WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jill Lyn Euto 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:48.240 School of Humans. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.000 Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.200 an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.120 forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.760 by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.720 community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.520 point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. 0:01:12.320 --> 0:01:15.800 We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.080 guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.080 is intended to state or imply that anyone who has 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.600 not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:27.120 Thanks for listening. 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.120 On January twenty eighth, two thousand and one, Super Bowl Sunday, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.600 eighteen year old Jill Lynn Utah was getting ready to 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.480 go watch the Big Game with her family. Her plan 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.200 was to go over to her mother, Joanne brown house, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.480 where her younger sister Jenna also lived. They were planning 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.200 to eat tacos and watch the Baltimore Ravens play the 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.680 New York Giants. Jo Anne, her husband, Jill's stepfather, and 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.120 Joanne's sister Jenna lived a few miles away from where 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.560 Jill lived in her studio apartment at six hundred Saint 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.640 James Street. The cross street there was North McBride. Though 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.080 they lived separately, Jill was constantly in touch with her family. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.880 Jenna told Dateline that for her big sister, who she 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.440 described as fiercely independent, getting her own place was a 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.600 big achievement for her. Jill loved living on her own. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.480 Jill had dropped out of school in the ninth grade, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.680 she got her ged and since then had worked hard 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:30.320 to support herself, sometimes working two jobs at a time. 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.880 Jenna told Dateline that surprisingly that day, they were not 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.920 rooting for a New York team. They wanted Baltimore to 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.840 win over the Giants, not because they were Baltimore super fans, 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.360 but more because, Jenna explained, they didn't really like any 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.200 of the New York teams. They used to live in Colorado, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:54.240 so their team was the Denver Broncos. Jill didn't drive, 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.440 she rode the bus, so on that day she was 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.960 supposed to coordinate with her mother and sister to pick 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.880 her up while they were running errands that afternoon. The 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.760 plan they had decided on was that Jenna and jo 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.680 Anne were going to head to the store, then after 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.600 they got home. At some point, they were going to 0:03:11.640 --> 0:03:15.120 pick Jill up from her Syracuse apartment. But when Jenna 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.720 and jo Anne got home from the grocery store and 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.960 called Jill, she never answered the phone. They kept trying, 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.400 the phone kept ringing, and still there was no response 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.440 from Jill. Eventually, they started cooking and got ready for 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.200 the game. The game started at six forty pm. The 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.800 halftime show came and went, and Jill never showed up 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.640 and she never called back. At first, Joanne thought something 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.640 had come up. Maybe Jill had gone to watch the 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.720 game with a friend, maybe she hadn't had time to call. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.960 They kept watching the game. That year, the Backstreet Boys 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.680 sang the national anthem. The halftime show acts were Aerosmith 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.240 and n Sync. By Monday, joe Anne was getting more 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.040 and more concerned. She and Jenna kept calling. Jill still 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.400 didn't pick up. Back then, Joanne had a cell phone, 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.720 but there's no mention of Jill having a cell phone. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.480 Her family was calling Jill on her landline in her apartment. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:16.400 At around nine thirty am, Joanne called Jill's workplace, and 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.440 that's when Jill's boss told her Jill had not come 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.080 in that day. At that point, Joanne knew something was 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.120 very wrong. She called Jenna and went home to pick 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.160 her up. Together, they went over to Jill's apartment. When 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.000 they got to James Street, they walked up to Jill's 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.800 door on the sixth floor. Jill had a dog named Tooch, 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.600 a French bulldog, and at first her mom told The 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.520 New Times when they got to the door and knocked, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.160 she didn't hear anything. So for a split second, she 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.080 felt a moment of relief because she explained, she didn't 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.160 hear the dog and