CO CO - Jakeob McKnight, 10, Lakewood, 21 Jul 1991

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I finally found some information on Felix Chinn’s alibi which he described as “ironclad.” Mr. Judge and he were apparently having dinner the night of Jakeob’s murder with friends. Here is a link to the article with the information:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...=15&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

Why this wouldn’t definitely clear Mr. Chinn in the eyes of the police and others, I don’t know. Because the alibi witnesses are described as friends, this makes some skeptical? (The article does not state how many friends there were at the dinner or how close they were to Mr. Chinn.) Or is that they are not convinced that the medical examiner could accurately fix the time of death? It is certain that the boy was stabbed during the time for which Mr. Chinn (and Mr. Judge) had an alibi and not before?

Some timeline information would be helpful here.

For example, when Jakeob’s older brother left with their two friends on bikes, the Denver Post cold case article states that Jakeob walked home because he didn’t have a bike. (Why not, by the way? Had he come to the swimming point earlier or later than his brother and friends?) When the boy’s companions last saw him, was Mr. Chinn still around? If not, had long had Mr. Chinn been gone? What time that evening had the other boys left Jakeob and what time did Mr. Chinn’s alibi begin?
 
A more specific timeline would be helpful. At approximately what time was the boy last seen alive? At what time did the witness see Chinn and Judge leaving the park covered in blood? At what time do Chinn's acquaintances claim to have met up with him for dinner?
The accounts of Chinn's alibi witnesses must be taken with a grain of salt, more so than those of unbiased strangers.
 
I dont know but there might be more specific times and such in the first article in the Denver post.
 
I can't say for certain whether "A Little Birdie" has posted accurate information, but I have researched this case as thoroughly as non-police personnel probably can, and have not seen any information anywhere else regarding a witness who saw Judge and Chinn running from the scene, covered in blood. I have also been unable to corroborate the claim that Chinn's son had been charged with child molestation.

On the cold cases (Denver Post) blog which Armchair refers to, somebody purporting to be Chinn - and I'm inclined to believe it was him - stated that he was never at the 7-Eleven with Jakeob. He also stated that his son is named Ashes (make of that what you will).

I think that this chronology of events might answer some of the questions posed here.

On the now deleted Denver Post blog, I posed the question of whether it was just too hard to imagine that Jakeob could have encountered an (accused) child molester as well as a killer (acknowledging the possibility that Chinn might really be innocent of this crime) on the same day.

Please understand that I am not defending Chinn. It is, of course, quite possible that he did kill Jakeob. And in either case, I think he qualifies as slime.

The following chronology was compiled by Mary Oliver for the Rocky Mountain News library and is public record. I think that it answers some of the questions posed by other posters.

Note that Chinn's alibi was provided by his friends and one of these friend's mothers. Note also that Chinn encountered the boys the previous day, and arranged to meet them again on day of Jakeob's murder.

An aside: Someone asked why Jakeob did not have a bicycle. In another Rocky Mountain News article, Jakeob's parents stated during an interview that they had gone shopping for a bicycle for him - a present for his upcoming birthday - that very day.

-----------------------------------------------------------
NewsBank, inc. – The Rocky Mountain News – 1991 – Article with Citation
-----------------------------------------------------------

Headline: A CHRONOLOGY OF MURDER

Date: September 11, 1991 Section: LOCAL
Page: 32 Edition: FINAL
Word Count: 742
Author: COMPILED BY MARY OLIVER
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS LIBRARY

Index Terms: CHRONOLOGY
MURDER
STABBING
INVESTIGATION
PROFILE

Text:
* July 20 – John Ramsey Chinn meets 12-year-old Joshaua McKnight and his friends at a swimming hole in the Bear Creek Greenbelt. Jakeob McKnight is not present. Chinn and the boys agree to meet there again the next day.

