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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jill Lyn Euto · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:49
Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
0:53
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
0:56
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
1:00
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
1:03
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
1:07
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
1:12
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
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Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
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Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
1:22
Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
1:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:31
Speaker 3: On January twenty eighth, two thousand and one, Super Bowl Sunday,
1:35
Speaker 3: eighteen year old Jill Lynn Utah was getting ready to
1:38
Speaker 3: go watch the Big Game with her family. Her plan
1:41
Speaker 3: was to go over to her mother, Joanne brown house,
1:44
Speaker 3: where her younger sister Jenna also lived. They were planning
1:48
Speaker 3: to eat tacos and watch the Baltimore Ravens play the
1:51
Speaker 3: New York Giants. Jo Anne, her husband, Jill's stepfather, and
1:55
Speaker 3: Joanne's sister Jenna lived a few miles away from where
1:59
Speaker 3: Jill lived in her studio apartment at six hundred Saint
2:02
Speaker 3: James Street. The cross street there was North McBride. Though
2:06
Speaker 3: they lived separately, Jill was constantly in touch with her family.
2:10
Speaker 3: Jenna told Dateline that for her big sister, who she
2:14
Speaker 3: described as fiercely independent, getting her own place was a
2:17
Speaker 3: big achievement for her. Jill loved living on her own.
2:21
Speaker 3: Jill had dropped out of school in the ninth grade,
2:23
Speaker 3: she got her ged and since then had worked hard
2:26
Speaker 3: to support herself, sometimes working two jobs at a time.
2:31
Speaker 3: Jenna told Dateline that surprisingly that day, they were not
2:35
Speaker 3: rooting for a New York team. They wanted Baltimore to
2:37
Speaker 3: win over the Giants, not because they were Baltimore super fans,
2:42
Speaker 3: but more because, Jenna explained, they didn't really like any
2:45
Speaker 3: of the New York teams. They used to live in Colorado,
2:48
Speaker 3: so their team was the Denver Broncos. Jill didn't drive,
2:54
Speaker 3: she rode the bus, so on that day she was
2:57
Speaker 3: supposed to coordinate with her mother and sister to pick
3:00
Speaker 3: her up while they were running errands that afternoon. The
3:03
Speaker 3: plan they had decided on was that Jenna and jo
3:05
Speaker 3: Anne were going to head to the store, then after
3:08
Speaker 3: they got home. At some point, they were going to
3:11
Speaker 3: pick Jill up from her Syracuse apartment. But when Jenna
3:15
Speaker 3: and jo Anne got home from the grocery store and
3:17
Speaker 3: called Jill, she never answered the phone. They kept trying,
3:22
Speaker 3: the phone kept ringing, and still there was no response
3:25
Speaker 3: from Jill. Eventually, they started cooking and got ready for
3:29
Speaker 3: the game. The game started at six forty pm. The
3:33
Speaker 3: halftime show came and went, and Jill never showed up
3:37
Speaker 3: and she never called back. At first, Joanne thought something
3:41
Speaker 3: had come up. Maybe Jill had gone to watch the
3:43
Speaker 3: game with a friend, maybe she hadn't had time to call.
3:47
Speaker 3: They kept watching the game. That year, the Backstreet Boys
3:50
Speaker 3: sang the national anthem. The halftime show acts were Aerosmith
3:54
Speaker 3: and n Sync. By Monday, joe Anne was getting more
3:58
Speaker 3: and more concerned. She and Jenna kept calling. Jill still
4:02
Speaker 3: didn't pick up. Back then, Joanne had a cell phone,
4:05
Speaker 3: but there's no mention of Jill having a cell phone.
4:08
Speaker 3: Her family was calling Jill on her landline in her apartment.