she didn't think Jill would go 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.880 anywhere without that dog. But then they heard the dog whining, 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.480 and that's when Joanne said she and Jenna panicked. They 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.800 opened the door and went inside. Joanne went in first 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.000 and immediately picked up the dog. Then she saw Jill's 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.480 body on the floor of the living room area. Jenna 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.000 later said that her mom physically blocked her from trying 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.640 to get into the apartment after her Jenna said she 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.840 will never forget the horror she and her mom experienced 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:28.320 that day. At some point after she saw her daughter's body, 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:36.400 Joanne started screaming and couldn't stop. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.000 the past eight years of making my true crime podcast, 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.120 Helen Gone, I've learned there's no such thing as a 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.320 small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.240 of messages from people all around the country asking for 0:05:49.280 --> 0:05:52.480 help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, 0:05:52.840 --> 0:05:56.040 and their communities. If you have a case she'd like 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.360 me and my team to look into, you can reach 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.480 out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.600 six seven eight seven four four six one four or five. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.000 That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.440 or you can send us a message on Instagram at 0:06:11.640 --> 0:07:01.760 Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After Joanne 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.960 found her daughter's body, Jenna ran around the apartment complex 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.560 and started banging on doors to get help, and then Joanne, 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.320 who had a cell phone, called nine one one. Syracuse 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.280 police showed up and began to examine the crime saint. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.680 They found Jill in the living room with multiple stab wounds. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.160 Her neck had also been slashed. Mary Jumblick, who was 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.240 the chief medical examiner of Onendeka County, later described the 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.560 stab wounds to Dateline. She said, quote, as I recall 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.160 them in the neck in the chest in the back 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.320 of her body end quote. Police were able to find 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.480 a murder weapon, one of Jill's own kitchen knives. In 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.280 the news footage from WSYR Syracuse that was filmed the 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.640 day Jill was murdered, you can see Joe Anne being 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:55.160 led out onto the street. Jill's French bulldog, Hooch, is 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.560 with her, wearing a little pink collar. There was no 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.840 sign of forced entry, and no locks were broken, and 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.080 nothing appeared to be missing from the apartment, suggesting that 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:10.240 robbery was not the killer's motive. That, plus the fact 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.240 that the knife came from Jill's kitchen, would seem to 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.160 suggest that her killer was someone she knew and let 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:21.040 him voluntarily, and that the murder was unplanned. Or maybe 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.680 she surprised someone by being in the apartment, maybe someone 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.360 who was planning to break in and rob her, but 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.760 that seemed much more unlikely given her plans that day. 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.240 Jill was home. She was planning to have her mom 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.640 and or her sister pick her up to watch the game. 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.600 Neither law enforcement nor her family have ever stated whether 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.440 or not Jill was sexually assaulted, so we have to 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.840 pick through the clues in statements from law enforcement and 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.080 from old news reports to try to see if there 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:59.440 was something or someone who police missed. Jill Lynn Utah 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.040 was born on March twentieth, nineteen eighty two, in Houston, Texas. 0:09:03.680 --> 0:09:08.840 She had two sisters, Jenna and an older sister named Carrie. 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.760 Her mom described Jenna and Jill in interviews as best friends. 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:17.800 They were very close, according to her obituary. Jill's father 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.120 lived in a town in upstate New York, but Joanne 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.480 has stated he was not involved in Jill's life. Anne 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.960 did not attend her funeral. For a few years. When 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.120 the girls were young, Joanne, Jill, and Jenna lived in 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.320 Colorado's Springs, Colorado, but jo Anne told The New Times 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.640 back in two thousand and one that she started to 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.640 get concerned about safety at their schools, where she said 0:09:40.680 --> 0:09:43.560 they had metal detectors. She was also bothered by what 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:47.200 she called the pro gun culture, so they came back 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.560 to the area where they were originally from Syracuse, New York. 