The tremendously gifted Michelle McNamara, author of "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," turned her attention to Suzanne Jovin in 2009.
McNamara wrote a great Jovin piece--"Yale Murders," available on her blog, True Crime Diary. McNamara more or less agrees with the "Trace Evidence" podcaster. Both MM and TE argue that the killer was likely the person holding onto the GRE books. McNamara wrote *before* all the buzz about the architecture guy, "Billy," but I'd wager that MM would have shared TE's skepticism about the "Billy" theory. Why?
-It seems Jovin and Billy did not know each other. No one believes that Jovin would have entered the car of a man she did not know.
-Billy was already in grad school, and thus would not have needed to study for the GRE.
-Billy was maybe spotted running wildly after the killing. Wouldn't the assailant have returned to his vehicle? (And what happened to that vehicle?)
Anyway, McNamara's piece is worth visiting, for a few reasons. She has a detail about the Fresca bottle I'd missed. When Jovin was spotted near the New Haven Green, she did *not yet* have a Fresca bottle. (She did have some papers. What were they, and what happened to them?)
Jovin left her wallet at home, and she was found dead with only a one-dollar bill on her person. If she herself had purchased the Fresca, wouldn't she have loose change on her body? (Unless the Fresca cost exactly one dollar? Or Jovin, a known Fresca lover, had committed to memory the price of the Fresca and carried that amount, including loose change, on her person? McNamara does not discuss these possibilities.)
McNamara suggests: The guy lured Jovin into his car with some pleasant chatter. "Hey, I'll buy you a Fresca. I know you love those. Actually, I already have one here." Additionally: "Since I have my car, why don't I just drive you home? I know it's a short walk, but why not go for a ride?"
Plausible enough. What I really love is that McNamara takes some bold speculative leaps. Isn't it a good idea to review the identities of every single Yale undergrad who took the GRE that year? As well as the members of the German Club (which Jovin founded)? And wouldn't it be smart to look at close friends of Jovin's boyfriend (who would have known that the boyfriend, the romantic rival, was away for the evening)? And wouldn't it also be wise to investigate undergrads who had Yale faculty parents living in the tony neighborhood of East Rock--since the assailant might have planned to take Jovin back to his parents' pad, where he could seduce her? Especially appealing if he lived in a dorm and didn't want to have to deal with roommates?
I think these bits of speculation are dazzling, and they set McNamara apart from other writers.
There's also the juiciness and vitality of her sentence-making. Look at the opening: "All this time, the clue was there, waiting to be discovered. All this time--ten years in December--of suspicion, lives ruined, DNA tests, folders stuffed with pages of tips that led nowhere." Do you see the greatness of those rhythms? The repetition. The choice to start in medias res. The sense of momentum in the list, building to the largest item: "folders stuffed with pages of tips that led nowhere." And paradox: Cops must be reasonably sharp, and yet, clearly, cops are not reasonably sharp. (They withheld this important clue.)
McNamara says that with the clue--the GRE email--you can mostly piece together Jovin's evening. You can see why she stopped home after the pizza party: She needed to call her GRE guy to be sure he could meet up with her that evening. Without that GRE email, you were left to wonder why she hadn't just dropped off the keys en route back from the party, and also left to wonder what kind of person she might have spoken with after 9:20 pm. Very true.
I believe that McNamara's deep thinking and urgent writing helped to speed up the search for the Golden State Killer. (However, the cops denied this.) I wish McNamara were still around, because I believe she could have created the same kind of pressure with regard to the hunt for Jovin's killer. It's now almost 20 years since the slaying. Dec. 4. An unseasonably warm evening, in New Haven, in 1998. I really hope this story is in the spotlight at the start of December.
P.S. Another thing I love about McNamara. She observes that Jovin was holding the Fresca bottle in East Rock; she didn't drop it, in distress, in the vehicle (and it was found quite close to her corpse, suggesting that she held it serenely even a second before she was attacked). She calmly carried the bottle with her, while she had her argument in East Rock. This is what I woke up thinking about today. (A semi-witness claims to have heard a woman shout, "I can't believe you're doing this!") That Fresca took a significant journey from Krauszer's to the car, to East Rock.