4:12
Speaker 3: At around nine thirty am, Joanne called Jill's workplace, and
4:16
Speaker 3: that's when Jill's boss told her Jill had not come
4:19
Speaker 3: in that day. At that point, Joanne knew something was
4:23
Speaker 3: very wrong. She called Jenna and went home to pick
4:26
Speaker 3: her up. Together, they went over to Jill's apartment. When
4:30
Speaker 3: they got to James Street, they walked up to Jill's
4:33
Speaker 3: door on the sixth floor. Jill had a dog named Tooch,
4:37
Speaker 3: a French bulldog, and at first her mom told The
4:40
Speaker 3: New Times when they got to the door and knocked,
4:43
Speaker 3: she didn't hear anything. So for a split second, she
4:47
Speaker 3: felt a moment of relief because she explained, she didn't
4:51
Speaker 3: hear the dog and she didn't think Jill would go
4:53
Speaker 3: anywhere without that dog. But then they heard the dog whining,
4:58
Speaker 3: and that's when Joanne said she and Jenna panicked. They
5:02
Speaker 3: opened the door and went inside. Joanne went in first
5:06
Speaker 3: and immediately picked up the dog. Then she saw Jill's
5:10
Speaker 3: body on the floor of the living room area. Jenna
5:13
Speaker 3: later said that her mom physically blocked her from trying
5:17
Speaker 3: to get into the apartment after her Jenna said she
5:20
Speaker 3: will never forget the horror she and her mom experienced
5:23
Speaker 3: that day. At some point after she saw her daughter's body,
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Speaker 3: Joanne started screaming and couldn't stop. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over
5:36
Speaker 3: the past eight years of making my true crime podcast,
5:39
Speaker 3: Helen Gone, I've learned there's no such thing as a
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Speaker 3: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
5:46
Speaker 3: of messages from people all around the country asking for
5:49
Speaker 3: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
5:52
Speaker 3: and their communities. If you have a case she'd like
5:56
Speaker 3: me and my team to look into, you can reach
5:58
Speaker 3: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
6:00
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four or five.
6:04
Speaker 3: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
6:08
Speaker 3: or you can send us a message on Instagram at
6:11
Speaker 3: Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After Joanne
7:01
Speaker 3: found her daughter's body, Jenna ran around the apartment complex
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Speaker 3: and started banging on doors to get help, and then Joanne,
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Speaker 3: who had a cell phone, called nine one one. Syracuse
7:13
Speaker 3: police showed up and began to examine the crime saint.
7:16
Speaker 3: They found Jill in the living room with multiple stab wounds.
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Speaker 3: Her neck had also been slashed. Mary Jumblick, who was
7:24
Speaker 3: the chief medical examiner of Onendeka County, later described the
7:28
Speaker 3: stab wounds to Dateline. She said, quote, as I recall
7:32
Speaker 3: them in the neck in the chest in the back
7:35
Speaker 3: of her body end quote. Police were able to find
7:39
Speaker 3: a murder weapon, one of Jill's own kitchen knives. In
7:43
Speaker 3: the news footage from WSYR Syracuse that was filmed the
7:47
Speaker 3: day Jill was murdered, you can see Joe Anne being
7:50
Speaker 3: led out onto the street. Jill's French bulldog, Hooch, is
7:55
Speaker 3: with her, wearing a little pink collar. There was no
7:59
Speaker 3: sign of forced entry, and no locks were broken, and
8:02
Speaker 3: nothing appeared to be missing from the apartment, suggesting that
8:06
Speaker 3: robbery was not the killer's motive. That, plus the fact
8:10
Speaker 3: that the knife came from Jill's kitchen, would seem to
8:13
Speaker 3: suggest that her killer was someone she knew and let
8:16
Speaker 3: him voluntarily, and that the murder was unplanned. Or maybe
8:21
Speaker 3: she surprised someone by being in the apartment, maybe someone
8:24
Speaker 3: who was planning to break in and rob her, but
8:27
Speaker 3: that seemed much more unlikely given her plans that day.
8:31
Speaker 3: Jill was home. She was planning to have her mom
8:34
Speaker 3: and or her sister pick her up to watch the game.
8:37
Speaker 3: Neither law enforcement nor her family have ever stated whether
8:41
Speaker 3: or not Jill was sexually assaulted, so we have to
8:45
Speaker 3: pick through the clues in statements from law enforcement and
8:49
Speaker 3: from old news reports to try to see if there
8:51
Speaker 3: was something or someone who police missed. Jill Lynn Utah
8:59
Speaker 3: was born on March twentieth, nineteen eighty two, in Houston, Texas.
9:03
Speaker 3: She had two sisters, Jenna and an older sister named Carrie.
9:08
Speaker 3: Her mom described Jenna and Jill in interviews as best friends.
9:13
Speaker 3: They were very close, according to her obituary. Jill's father
9:18
Speaker 3: lived in a town in upstate New York, but Joanne
9:21
Speaker 3: has stated he was not involved in Jill's life. Anne
9:24
Speaker 3: did not attend her funeral. For a few years. When
9:27
Speaker 3: the girls were young, Joanne, Jill, and Jenna lived in
9:31
Speaker 3: Colorado's Springs, Colorado, but jo Anne told The New Times
9:35
Speaker 3: back in two thousand and one that she started to
9:37
Speaker 3: get concerned about safety at their schools, where she said
9:40
Speaker 3: they had metal detectors. She was also bothered by what
9:43
Speaker 3: she called the pro gun culture, so they came back
9:47
Speaker 3: to the area where they were originally from Syracuse, New York.