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.400 By the time they moved back, Carrie was out of 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:58.120 school and living nearby with her husband. Joanne had homeschooled 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.120 the girls in Colorado, so after they moved back to 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.520 New York. Joanne told the newspaper her daughters discovered that 0:10:05.680 --> 0:10:08.040 if they re enrolled in the school system back in 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.440 New York when they were in high school, they would 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.000 actually be held back for two years, so they decided 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.120 not to stay in school. Instead, they got their GEDs. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.240 This suited Jill, who Jenna and joe Anne both described 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.560 as very independent. Jill immediately started looking for a job. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.000 She was soon working at Carousel Center and then at 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.840 the shoppingtown Mall. Joanne said Jill wanted to become a 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.120 paramedic and her big dream was to eventually become a 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.920 pediatric nurse. So Jill was eighteen years old, working at 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.960 the mall and living in her own studio. But fight 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:50.680 this independence, she stayed very close to her family. Police 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.400 were processing the crime scene and trying to figure out 0:10:53.680 --> 0:10:57.040 who could have done this to Jill. They knew Jill 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.920 had been stabbed multiple times and that the murder weapon 0:10:59.960 --> 0:11:02.320 came from inside her house. It was a knife from 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.840 Jill's kitchen. Police found the knife at the crime scene, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.080 but according to media reports, they were not able to 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.840 pull a DNA profile from that weapon, and unfortunately, police 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:18.040 said there wasn't much physical evidence. According to media reports, 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:23.880 police found no usable DNA at all. They talked to 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.920 Jill's neighbors, but no one said they saw or heard 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.000 anything unusual. No one saw anyone going into that apartment, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.000 either with or without Jill, but the fact that it 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.640 was Super Bowl Sunday presented its own challenges. Police stated 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.840 Jill was killed the day before her body was found. Later, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.400 it was reported that Jill was killed between around noon 0:11:46.560 --> 0:11:51.080 and three pm on Sunday, January twenty eighth. Mary Jumblick, 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.120 the chief medical examiner who spoke to Dateline, stated she 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.480 believed Jill had known her killer, saying, quote, stabbing is 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:03.520 a very intimate form of death, but she added that 0:12:03.560 --> 0:12:06.600 the evidence, in her opinion, also pointed to an acquaintance 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.240 of Jill's being the killer. She said that was due 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.960 to the fact there was no forced entry. Jill's family 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.760 last heard from her at eleven am, and at the 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.120 time there was nothing to suggest that she was in distress. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.480 What could have happened after they hung up the phone. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.600 From the beginning, police seemed to focus on the theory 0:12:36.680 --> 0:12:40.280 that Jill knew her attacker. Again, this makes sense given 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.080 the lack of forest entry and the fact that the 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.120 knife came from the kitchen. In the beginning, there was 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.480 a flurry of activity. They went to Jill's apartment complex 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.280 and interviewed a lot of people, but apparently no one 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:56.320 had heard anything alarming. However, Jill's murder happened on Super 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.840 Bowl Sunday, which is a day when loud screaming would 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:03.680 not have seemed out of place. Captain Richard Walsh of 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.120 the Syracuse Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division told The Post 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.520 Standard a year after Jill's murder in two thousand and 0:13:10.560 --> 0:13:13.640 two that it was a very tough case. They had 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.040 no eyewitnesses, no one saw or heard anything weird that day, 0:13:17.560 --> 0:13:21.560 and Jill's body was not found for twenty four hours. Eventually, 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.440 the case file turned into one of the biggest cold 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.840 case files in the Syracuse area. But Jill's family also 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.520 wondered if there could be other possibilities that Jill's killer 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.920 was someone she didn't know, maybe a neighbor or a handyman, 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.600 or someone with a key or access to her apartment, 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.200 or someone who had been let into the building by 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.560 someone else and ambushed at her door. If Jill didn't 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.360 know her killer, her family wondered how would the killer 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.080 have gained access to the apartment buildings and ended up 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.480 at Jill's door, which led them to take a closer 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.720 look at the apartment complex where Jill lived, and what 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.520 they found, according to them, was shocking. They believed that 0:14:03.560 --> 0:14:08.320 the apartment complex security system was seriously inadequate. According to 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:12.480 the Syracuse Herald Journal, the James apartments had an intercom system, 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.880 so to give people access to the apartment complex, residents 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.600 would have to buzz them in. But Jill's mom told 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.840 the newspaper the building security was a joke, saying, quote, 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.920 anybody could get into that building end quote. It seemed 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.160 that Joanne now believed Jill had not known her attacker, 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.400 at least according to what she said in this newspaper interview. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.160 Joanne said, quote, she must have been caught off guard. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.360 She wouldn't hurt a fly. She always was well liked, 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.520 She helped older people and love kids. She didn't want 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.400 anything more than to be married and have kids. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:51.920 End quote. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.880 Jill had loved her studio apartment on the sixth floor 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.560 of the James, but pretty soon her family was asking 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.560 a lot of questions about that apartment complex. They sued 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.520 the building owners of the apartment that Jill leased. They 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:11.600 sued HKS Realty Associates Incorporated and the apartment management company 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:16.760 James Properties Incorporated. Jill's family alleged that these companies had 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.560 caused the wrongful death of Jill and the quote conscious 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.840 pain and suffering of Jill end quote. In the lawsuit, 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.800 they stated Jill was murdered in the apartment and that 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:32.920 the murder investigation remained open and unsolved. It's interesting because 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.640 this lawsuit got me thinking about court cases where people 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.560 are murdered inside apartments, especially where women are living alone, 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.480 because obviously that's something we have a lot of and 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.280 hear about a lot on this podcast. What are the 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.720 legal responsibilities of the apartment complex in a case like this? 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.280 The New York courts ruled that quote, landlords have a 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.000 common law duty to take minimal precautions to protect tenants 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:00.160 from foreseeable. 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:01.240 Harm end quote. 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.920 And the court's ruled this does include what they call 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.520 a third party's foreseeable criminal conduct, which means apartment buildings 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.960 can be held liable for tenants safety. But, and this 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:17.200 part is crucial, they have to establish a causal link 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.080 between the landlord's failure to provide that security and the 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.080 tenant's injuries resulting from a criminal attack in a building. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.320 The court ruled that in this case that could only 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.200 be proven if the killer had gained access through a 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.800 negligently maintained entrance. In this case, the building owner and 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:41.800 management company. The defendants were able to establish there was 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.360 no provable history of Buell crime by third parties in 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:50.040 the building, and the plainists failed to prove whether the 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.920 defendants knew or had reason to know from past experience 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.800 that there was a likelihood of violent conduct on a 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.280 part of third persons in the building. Now before and 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.800 after Jill's murder, there are a lot of online comments 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:11.000 in different forums talking about how that apartment complex was unsafe. 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.880 Residents said that they felt unsafe, and according to court documents, 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.440 Joanne and her attorney were able to provide evidence of 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.920 violent crime in proximity to the building, but they failed 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:29.160 to prove whether this ambient crime had quote demonstrably infiltrated 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.120 the premises end quote, so they were able to prove 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:36.000 there was violent crime around the building, but not necessarily 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.160 that it was in the building, and the owners and 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.560 building management of the James were able to prove in 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.120 court that they did have security. They said the doors 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.200 into the building had automatic locks and that the key 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.080 fobs were only given to tenants. They also said there 0:17:52.120 --> 0:17:55.400 was an intercom system visitors could be buzzed in, and 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.800 that the apartment doors were secured by a lock with 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.600 a dead bolt. It locked automatically unless a tenant left 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.240 it unlocked. Each door also had peep holes so tenants 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.280 could look