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Chapter 1: What happened to Jennifer Servo in Texas?
Since the three women were so brutally murdered here just a few short days ago, the hair gallery has been considered a crime scene.
She loved being in front of the camera. She loved reporting all kinds of stories.
Many restaurants actually pay to have their fry grease hauled away, but when David comes and picks it up for free, he modifies it and uses it as fuel in his van.
Jennifer told her friends, her parents, her professors that she would be in Katie Couric's seat one day. And we didn't have any doubt about that.
I was so proud. That's my daughter on TV. I'm Jennifer Servo. I'm Jennifer Servo reporting.
Reporting from Buffalo Gap, I'm Jennifer Servo, KRBC 9.
As you have probably heard, one of our reporter was found dead at her apartment today.
Jennifer moved to Abilene, Texas on the hopes that her life was just beginning. Somebody cut that short. My name is Jeff Bell. I've been assigned to Jennifer Servo's homicide case since September of 2002.
My name is David Adkins. I'm a detective with the Abilene Police Department. A little after lunchtime, we received a call
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances surrounding Jennifer Servo's murder?
And she said, no, actually, there's a guy that's with me.
Oh, so you have a serious boyfriend? No.
Ralph Sepulveda, who was 34 when he started dating 22-year-old Jennifer Servo, had moved to Abilene to continue what he thought was a long-term relationship.
So she agreed to let him come down there with her and stay for a while.
And we didn't know this guy. They didn't know anything about him.
But he had these tattoos covering all his arms and legs and chest. And I said, Jen, this isn't anybody like you've ever brought home before. What are you thinking? Whatever she was thinking, Jennifer had a change of heart after Sepulveda told her some startling news. It turns out he had left another woman back in Montana, his fiancée.
Jennifer later discovered that he had fathered a child during a previous relationship as well. She didn't really think that things were working out and that she had asked him to get his own place. They agreed to remain friends, and Sepulveda moved into an apartment nearby. After that, Jennifer seemed to blossom.
A whole new world was being opened up for her, and a weight was lifted off her shoulders. She was just so exuberant about him being out of there.
We were all fresh out of college, so all we did was hang out with each other.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation into Jennifer Servo's death unfold?
Thousands of miles away... So I just had a feeling. I just had an odd feeling something's wrong.
Sherry Abel was chilled by the memory of a dream she had had months earlier, a dream that she had lost her daughter forever.
I tried to call Jen on Sunday, and she didn't answer. And I tried calling her on Monday, and still no answer, and that's not like her at all.
Two days later, an unexpected visitor turned her dream into a terrible reality. And I look out, and there's the sheriff's officer
I get a feeling that I had this dream before. I said, it's Jen, isn't it? And he said, yes, ma'am. I said, is she dead?
And he said, yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. And I said, what happened? Was it a car accident? Because that was my dream. He said, no, ma'am. She was murdered. And I just started sobbing. I couldn't stop. Abilene police detectives David Atkins and Jeff Bell began their investigation here at Jennifer Servo's apartment.
When we first got in, we noticed the obvious signs that an assault had occurred there. Right here directly next to the bed is where we feel pretty much the initial incident occurred. There's a large area of blood as well as a trail into the bathroom area where it looks like Jennifer's body was moved.
Medical examiner tells us that she had strangulation and the blunt force trauma and either or both could have killed her.
Investigators collected fingerprint, blood, and DNA evidence, but their first lead came from what they didn't find, any sign of a break-in. I personally do feel that she knew who did this to her.
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Chapter 4: What role did Ralph Sepulveda play in Jennifer Servo's life?
But it turned out much of the evidence was badly contaminated by the only witness to the crime, Jennifer's cat, Mr. Binks. It took the lab quite a while to actually differentiate between the cat hair, human hair, any kind of fibers. Did the evidence collected point to any specific suspect?
Physical evidence, no, it did not.
I mean, you obviously have circumstantial evidence that would lead you to believe it was somebody who she knew. With that in mind, investigators focused on the two men who fit that description best, Ralph Sepulveda and Brian Travers.
Being a suspect, you know, it didn't click in my mind at first. I'm like, oh, they just need to know when I saw her last, you know, it just didn't click.
In fact, they needed to know a lot more because it turned out Travers wasn't just Jennifer Servo's coworker.
Brian and Jennifer had a romantic relationship also on the side.
We hit it off as friends right off the bat, even though she had a boyfriend at the time living with her. As that kind of waned, we became closer.
Travers was with Jennifer just hours before the time investigators determined she was murdered. Brian said they worked a late shift together, made the decision that they were going to go to Walmart. Seen here on this security video, it would be Jennifer's final appearance on camera. Did you drop her off at home?
No, she actually dropped me off at home. I walked her back to her car, gave her a kiss goodnight, then she pulled on out of the parking lot. That was the last I saw.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found at Jennifer Servo's crime scene?
That's all it's going to take.
We owe it to the city, Jennifer's family, and ourselves to find out who did this. Jennifer Servo was a young girl with a big dream, a dream shared by everyone who knew her. Now, all they can share are the thoughts of what might have been.
It's really hard not having my sister.
When Jennifer died, every bit of magic in the world left with her. I miss her smile, miss her enthusiasm.
