force provides details about the email Suzanne sent to her friend regarding the GRE study materials. The “someone” never returned the materials or came forward. It may indicate that she did not know this “someone” very well.

September 14, 2009 (over 10 years later)

Suzanne Jovin’s parents wrote a letter to the then Governor M. Jodi Rell asking for more DNA testing to be done as the soda bottle had yet to be processed. Rell’s office admitted to a backlog of approximately 12,000 DNA samples that needed to be tested in ongoing cases.

November 16, 2009

News is released that reports DNA contamination. DNA matched that of a trace evidence technician at the CT State Police Forensics lab. This was the result of evidence contamination in the lab. Van de Velde and his attorney renew their calls for testing of the Fresca bottle found near the crime scene.

June 3, 2013

New Hartford and Yale University agree to a monetary out of court settlement with Dr. James Van de Velde. The New Hartford Police Dept. agreed to pay $200,000. Yale University would not disclose the amount they paid. This came after state’s attorney Michael Dearington admitted publicly for the first time that Van de Velde was no longer considered a suspect.

When Van de Velde was contacted after the announcement, according to an article in the New Hartford Register he emailed, “it may likely have destroyed the investigation since it gave a false sense of progress.” This was in response to how naming him a suspect may have hampered the investigation.

January 17, 2015

In an article in the New Haven Register written by Randall Beach, Jeff Mitchell, a citizen investigator, and friend of James Van de Velde is interviewed about his theories on the case.

Theory #1

Suzanne was randomly abducted by several people in a vehicle in the area near the market, as it was known as a dangerous area of town. They were seeking money or sex and became enraged when she resisted and ended up stabbing her repeatedly and then dumped her body in East Rock.

Theory #2

Suzanne was killed by a mentally disturbed Yale School of Architecture student, known for being troubled.

This theory was brought up in a December 2012 article written by Randall Beach and his interview with Giles Carter, an East Rock resident. Carter claims that he and two other Princeton alumni looked at a college yearbook picture and compared it to the “running man” poster. There was a close resemblance and this guy was a runner and also wore a green jacket.

Carter claims that in 2011 this man showed up at this door in a highly agitated state claiming he was obsessed with Suzanne Jovin’s murder. This man, who has never been named, committed suicide a year later. There is no evidence that Suzanne knew this man or even if he was involved with her murder.

June 2015

In a Prezi presentation done by Joanna Slomiak, there is an interview with Dr. Henry Lee, the world-renowned forensic specialist. Dr. Lee was the Connecticut Public Safety Commissioner at the time. He states that he offered his lab services to aid in the investigation soon after hearing about the murder. Dr. Lee talked to the Chief of Police who turned down his offer and told him that there soon would be an arrest.

He was told that no murder weapon had been discovered at the time. Dr. Lee suggested that all the garbage cans trash be collected and to collect all the video surveillance in the area. He stated that his lab was sent Suzanne’s clothing and the Fresca bottle years later, but other evidence was sent to other labs (both state and federal). He felt that all the evidence should have been tested at one lab and not split up.

His lab was the one that found Suzanne’s fingerprint on the soda bottle. His question:  where did it come from? They also found an unidentified partial print that has never been matched. Dr. Lee also talked about the contamination of the fingernail scrapings and that the lab tech responsible did end up resigning/retiring.

He also noted that there was no crime scene reconstruction done at the scene. If this crime were to happen today Dr. Lee felt it may have been solved fairly quickly due to CCTV cameras and cell phones, especially if Suzanne had one on her as it could have tracked her movements. Dr. Lee felt the most critical mistake was not recovering the knife. He stated that it’s important to understand the crime scene; what is there and what is not there.

November 2016

Two members of a TV documentary team petitioned the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission for access to all related law enforcement records. The hearing was held on April 17, 2017. The request was denied citing testimony from Marcia Pillsbury, Assistant State’s Attorney that “disclosure of the records would prejudice a prospective prosecution of Jovin’s killer.”

It’s reported by the Hartford Courant that Suzanne’s clothing would undergo touch DNA testing and that the FBI were re-involved in the case and that both new and prior witnesses were being interviewed. A hypnotist was being hired to interview a key witness who may have seen Suzanne walking only minutes before she was murdered.

Today

James Van de Velde lectures at the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is also an adjunct faculty member of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In addition he is a Lieutenant Commander with US Naval Intelligence Reserve.

There is a tip line available, as well as, a $150,000 reward.

Tipline:  1-866-623-8058

Email:  jovin.case@CT.gov

Questions

• Who was the couple arguing outside of 750 Whitney Ave apartments?
  • Have those witnesses come forward from the East Rock area?
• Why was Suzanne in the East Rock area?
• How did Suzanne get to the East Rock area?  If driven, by whom and where did she get in the vehicle?
• Why was the videotape surveillance from Krauszer’s market not collected nor the employees talked to?
  • Is this the area that she got into the red car or tan/brown van?
• Can DNA testing be done today through genealogy websites?
  • What were the results of the touch DNA that was to be done?
• Who had Suzanne’s GRE study materials?
  • Why have they never come forward?
• Who killed Suzanne Jovin?
  • What was the motive?  

Resources

• Jovin murder mystery continues 20 years later
• Connecticut State Division of Criminal Justice:  jovin.case@ct.gov
• Investigators Hold Forum on Unsolved Suzanne Jovin Murder
• https://the-line-up.com/suzanne-jovin
• New Haven Register “Yale Teacher Grilled in Student Killing” December 8, 1998
• Prosecutor: James Van de Velde no longer a suspect in slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovin
• Cold case investigation continues
• Suzanne Jovin’s murder near the Yale University campus remains unsolved after 21 years
• Randall Beach: Many trying to solve the mystery of who killed Suzanne Jovin
• Murder of Suzanne Jovin
• Investigators seek specific witnesses 17 years after slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovin
• Forum: 17 years later, Jovin investigators seek witnesses and questions persist
• The Green Jacket Killer: The Unsolved Murder Of Yale Student Suzanne Jovin – Intro
• Suzanne Jovin Murder Scene, New Haven CT Part 1
• Suzanne Jovin Murder Scene, New Haven CT Part 2
• 15 Years After Killing of Yale Student Suzanne Jovin, Investigators Reach Out
• Suzanne Jovin Murder Case by Joanna Slomiak on Prezi
• News analysis: Lessons learned from Jovin’s ’99 unsolved murder
• True Crime Diary
• Commentary: How To Solve The 1998 Jovin Murder

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