out and identify the person who was knocking 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.720 on the door. This case made it all the way 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.840 to the New York Supreme Court, but in the end, 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.640 the court found that Jill's mother and her attorneys had 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.760 failed to prove whether her killer had gained access to 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:24.120 the premises through a negligently maintained entrance, so they lost 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:32.880 their case. The claim was dismissed. The last time that 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.520 Jill's family talked to her was on game day in 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:40.080 the morning, so could the final conversation that Jill had 0:18:40.120 --> 0:18:44.400 with her family provide any clues. Jenna said her sister 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.840 called at around eleven am, and that when Jill called, 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.840 she said she wanted to talk to their mother, But 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.360 Jenna said at that point she and Joe Anne were 0:18:53.360 --> 0:18:55.400 in a rush. They were planning to head to the 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.320 grocery store before they picked Jill up to grab ingredients 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.400 for their meal. That day, they were making tacos, which 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:06.280 Jenna said was Jill's favorite. Jenna told Dateline, quote, it's 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.200 one of my biggest regrets. I just wish I would 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.640 have let her talk to my mom end quote. After that, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.000 Jenna and Joanne both called back several times, but they 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.280 were never able to find out what it was that 0:19:18.360 --> 0:19:22.040 Jill wanted that morning. Was it something but now or 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.440 could Jill have already been dealing with a situation at home. 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:31.360 Thinking about that phone call still troubles Jenna. She told 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:33.880 Dateline that she was annoyed with her sister at first, 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.480 which she now hates to admit. She thought maybe her 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.440 sister had blown them off and made other plans. It 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:42.720 never occurred to her at the time to be scared. 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.160 This was in the middle of the day on a Sunday. Later, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.520 of course, she said that really bothered her that she 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.800 had ever felt annoyed even for a second, but it's 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.520 a totally human reaction. The lawsuit against the managers of 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.520 the James Apartments was dismissed in two thousand and six. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.440 In the years since then, the few statements that police 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.520 have made publicly seemed to indicate that they are once 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:12.160 again focusing on someone Jill knew. One of the police officers, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.640 Christopher to Joseph, told news Channel nine WSYR Syracuse in 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.320 twenty twenty one that he believed Jill knew her killer 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.240 and had invited the killer into her home. Jill was 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:26.800 a young woman, so I'm sure the police asked her 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:28.840 family if she was seeing anyone at the time of 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.040 her death. We don't know whether or not Jill was 0:20:32.120 --> 0:20:35.920 dating anyone at that time, but there is an interesting 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.160 tidbit in one of the old newspaper articles about Jill's 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.480 candlelight vigil that her family held a few weeks after 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.120 her murder. The Syracuse Harold Journal wrote about the case 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.760 in March of two thousand and one. They covered the 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.640 memorial vigil that Jill's friends and family had on what 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.120 would have been Jill's nineteenth birthday. They walked from a 0:20:55.120 --> 0:20:58.000 nearby church the apartment building where Jill had been murdered. 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.640 They were holding candles in Jill's favorite color pick. A 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.120 reporter from the Harold Journal talked to some people at 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.760 the vigil. One of the people they interviewed was a 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.400 twenty one year old guy named Mike Stanton. He said 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.480 he had dated Jill, and he said they had broken 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.680 up a week before she was murdered. Mike told the 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.880 newspaper quote, the first time I saw her, I thought 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.200 she'd never be interested in me. I can't stop thinking 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.840 that if we hadn't broken up, I probably could have 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.040 been there to help. I could have done something end quote. 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.360 I wonder if the police talked to him or to 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.960 Jill's other friends, but we don't know. We also don't 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.080 know what, if any phone activity Jill had on Sunday. 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.880 Police haven't released that information, and Jill's family has not 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:51.320 commented on it publicly. Another cold case, one that took 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.760 place almost exactly one year after Jill's murder in January 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.360 of two thousand and two, was solved after over two decades. 