9:51
Speaker 3: By the time they moved back, Carrie was out of
9:53
Speaker 3: school and living nearby with her husband. Joanne had homeschooled
9:58
Speaker 3: the girls in Colorado, so after they moved back to
10:01
Speaker 3: New York. Joanne told the newspaper her daughters discovered that
10:05
Speaker 3: if they re enrolled in the school system back in
10:08
Speaker 3: New York when they were in high school, they would
10:10
Speaker 3: actually be held back for two years, so they decided
10:14
Speaker 3: not to stay in school. Instead, they got their GEDs.
10:17
Speaker 3: This suited Jill, who Jenna and joe Anne both described
10:21
Speaker 3: as very independent. Jill immediately started looking for a job.
10:26
Speaker 3: She was soon working at Carousel Center and then at
10:29
Speaker 3: the shoppingtown Mall. Joanne said Jill wanted to become a
10:32
Speaker 3: paramedic and her big dream was to eventually become a
10:36
Speaker 3: pediatric nurse. So Jill was eighteen years old, working at
10:40
Speaker 3: the mall and living in her own studio. But fight
10:44
Speaker 3: this independence, she stayed very close to her family. Police
10:50
Speaker 3: were processing the crime scene and trying to figure out
10:53
Speaker 3: who could have done this to Jill. They knew Jill
10:57
Speaker 3: had been stabbed multiple times and that the murder weapon
10:59
Speaker 3: came from inside her house. It was a knife from
11:02
Speaker 3: Jill's kitchen. Police found the knife at the crime scene,
11:05
Speaker 3: but according to media reports, they were not able to
11:09
Speaker 3: pull a DNA profile from that weapon, and unfortunately, police
11:13
Speaker 3: said there wasn't much physical evidence. According to media reports,
11:18
Speaker 3: police found no usable DNA at all. They talked to
11:23
Speaker 3: Jill's neighbors, but no one said they saw or heard
11:27
Speaker 3: anything unusual. No one saw anyone going into that apartment,
11:31
Speaker 3: either with or without Jill, but the fact that it
11:34
Speaker 3: was Super Bowl Sunday presented its own challenges. Police stated
11:39
Speaker 3: Jill was killed the day before her body was found. Later,
11:42
Speaker 3: it was reported that Jill was killed between around noon
11:46
Speaker 3: and three pm on Sunday, January twenty eighth. Mary Jumblick,
11:51
Speaker 3: the chief medical examiner who spoke to Dateline, stated she
11:55
Speaker 3: believed Jill had known her killer, saying, quote, stabbing is
11:59
Speaker 3: a very intimate form of death, but she added that
12:03
Speaker 3: the evidence, in her opinion, also pointed to an acquaintance
12:06
Speaker 3: of Jill's being the killer. She said that was due
12:09
Speaker 3: to the fact there was no forced entry. Jill's family
12:14
Speaker 3: last heard from her at eleven am, and at the
12:16
Speaker 3: time there was nothing to suggest that she was in distress.
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Speaker 3: What could have happened after they hung up the phone.
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Speaker 3: From the beginning, police seemed to focus on the theory
12:36
Speaker 3: that Jill knew her attacker. Again, this makes sense given
12:40
Speaker 3: the lack of forest entry and the fact that the
12:42
Speaker 3: knife came from the kitchen. In the beginning, there was
12:45
Speaker 3: a flurry of activity. They went to Jill's apartment complex
12:48
Speaker 3: and interviewed a lot of people, but apparently no one
12:51
Speaker 3: had heard anything alarming. However, Jill's murder happened on Super
12:56
Speaker 3: Bowl Sunday, which is a day when loud screaming would
12:59
Speaker 3: not have seemed out of place. Captain Richard Walsh of
13:03
Speaker 3: the Syracuse Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division told The Post
13:08
Speaker 3: Standard a year after Jill's murder in two thousand and
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Speaker 3: two that it was a very tough case. They had
13:13
Speaker 3: no eyewitnesses, no one saw or heard anything weird that day,
13:17
Speaker 3: and Jill's body was not found for twenty four hours. Eventually,
13:21
Speaker 3: the case file turned into one of the biggest cold
13:24
Speaker 3: case files in the Syracuse area. But Jill's family also
13:28
Speaker 3: wondered if there could be other possibilities that Jill's killer
13:32
Speaker 3: was someone she didn't know, maybe a neighbor or a handyman,
13:36
Speaker 3: or someone with a key or access to her apartment,
13:39
Speaker 3: or someone who had been let into the building by
13:42
Speaker 3: someone else and ambushed at her door. If Jill didn't
13:46
Speaker 3: know her killer, her family wondered how would the killer
13:50
Speaker 3: have gained access to the apartment buildings and ended up
13:53
Speaker 3: at Jill's door, which led them to take a closer
13:56
Speaker 3: look at the apartment complex where Jill lived, and what
13:59
Speaker 3: they found, according to them, was shocking. They believed that
14:03
Speaker 3: the apartment complex security system was seriously inadequate. According to
14:08
Speaker 3: the Syracuse Herald Journal, the James apartments had an intercom system,
14:12
Speaker 3: so to give people access to the apartment complex, residents
14:16
Speaker 3: would have to buzz them in. But Jill's mom told
14:20
Speaker 3: the newspaper the building security was a joke, saying, quote,
14:24
Speaker 3: anybody could get into that building end quote. It seemed
14:28
Speaker 3: that Joanne now believed Jill had not known her attacker,
14:32
Speaker 3: at least according to what she said in this newspaper interview.