McNamara wrote a great Jovin piece--"Yale Murders," available on her blog, True Crime Diary. McNamara more or less agrees with the "Trace Evidence" podcaster. Both MM and TE argue that the killer was likely the person holding onto the GRE books. McNamara wrote *before* all the buzz about the architecture guy, "Billy," but I'd wager that MM would have shared TE's skepticism about the "Billy" theory. Why?
-It seems Jovin and Billy did not know each other. No one believes that Jovin would have entered the car of a man she did not know.
-Billy was already in grad school, and thus would not have needed to study for the GRE.
-Billy was maybe spotted running wildly after the killing. Wouldn't the assailant have returned to his vehicle? (And what happened to that vehicle?)
Anyway, McNamara's piece is worth visiting, for a few reasons. She has a detail about the Fresca bottle I'd missed. When Jovin was spotted near the New Haven Green, she did *not yet* have a Fresca bottle. (She did have some papers. What were they, and what happened to them?)
Jovin left her wallet at home, and she was found dead with only a one-dollar bill on her person. If she herself had purchased the Fresca, wouldn't she have loose change on her body? (Unless the Fresca cost exactly one dollar? Or Jovin, a known Fresca lover, had committed to memory the price of the Fresca and carried that amount, including loose change, on her person? McNamara does not discuss these possibilities.)
McNamara suggests: The guy lured Jovin into his car with some pleasant chatter. "Hey, I'll buy you a Fresca. I know you love those. Actually, I already have one here." Additionally: "Since I have my car, why don't I just drive you home? I know it's a short walk, but why not go for a ride?"
Plausible enough. What I really love is that McNamara takes some bold speculative leaps. Isn't it a good idea to review the identities of every single Yale undergrad who took the GRE that year? As well as the members of the German Club (which Jovin founded)? And wouldn't it be smart to look at close friends of Jovin's boyfriend (who would have known that the boyfriend, the romantic rival, was away for the evening)? And wouldn't it also be wise to investigate undergrads who had Yale faculty parents living in the tony neighborhood of East Rock--since the assailant might have planned to take Jovin back to his parents' pad, where he could seduce her? Especially appealing if he lived in a dorm and didn't want to have to deal with roommates?
I think these bits of speculation are dazzling, and they set McNamara apart from other writers.
There's also the juiciness and vitality of her sentence-making. Look at the opening: "All this time, the clue was there, waiting to be discovered. All this time--ten years in December--of suspicion, lives ruined, DNA tests, folders stuffed with pages of tips that led nowhere." Do you see the greatness of those rhythms? The repetition. The choice to start in medias res. The sense of momentum in the list, building to the largest item: "folders stuffed with pages of tips that led nowhere." And paradox: Cops must be reasonably sharp, and yet, clearly, cops are not reasonably sharp. (They withheld this important clue.)
McNamara says that with the clue--the GRE email--you can mostly piece together Jovin's evening. You can see why she stopped home after the pizza party: She needed to call her GRE guy to be sure he could meet up with her that evening. Without that GRE email, you were left to wonder why she hadn't just dropped off the keys en route back from the party, and also left to wonder what kind of person she might have spoken with after 9:20 pm. Very true.
I believe that McNamara's deep thinking and urgent writing helped to speed up the search for the Golden State Killer. (However, the cops denied this.) I wish McNamara were still around, because I believe she could have created the same kind of pressure with regard to the hunt for Jovin's killer. It's now almost 20 years since the slaying. Dec. 4. An unseasonably warm evening, in New Haven, in 1998. I really hope this story is in the spotlight at the start of December.
P.S. Another thing I love about McNamara. She observes that Jovin was holding the Fresca bottle in East Rock; she didn't drop it, in distress, in the vehicle (and it was found quite close to her corpse, suggesting that she held it serenely even a second before she was attacked). She calmly carried the bottle with her, while she had her argument in East Rock. This is what I woke up thinking about today. (A semi-witness claims to have heard a woman shout, "I can't believe you're doing this!") That Fresca took a significant journey from Krauszer's to the car, to East Rock.
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