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:01.520 Thirty nine year old Catherine Scott was murdered in Utica, 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.120 about fifty miles away from Syracuse. She was strangled and 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:09.080 left wrapped in plastic under a mattress. The police stated 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:13.160 that in this case that one person's name, Jarvis jbo 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.000 Simpson had come up early in the investigation, but they 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.360 were unable to make a case against him because they 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.480 had no witnesses and no definitive confession. This name was 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.880 never released publicly, but law enforcement had him on their 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.320 list for years, and it wasn't until after his death 0:22:30.360 --> 0:22:35.000 in twenty twenty four that investigators reinterviewed key individuals. They 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.240 developed information in some leads that led them to believe 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:42.440 that Jarvis Simpson was definitely responsible and to close the case. 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:59.040 Could Jill's case be on a similar trajectory. Detective Chris 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:03.480 to Joseph of the Syracuse Police Department called Case Squad said, quote, 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.440 in the past few years, there have been some people 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.640 we've looked at in a different capacity, some names that 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:11.920 have come up that were known to the case, and 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:15.080 we're keeping an eye on those. There have been numerous 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.680 persons of interest who were considered suspects, but for various reasons, 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:22.560 it did not lead us down that path to an arrest. 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:24.120 End quote. 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:28.480 Jenna said. Police have made statements to her indicating that 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.480 they were hoping a relative of their suspects would upload 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.920 their DNA to a family DNA site. Presumably this would 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:37.760 have allowed law enforcement to do a familial DNA search. 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:42.520 Now I'm confused about this because police had stated there 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:47.840 was no usable DNA. Maybe there are traces, but they 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:52.320 just didn't have enough to test with the previous technology. However, 0:23:52.360 --> 0:23:54.840 if they're hoping to do a familial DNA SARCH now 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:57.640 with the recent change in law, they may be waiting 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:01.720 a long time. Between twenty twenty and twenty twenty five, 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:04.680 there have been a lot of shifts toward greater privacy 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:09.040 in these genealogy databases. In August of twenty twenty five, 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:13.760 Ancestry updated their terms of service to explicitly ban use 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.240 of their services for law enforcement investigations, court proceedings, and 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:21.640 forensic genealogy. This was a huge setback for law enforcement, 0:24:22.120 --> 0:24:25.960 and ged match has also changed their policies. Now they 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:29.320 require people to opt in to consent to their data 0:24:29.360 --> 0:24:36.560 being used by law enforcement. Over the years, Joanne did 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:39.840 a ton of outreach on Jill's case. She became an 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:45.080 outspoken advocate for her daughter. She made her life's mission 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:49.040 to bring justice in Jill's case. Joanne held vigils, she 0:24:49.120 --> 0:24:51.920 posted flowers all over town. She covered her house in 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:55.120 pink ribbons. She also teamed up with a local company. 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:58.880 They donated billboards, and in August of two thousand and one, 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.800 Joanne posted billboards in town that read murdered Super Bowl 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:06.640 Sunday with a giant photo of Jill. Jo Anne also 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:09.960 went on talk shows like Montelle and Sally Jesse Raphael. 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:13.560 She gave interviews to Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most wanted 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:16.800 I don't know how many of you remember this. Younger 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:19.760 listeners may not, but I grew up watching Montel and 0:25:19.840 --> 0:25:23.640 I remember for years he had a psychic named Sylvia 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:26.040 Brown on the show. She would go on there and 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:30.000 tell parents, including jo Anne, her predictions about their loved 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:34.000 one's fates, and it was later revealed Sylvia Brown got 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.520 none of her predictions right, but she was responsible for 0:25:37.600 --> 0:25:40.920 preying on the misery of many families. She famously told 0:25:40.920 --> 0:25:43.720 Amanda Barry's mother in two thousand and four that her dog, 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:48.600 who had been kidnapped, was dead, saying bluntly, she's not alive, honey. 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:53.680 Amanda Barry was still alive and was found being held 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:58.520 captive in a house in twenty thirteen. Amanda later revealed 0:25:58.960 --> 0:26:02.880 she actually saw that show and it had devastated her 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:05.680 at the time. Because she believed that what Sylvia Brown 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:08.040 saying that to her mother meant that her mother would 0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:11.320 stop looking for her. She told one family their daughter 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:14.240