14:36
Speaker 3: Joanne said, quote, she must have been caught off guard.
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Speaker 3: She wouldn't hurt a fly. She always was well liked,
14:43
Speaker 3: She helped older people and love kids. She didn't want
14:47
Speaker 3: anything more than to be married and have kids.
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Speaker 1: End quote.
14:52
Speaker 3: Jill had loved her studio apartment on the sixth floor
14:55
Speaker 3: of the James, but pretty soon her family was asking
14:59
Speaker 3: a lot of questions about that apartment complex. They sued
15:03
Speaker 3: the building owners of the apartment that Jill leased. They
15:06
Speaker 3: sued HKS Realty Associates Incorporated and the apartment management company
15:11
Speaker 3: James Properties Incorporated. Jill's family alleged that these companies had
15:16
Speaker 3: caused the wrongful death of Jill and the quote conscious
15:20
Speaker 3: pain and suffering of Jill end quote. In the lawsuit,
15:24
Speaker 3: they stated Jill was murdered in the apartment and that
15:27
Speaker 3: the murder investigation remained open and unsolved. It's interesting because
15:32
Speaker 3: this lawsuit got me thinking about court cases where people
15:36
Speaker 3: are murdered inside apartments, especially where women are living alone,
15:40
Speaker 3: because obviously that's something we have a lot of and
15:43
Speaker 3: hear about a lot on this podcast. What are the
15:47
Speaker 3: legal responsibilities of the apartment complex in a case like this?
15:51
Speaker 3: The New York courts ruled that quote, landlords have a
15:55
Speaker 3: common law duty to take minimal precautions to protect tenants
15:59
Speaker 3: from foreseeable.
15:59
Speaker 1: Harm end quote.
16:01
Speaker 3: And the court's ruled this does include what they call
16:05
Speaker 3: a third party's foreseeable criminal conduct, which means apartment buildings
16:09
Speaker 3: can be held liable for tenants safety. But, and this
16:13
Speaker 3: part is crucial, they have to establish a causal link
16:17
Speaker 3: between the landlord's failure to provide that security and the
16:21
Speaker 3: tenant's injuries resulting from a criminal attack in a building.
16:26
Speaker 3: The court ruled that in this case that could only
16:29
Speaker 3: be proven if the killer had gained access through a
16:33
Speaker 3: negligently maintained entrance. In this case, the building owner and
16:37
Speaker 3: management company. The defendants were able to establish there was
16:41
Speaker 3: no provable history of Buell crime by third parties in
16:45
Speaker 3: the building, and the plainists failed to prove whether the
16:50
Speaker 3: defendants knew or had reason to know from past experience
16:53
Speaker 3: that there was a likelihood of violent conduct on a
16:56
Speaker 3: part of third persons in the building. Now before and
17:01
Speaker 3: after Jill's murder, there are a lot of online comments
17:05
Speaker 3: in different forums talking about how that apartment complex was unsafe.