She was inspiring, and sometimes you need some inspiration. We give a scholarship in her name every year, so we remember her. She won't ever die at the University of Montana.
I was so proud, so beautiful, and did such a wonderful job.
And she was determined to make her dream come true.
She was, and she would have.
Never giving up, it's a powerful conviction for families of crime victims. In fact, never giving up is what helped solve the case of another young woman whose dreams were also cut short by murder. Her parents did something remarkable, taking matters into their own hands to put a killer behind bars.
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Chapter 6: How did Patty Scoville's case differ from Jennifer Servo's?
They were on some rocks. Yes. What are you thinking at this point? Something's definitely wrong. More than a week would pass without finding any more clues, and police were about to call off the search. I'd like to have you come up with King and... Eight days after Patty was last seen, a searcher found Patty's water bottle. How soon after you found the water bottle did you find her body?
Minutes later. Patty's body was covered with leaves, dead wood, and branches. The killer took the time to conceal the crime that he committed and did so in such a way that we were fortunate to even recover her body that season.
What happens is you go through all these scenarios about what her last moments were like. She was our firstborn. She was everything. She was everything.
The investigation clearly showed that Patty Scoville was raped and killed.
And the killer left behind his DNA. With the DNA evidence, police and her parents were confident Patty's killer would be easy to find. I expected an arrest, you know, next week. If it wasn't next week, it was going to be next month. But incredibly, it would take the efforts of the police, the FBI, the governor of Vermont, and Patty's own parents to bring the killer to justice.
Hi, my name is Lloyd Lockridge, and I'm the host of a new podcast from Odyssey called Family Lore. In this podcast, I'm going to have people on to tell unusual and sometimes far-fetched stories about their families.
I've heard my whole life that she invented the margarita.
And then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true. He gets a patent one month before the Wright brothers. Oh, my God. Please follow and listen to Family Lore, an Odyssey podcast available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.
I had actually been up to Moss Glen Falls a bunch of times. That's the place I used to like to hike and stow. So when I read it, I was really shocked. In a small state like Vermont, the murder of Patty Scoville touched everyone, even former presidential candidate, then governor, Howard Dean. It was a real shock to the community. When somebody gets murdered, you feel like it's your neighbor.
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Chapter 7: What challenges did investigators face in Patty Scoville's case?
No. What story did the crime scene tell you?
It rather quickly told me that we were investigating a sexual homicide.
She was struck from behind and she was raped and murdered right there. The best physical evidence would be the DNA recovered from the crime scene. We didn't know who it belonged to, but when a sample eventually came in, we felt good that we could match it to a person.
Dr. Eric Buell, now head of Vermont's forensic DNA lab, was hoping to match that DNA to one of 20 suspects, men who knew Patty or were at the falls that day. They investigated and investigated and investigated, still came up empty. It was something that we had hoped to be able to solve since we had such great evidence. But in 1991, we didn't have a DNA database.
Vermont was one of the last states without a DNA database, so they couldn't compare crime scene DNA against known offenders. We needed the DNA database in order to find Patty's killer. The Scovilles realized that the key to finding justice for Patty was to channel their grief and energy, lobbying lawmakers for a DNA database.
Anything that we can do to level the playing field is, you know, what we're after.
I was so impressed when I met David and Ann for the first time. They put their heart and soul into getting this passed. They were the face of this. Lawmakers wanted to force convicted felons to submit to the DNA testing. I was always looking for ways to make sure that people who were guilty couldn't threaten folks again.
But even with the support of Governor Howard Dean, getting the legislation passed was a tough sell. People really are very sensitive to their invasion of privacy, and there was some resistance in getting this passed. Years began to pass. In the meantime, Patty's family kept her memory alive with memorial bike rides, dedication ceremonies, and offers of rewards.
It was difficult to talk to them during those anniversaries where we didn't have any new information for them.
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Chapter 8: How was justice ultimately served for Patty Scoville?
I was flabbergasted.
It was just remarkable that we were saying that this is the way to solve this case, and it happened.
Is this really it this time? You know, what... It can't go wrong. It's a hit.
After testing 80 people and following up on 1,000 leads, investigators had a name. Howard Godfrey, a 59-year-old window installer who had served time for assault.
I'm feeling like we've waited a long time for this and we're not gonna mess this up.
Cindy McGuire is Vermont Assistant State's Attorney. We wanted to know everything about him before we sat down to interview him. His DNA was taken in 2000 when he was released from prison. Why was he in the database? As a result of the conviction from 1996 for the aggravated assault.
But before police could make an arrest, the law, which the Scovilles helped pass, required police to reconfirm the source of the DNA. But investigators couldn't risk just walking up and asking for a sample. They needed to find a secret way to get Howard Gottfried's DNA. So they staked out his window business. So you knew he was a smoker through your surveillance? Yes.
We were able to surreptitiously gather his discarded cigarette butts. police bagged and tagged the cigarettes and sent them to the lab for testing. This time, the DNA results came back a lot quicker. We had a match. People talk about a smoking gun, but in this case, it turned out to be a smoking cigarette. Yes. Yes, it did. After 14 long years of waiting, Merriam had his man, or did he?
I've been here 24 years and this is the only homicide we've ever had.
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