• July 21 – 3:30 p.m. Chinn returns and goes swimming with Jakeob and Joshaua McKnight. Chinn remarks that Jakeob has the “prettiest eyes” he’s ever seen and agrees to meet the youngsters three days later so he can photograph them.
• July 21 – Evening. After Jakeob fails to return from the greenbelt, his parents report him missing. The search begins. Meanwhile, Chinn and his friends Tom Judge, Stephen Goldman and Laurie Linz are at Goldman’s home, having dinner, they say later.
• July 21 – 9:30 p.m. – A clerk at a 7-Eleven store near the greenbelt reports seeing Jakeob with an unidentified man. The gathering of Chinn, Judge, Goldmn and Linz breaks up about 10:30 p.m. and Chinn goes home, they say later.
• July 22 – Jakeob’s body is found near Bear Creek; he had been stabbed 24 times.
• July 23- Chinn becomes the focus of the murder investigation. He resembles the description provided by Jakeob’s brother, the boys’ friends and the 7-Eleven clerk.
• July 25 – Littleton police arrest Chinn on a Denver warrant charging him with violationg the terms of an unrelated $5,000 bond. Lakewood investigators say they have no evidence to connect Chinn to Jakeob’s death.
• July 26 – More than 50 volunteers scour the murder site for clues.
• July 29 – Subpoenas are served to four of Chinn’s friends who already have been questioned by police
• July 31 – The four are scheduled to testify before a grand juryin the evening, but their lawyers argue that they weren’t given copies of the statements the four had made to police. A Jefferson County district judge throws out the subpoenas.
• Aug. 1 – Jefferson County prosecutors say they won’t give grand jury witnesses copies of their police statements without first knowing whether the witnesses will testify.
• Aug. 9 – Chinn is ordered to stand trial on charges that he violated conditions of his bond in the unrelated case.
• Aug. 14 – Grand jury meets. Two witnesses, Linz and Chinn’s father, Hiram “Digg” Chinn, are granted immunity in exchange for their testimony.
• Aug. 15 – Lakewood police stop Judge at gunpoint, detain him for an hour, take a sample of his hair and release him.
• Aug. 16 – Results of tests of evidence are returned from the state crime lab and are considered “inconclusive.”
• Aug. 19 – Judge and Goldman refuse to testify as alibi witnesses for Chinn’s bond-revocation hearing. Attorneys for the witnesses assert their clitents’ Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, citing threats by Lakewood police and the possibility that the witnesses also are under criminal investigation.
• Aug. 21 – The grand jury hears testimony from Chinn’s mother and from his friend Kenny Parks after both are granted immunity from prosecution for their testimony.
• Aug. 22 – Lakewood police tack up dozens of handbills showing the face of Judge, who has neither been charged with a crime nor identified as a suspect. In the notices, Lakewood residents are asked to call police if they rememmber seeing Judge in the vicinity of the Bear Creek Grenbelt.
• Aug. 23 – Chinn is released from Denver County Jail on $50,000 bond in the unrelated case.
• Aug. 24 – A memorial bench dedicated to Jekeob is erected near where his body was found.
• Judge is briefly jailed for failing to appear in court on an unrelated misdemeanor.
• Aug.29 – Members of the Jefferson County business community post a $25,00 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jekeob’s killer.
• Aug. 28 – Judge’s lawyer, David Lane, files suit in Denver U.S. District Court, claiming that police violated his client’s constitutional rights when they stopped him to obtain hair samples. Lane also asks a Jefferson County district judge to order the hair samples destroyed because no arrest has resulted.
• Aug. 31 – Pollice search the home of Sheila Goldman, where Judge and Goldman’s son, Stephen, live.
 
There have been no comments here for about three months!

As Jakeob's birthday approaches, I'd like to bump this thread - if nothing else to keep Jakeob's memory alive.
 
Armchair14 said:
Birdie:

Thank you for the additional information. On Jakeob’s Denver Post's cold case file page, there were numerous comments posted until just recently, but they now appear to have been expunged for some reason. Mr. Gary McKnight, Jakeob’s father, participated in the discussion for awhile before declining to do so any longer. Additionally, John Chinn (or at least someone purporting to be him) also posted one or more times. Mr. Chinn reiterated that he had an alibi for the time of the murder that he characterized as “ironclad.”

If Mr. Chinn had an alibi then why don’t those who are convinced of his guilt accept it? I am asking this out of ignorance. I don’t know the reason, and I am not editorializing. The alibi might well be the reason why the Lakewood criminal justice system never proceeded against him.