17:11
Speaker 3: Residents said that they felt unsafe, and according to court documents,
17:16
Speaker 3: Joanne and her attorney were able to provide evidence of
17:19
Speaker 3: violent crime in proximity to the building, but they failed
17:23
Speaker 3: to prove whether this ambient crime had quote demonstrably infiltrated
17:29
Speaker 3: the premises end quote, so they were able to prove
17:32
Speaker 3: there was violent crime around the building, but not necessarily
17:36
Speaker 3: that it was in the building, and the owners and
17:39
Speaker 3: building management of the James were able to prove in
17:42
Speaker 3: court that they did have security. They said the doors
17:46
Speaker 3: into the building had automatic locks and that the key
17:49
Speaker 3: fobs were only given to tenants. They also said there
17:52
Speaker 3: was an intercom system visitors could be buzzed in, and
17:55
Speaker 3: that the apartment doors were secured by a lock with
17:57
Speaker 3: a dead bolt. It locked automatically unless a tenant left
18:01
Speaker 3: it unlocked. Each door also had peep holes so tenants
18:05
Speaker 3: could look out and identify the person who was knocking
18:07
Speaker 3: on the door. This case made it all the way
18:09
Speaker 3: to the New York Supreme Court, but in the end,
18:12
Speaker 3: the court found that Jill's mother and her attorneys had
18:16
Speaker 3: failed to prove whether her killer had gained access to
18:19
Speaker 3: the premises through a negligently maintained entrance, so they lost
18:24
Speaker 3: their case. The claim was dismissed. The last time that
18:33
Speaker 3: Jill's family talked to her was on game day in
18:35
Speaker 3: the morning, so could the final conversation that Jill had
18:40
Speaker 3: with her family provide any clues. Jenna said her sister
18:44
Speaker 3: called at around eleven am, and that when Jill called,
18:48
Speaker 3: she said she wanted to talk to their mother, But
18:50
Speaker 3: Jenna said at that point she and Joe Anne were
18:53
Speaker 3: in a rush. They were planning to head to the
18:55
Speaker 3: grocery store before they picked Jill up to grab ingredients
18:58
Speaker 3: for their meal. That day, they were making tacos, which
19:01
Speaker 3: Jenna said was Jill's favorite. Jenna told Dateline, quote, it's
19:06
Speaker 3: one of my biggest regrets. I just wish I would
19:09
Speaker 3: have let her talk to my mom end quote. After that,
19:12
Speaker 3: Jenna and Joanne both called back several times, but they
19:16
Speaker 3: were never able to find out what it was that
19:18
Speaker 3: Jill wanted that morning. Was it something but now or
19:22
Speaker 3: could Jill have already been dealing with a situation at home.
19:26
Speaker 3: Thinking about that phone call still troubles Jenna. She told
19:31
Speaker 3: Dateline that she was annoyed with her sister at first,
19:33
Speaker 3: which she now hates to admit. She thought maybe her
19:37
Speaker 3: sister had blown them off and made other plans. It
19:40
Speaker 3: never occurred to her at the time to be scared.
19:43
Speaker 3: This was in the middle of the day on a Sunday. Later,
19:47
Speaker 3: of course, she said that really bothered her that she
19:49
Speaker 3: had ever felt annoyed even for a second, but it's
19:52
Speaker 3: a totally human reaction. The lawsuit against the managers of
19:57
Speaker 3: the James Apartments was dismissed in two thousand and six.
20:01
Speaker 3: In the years since then, the few statements that police
20:04
Speaker 3: have made publicly seemed to indicate that they are once
20:07
Speaker 3: again focusing on someone Jill knew. One of the police officers,
20:12
Speaker 3: Christopher to Joseph, told news Channel nine WSYR Syracuse in
20:16
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one that he believed Jill knew her killer
20:20
Speaker 3: and had invited the killer into her home. Jill was
20:24
Speaker 3: a young woman, so I'm sure the police asked her
20:26
Speaker 3: family if she was seeing anyone at the time of
20:28
Speaker 3: her death. We don't know whether or not Jill was
20:32
Speaker 3: dating anyone at that time, but there is an interesting
20:36
Speaker 3: tidbit in one of the old newspaper articles about Jill's
20:39
Speaker 3: candlelight vigil that her family held a few weeks after
20:42
Speaker 3: her murder. The Syracuse Harold Journal wrote about the case
20:46
Speaker 3: in March of two thousand and one. They covered the
20:48
Speaker 3: memorial vigil that Jill's friends and family had on what
20:51
Speaker 3: would have been Jill's nineteenth birthday. They walked from a
20:55
Speaker 3: nearby church the apartment building where Jill had been murdered.
20:58
Speaker 3: They were holding candles in Jill's favorite color pick. A
21:02
Speaker 3: reporter from the Harold Journal talked to some people at
21:05
Speaker 3: the vigil. One of the people they interviewed was a
21:07
Speaker 3: twenty one year old guy named Mike Stanton. He said
21:11
Speaker 3: he had dated Jill, and he said they had broken
21:14
Speaker 3: up a week before she was murdered. Mike told the
21:18
Speaker 3: newspaper quote, the first time I saw her, I thought
21:22
Speaker 3: she'd never be interested in me. I can't stop thinking
21:25
Speaker 3: that if we hadn't broken up, I probably could have
21:27
Speaker 3: been there to help. I could have done something end quote.
