It was early December 1998 when Yale University senior Suzanne Jovin hosted a holiday pizza party for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities at an off-campus church in New Haven, Connecticut.
Jovin, 21, led Yale’s chapter of Best Buddies, a service organization that pairs students with adults with IDD. Police said she spent weeks organizing the end-of-semester event, held Friday, Dec. 4, 1998, at Trinity Lutheran Church on Orange Street.
After the gathering, Jovin returned toward her off-campus apartment — and was never seen alive again.
Less than 30 minutes later, police said she was found about eight miles away at the corner of East Rock and Edgehill roads, bleeding heavily after being stabbed 17 times in the head and neck. She was rushed to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she was pronounced dead in the emergency room at 10:26 p.m., The New York Times reported.
Despite an extensive investigation, authorities were unable to identify a suspect. Now, nearly three decades later, the retired police sergeant who led the case is again asking anyone with information — no matter how small — to come forward.
“We’re really interested in anybody in the neighborhood, anyone who might have seen something at the University that has information that may help us to come forward,” said retired New Haven Police sergeant and detective Ed Kendall, WSFB reported.
On Dec. 4, 2025 — the anniversary of Jovin’s killing — Kendall joined others for a moment of silence and returned to the location where she was found, according to local reports.
“It is not forgotten that Suzanne Jovin was stabbed 27 years ago,” Kendall said, according to the New Haven Independent.
Kendall said he visits the site each year, continuing to push for answers in a case that has haunted the city and the university community. Jovin, who was double-majoring in political science and international studies at the time, was remembered by Kendall as a bright young student with a future ahead of her, NBC Connecticut reported.
One reason Kendall has remained involved, he said, is that the case remains the only unsolved homicide in New Haven from 1998, according to WSFB.
“In 1998, there were 15 murders in New Haven. All murders were solved and cases were closed, except this in the murder of Suzanne Jovin,” Kendall said, per the outlet.
Investigators have long urged the public to share anything they may recall from that night. Even details that seem insignificant could help move the case forward, Kendall said, according to NBC Connecticut.
On the night of the murder, police said, Jovin drove some party participants home in a station wagon she had borrowed from the university, then returned to the church to help clean up.
Later, at about 9:25 p.m., she crossed paths with classmate Peter Stein on Yale’s Old Campus while heading toward Phelps Hall to return the vehicle keys, the Yale Daily News reported in 2013. During the brief conversation, she told him she planned to go back to her apartment on Park Street after dropping off the keys.
“She did not mention plans to go anywhere or do anything else afterward,” Stein told the student newspaper in April 1999.
Shortly after that, a student who had attended a hockey game reported seeing Jovin walking on College Street toward Elm Street, according to the paper.
At 9:58 p.m., she was found on the sidewalk, seriously wounded.
Authorities said a $150,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jovin’s killer — including $50,000 from the state of Connecticut and $100,000 from Yale University.