21:31
Speaker 3: I wonder if the police talked to him or to
21:34
Speaker 3: Jill's other friends, but we don't know. We also don't
21:38
Speaker 3: know what, if any phone activity Jill had on Sunday.
21:41
Speaker 3: Police haven't released that information, and Jill's family has not
21:44
Speaker 3: commented on it publicly. Another cold case, one that took
21:51
Speaker 3: place almost exactly one year after Jill's murder in January
21:54
Speaker 3: of two thousand and two, was solved after over two decades.
21:58
Speaker 3: Thirty nine year old Catherine Scott was murdered in Utica,
22:01
Speaker 3: about fifty miles away from Syracuse. She was strangled and
22:05
Speaker 3: left wrapped in plastic under a mattress. The police stated
22:09
Speaker 3: that in this case that one person's name, Jarvis jbo
22:13
Speaker 3: Simpson had come up early in the investigation, but they
22:17
Speaker 3: were unable to make a case against him because they
22:19
Speaker 3: had no witnesses and no definitive confession. This name was
22:23
Speaker 3: never released publicly, but law enforcement had him on their
22:26
Speaker 3: list for years, and it wasn't until after his death
22:30
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four that investigators reinterviewed key individuals. They
22:35
Speaker 3: developed information in some leads that led them to believe
22:38
Speaker 3: that Jarvis Simpson was definitely responsible and to close the case.
22:44
Speaker 3: Could Jill's case be on a similar trajectory. Detective Chris
22:59
Speaker 3: to Joseph of the Syracuse Police Department called Case Squad said, quote,
23:03
Speaker 3: in the past few years, there have been some people
23:06
Speaker 3: we've looked at in a different capacity, some names that
23:09
Speaker 3: have come up that were known to the case, and
23:12
Speaker 3: we're keeping an eye on those. There have been numerous
23:15
Speaker 3: persons of interest who were considered suspects, but for various reasons,
23:20
Speaker 3: it did not lead us down that path to an arrest.
23:23
Speaker 1: End quote.
23:24
Speaker 3: Jenna said. Police have made statements to her indicating that
23:28
Speaker 3: they were hoping a relative of their suspects would upload
23:31
Speaker 3: their DNA to a family DNA site. Presumably this would
23:34
Speaker 3: have allowed law enforcement to do a familial DNA search.
23:38
Speaker 3: Now I'm confused about this because police had stated there
23:42
Speaker 3: was no usable DNA. Maybe there are traces, but they
23:47
Speaker 3: just didn't have enough to test with the previous technology. However,
23:52
Speaker 3: if they're hoping to do a familial DNA SARCH now
23:54
Speaker 3: with the recent change in law, they may be waiting
23:57
Speaker 3: a long time. Between twenty twenty and twenty twenty five,
24:01
Speaker 3: there have been a lot of shifts toward greater privacy
24:04
Speaker 3: in these genealogy databases. In August of twenty twenty five,
24:09
Speaker 3: Ancestry updated their terms of service to explicitly ban use
24:13
Speaker 3: of their services for law enforcement investigations, court proceedings, and
24:17
Speaker 3: forensic genealogy. This was a huge setback for law enforcement,
24:22
Speaker 3: and ged match has also changed their policies. Now they
24:26
Speaker 3: require people to opt in to consent to their data
24:29
Speaker 3: being used by law enforcement. Over the years, Joanne did
24:36
Speaker 3: a ton of outreach on Jill's case. She became an
24:39
Speaker 3: outspoken advocate for her daughter. She made her life's mission
24:45
Speaker 3: to bring justice in Jill's case. Joanne held vigils, she
24:49
Speaker 3: posted flowers all over town. She covered her house in
24:51
Speaker 3: pink ribbons. She also teamed up with a local company.
24:55
Speaker 3: They donated billboards, and in August of two thousand and one,
24:59
Speaker 3: Joanne posted billboards in town that read murdered Super Bowl
25:02
Speaker 3: Sunday with a giant photo of Jill. Jo Anne also
25:06
Speaker 3: went on talk shows like Montelle and Sally Jesse Raphael.
25:10
Speaker 3: She gave interviews to Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most wanted
25:14
Speaker 3: I don't know how many of you remember this. Younger
25:16
Speaker 3: listeners may not, but I grew up watching Montel and
25:19
Speaker 3: I remember for years he had a psychic named Sylvia
25:23
Speaker 3: Brown on the show. She would go on there and
25:26
Speaker 3: tell parents, including jo Anne, her predictions about their loved
25:30
Speaker 3: one's fates, and it was later revealed Sylvia Brown got
25:34
Speaker 3: none of her predictions right, but she was responsible for
25:37
Speaker 3: preying on the misery of many families. She famously told
25:40
Speaker 3: Amanda Barry's mother in two thousand and four that her dog,
25:44
Speaker 3: who had been kidnapped, was dead, saying bluntly, she's not alive, honey.
25:49
Speaker 3: Amanda Barry was still alive and was found being held
25:53
Speaker 3: captive in a house in twenty thirteen. Amanda later revealed
25:58
Speaker 3: she actually saw that show and it had devastated her
26:02
Speaker 3: at the time. Because she believed that what Sylvia Brown
26:05
Speaker 3: saying that to her mother meant that her mother would
26:08
Speaker 3: stop looking for her. She told one family their daughter
26:11
Speaker 3: had been sold into sex slavery in Japan, and another
26:14
Speaker 3: one that their loved one was working as an exotic
26:16
Speaker 3: dancer in Hollywood. It was later revealed both young women
26:20
Speaker 3: had been murdered shortly after they disappeared, and they were
26:24
Speaker 3: both dead when Sylvia Brown made these predictions. Sylvia was
26:29
Speaker 3: actually charged, along with her husband at the time, with
26:31
Speaker 3: securities fraud and grand theft in nineteen ninety two. She
26:35
Speaker 3: pleaded no contest. She ended up being convicted of grand
26:38
Speaker 3: larceny and getting probation. Still, even after all that, for years,
26:44
Speaker 3: Sylvia had a huge following, it just goes to show
26:47
Speaker 3: the links that parents like Joanne went to to try
26:50
Speaker 3: to do anything that they could to get answers. Jo
26:54
Speaker 3: Anne ended up quitting work and going on disability because,
26:58
Speaker 3: according to what her daughter said in interviews, she was
27:01
Speaker 3: unable to function at anything other than searching for her
27:04
Speaker 3: daughter's killer. Joanne told reporters she spoke with detectives almost daily,
27:09
Speaker 3: sometimes multiple times per day. She devoted her entire existence
27:13
Speaker 3: to figuring out who killed Jill. Joanne said, quote, I
27:18
Speaker 3: promised her I won't stop until her killer is found.
27:21
Speaker 3: I'll be putting those posters out until I die.
27:23
Speaker 1: End quote.
27:26
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, in two thousand and seven, Joanne was working as
27:30
Speaker 3: a landscaper to help pay bills. She was doing some
27:33
Speaker 3: landscaping at a car repair shop. She was on the
27:36
Speaker 3: roof when witnesses said she was unrolling some sheathing and
27:39
Speaker 3: walking backwards and fell. She only fell around fieve teen feet,
27:44
Speaker 3: but she landed on the back of her head. Joe
27:48
Speaker 3: Anne was taken to the hospital, but she later died
27:50
Speaker 3: from her injuries. After that fatal fall, Jenna had lost
27:55
Speaker 3: her mom and her sister in six years, and after
27:59
Speaker 3: that she became the main advocate for Jill. But Jenna
28:03
Speaker 3: told Dateline that, in her opinion, her mom had really
28:06
Speaker 3: died the day that Jill did. She said, quote what
28:11
Speaker 3: she saw killed her like. She couldn't function really after
28:15
Speaker 3: her whole life revolved around Jill and getting justice end quote.
28:25
Speaker 3: In the years since Joanne's death, Jenna has been the
28:28
Speaker 3: one doing most of the media outreach in connection with
28:31
Speaker 3: her sister's death. She told Dateline she still thinks about
28:35
Speaker 3: the message that she left Jill on the day she died,
28:38
Speaker 3: the one where she was still feeling a little annoyed
28:40
Speaker 3: about Jill not showing up for the game that day.
28:43
Speaker 3: Jenna told Dateline quote, I pray to God like she
28:47
Speaker 3: didn't hear, you know, like yelling at her, you know,
28:50
Speaker 3: to be like, where are you? Why aren't you picking
28:52
Speaker 3: up the phone that haunts me?
28:54
Speaker 1: End quote.
28:56
Speaker 3: Jenna has said she does not truly believe that at
28:59
Speaker 3: this point her sister's killer will ever be found, but
29:02
Speaker 3: she does sometimes hope something will happen that would make
29:06
Speaker 3: the killer or killers, or someone close to them come forward.
29:11
Speaker 3: Enough time has passed that if they're alive, maybe their
29:14
Speaker 3: life is changed. They may have children Jill's age now,
29:18
Speaker 3: they may feel differently about what they did or saw
29:21
Speaker 3: that day. Jenna says she believes if her sister were alive,
29:25
Speaker 3: that Jill would be a mom, because that was something
29:28
Speaker 3: that Jill really wanted. One of the biggest questions we
29:36
Speaker 3: keep circling back to is did Jill know her attacker,
29:40
Speaker 3: because if that's the case, someone in her friend group
29:43
Speaker 3: may have information they don't even realize as important. Was
29:47
Speaker 3: there someone close to her who the police could have
29:50
Speaker 3: missed her mom, Joanne, seemed to change her mind about
29:53
Speaker 3: this several times as the years went on. First she
29:56
Speaker 3: thought it was someone Jill knew, then seemed to shift
29:59
Speaker 3: her attention to the apartment complex, letting someone shady in
30:02
Speaker 3: who randomly targeted Jill. But by twenty sixteen, Jill's uncle,
30:08
Speaker 3: Steve seemed to allude to the fact he believed someone
30:11
Speaker 3: in Jill's friend group had killed her. He told the
30:14
Speaker 3: Post Standard he believed Jill trusted people too easily and
30:18
Speaker 3: that her killer quote took advantage of her trusting nature
30:22
Speaker 3: end quote. But the bottom line is still no one
30:26
Speaker 3: knows for sure. This year twenty twenty six marks twenty
30:30
Speaker 3: five years since Jill was brutally murdered, and police still
30:34
Speaker 3: have no suspect and it made no arrests. Police have
30:38
Speaker 3: said they were not able to get a DNA profile
30:40
Speaker 3: off the kitchen knife, the murder weapon, but he is
30:43
Speaker 3: there more testing that could be done, maybe with more
30:46
Speaker 3: sensitive methods that are available in twenty twenty six versus
30:50
Speaker 3: the testing they did in two thousand and one, though
30:53
Speaker 3: Jill's family has indicated they hope DNA may provide answers
30:58
Speaker 3: detected to Joseph has said he believes the key to
31:01
Speaker 3: cracking this case would not be physical evidence, but quote
31:05
Speaker 3: intimate knowledge of what happened that day end quote. He said,
31:09
Speaker 3: quote Jill knew who her attacker was, she allowed him
31:13
Speaker 3: into her home, and things went horribly wrong.
31:15
Speaker 1: End quote.
31:16
Speaker 3: Jenna has stated the same thing, saying, quote, I do
31:20
Speaker 3: believe that Jill knew her killer. I believe she knew
31:23
Speaker 3: her killer extremely well.
31:24
Speaker 1: End quote.
31:29
Speaker 3: Every year around this time, around Super Bowl time, there's
31:32
Speaker 3: an update about this case. In twenty sixteen, the Syracuse
31:37
Speaker 3: Police Department held a press conference. Jenna and law enforcement
31:40
Speaker 3: have asked the public to think back to Super Bowl
31:43
Speaker 3: so on day two thousand and one and try to
31:46
Speaker 3: remember if they saw anything out of the ordinary. Syracuse
31:50
Speaker 3: has one hundred cold cases and only two detectives on
31:53
Speaker 3: the cold case squad, so they have a very hard
31:55
Speaker 3: job and I have a lot of empathy for them,
31:57
Speaker 3: and this is still an open case. They are going
32:00
Speaker 3: to need someone to come forward in order to solve it.
32:04
Speaker 3: Syracuse Police are still interested in hearing from anyone with information,
32:09
Speaker 3: including anyone who lived in the building at six hundred
32:12
Speaker 3: James Street when Jill lived there. They can be reached
32:15
Speaker 3: at three one five, four four two five two two two.
32:19
Speaker 3: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
32:24
Speaker 3: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
32:26
Speaker 3: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
32:30
Speaker 3: Townsend and produced by Etie's Perez Special thanks to Amy
32:34
Speaker 3: Tubbs for a research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
32:38
Speaker 3: Noah Camera mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
32:41
Speaker 3: is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
32:45
Speaker 3: and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
32:48
Speaker 3: subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
32:52
Speaker 3: If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from
32:55
Speaker 3: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
32:58
Speaker 3: Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
33:01
Speaker 3: and my team to look into, you can reach out
33:03
Speaker 3: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
33:05
Speaker 3: seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's
33:09
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
33:18
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