Do you know the nature of Mr. Chinn’s alleged alibi? Can the time of death of Jakeob’s murder be definitively established to a time frame in which Mr. Chinn’s alibi would be effective? Again, my primary question is to inquire why at least some do not accept his alibi evidence. What is the nature of the alibi? Is it just one person who can testify to his whereabouts? Two people? Several? If several, are they all lying for him? I don’t know the answer to these questions or I wouldn’t ask.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

I honestly think that "a little birdie" is some crackpot trying to elevate his reputation here (for all that's worth) by claiming to have knowledge that nobody else here has.

I sent him a PM several months ago, asking him to document his claims. He has not responded, either by PM or on this board. Make of this what you will; I personally suspect that his claims are pure nonsense. I doubt he'll be back.

I hope that the above chronology will answer your question. (I post only information from documented sources.)

According to the Rocky Mountain News summary above, Felix Chinn and Tom Judge claimed to have been having dinner at the home of a friend, Shiela Goldman, at the time of Jakeob's murder. While there were numerous people who "corroborated" this alibi, the fact remains that all were Chinn's friends.

From my secondary-source research into newspaper articles of the time, it appears that the Lakewood police ceased their investigation into Chinn and Judge because their lawyers threatened to sue the Lakewood Police Department (!) and not because Chinn's alibi was, as he claimed, "ironclad."

I could find no evidence of any witnesses who saw Chinn and Judge running from the murder site covered in blood, as "little birdie" claimed. Neither could I find any evidence to support his claim that Chinn's son, Ashes, has been arrested for child molestation. That is not to say, conclusively, that these claims are false - but I personally suspect, strongly, that they are mere fabrications. "Little Birdie" has had ample time to provide documentation of either or both of these claims and has declined to do so. Anyone else who can substantiate these claims is welcome to do so as well.

What bothers me so much about Jakeob's murder is that I believe that there is someone, somewhere, who knows something about the events of the day Jakeob died. I fervently hope that this person or these people will eventually come forward and share what they KNOW.

Jakeob's case is horrible and tragic; let's not make false claims or say that we know something we don't.
 
Armchair14 said:
CS:

In regard to Birdie’s post asserting LE has an eyewitness, I have read that no other place and have no idea what the source is. If it is true, then all I can suggest is that there must be some reason why LE does not consider the witness to be credible.
Click to expand...

I agree. If this were the case, I don't see why a grand jury would not vote to prosecute. I think unfortunately there are so many rumors and not enough facts floating around. I have so many questions as well, but I suppose we will never know and of the answers since we are not LE.

Was a murder weapon ever recovered?
Was any DNA recovered?
Was Jakeob sexually assaulted?
Was Chinn ever given a lie detector test? (would be interesting to know the results as a tool if he was)

This is in NO WAY a judgment on the parents, but why was a 10 year old boy out swimming so late without a parent present?

I am not super familiar with the area, I live much further south, and I am assuming the parents felt comfortable enough with the neighborhood to allow him to swim without them present, but were they aware he and his friends were spending time with these men who were so much older?

Was Jakeob a very trusting type who would just leave with a stranger?

I just can't get my head around this case and how this MONSTER was able to snuff out an innocent life right out in public.
 
Armchair14 said:
It is also possible that the murderer was an unrelated party who had observed both Jakeob and Mr. Chinn together and saw an opportunity. It would not be all that much of a coincidence. If one wishes to hunt ducks, then one goes where the ducks are. Pedophiles do "hang out" at places where children are likely to frequent. If so, sometime after Mr. Chinn departed, the actual murderer made his advance. The timeline here needs to be clarified as well. As is so often the case when LE releases accounts of cold cases, the details given out are rather sparse.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%.
 
Daisy1975 said:
I agree. If this were the case, I don't see why a grand jury would not vote to prosecute. I think unfortunately there are so many rumors and not enough facts floating around. I have so many questions as well, but I suppose we will never know and of the answers since we are not LE.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Chinn's friends and the parents of a friend claimed that he was having dinner with them at the time of the murder. An alibi from friends, including one who might also have been a suspect (Tom Judge), is in my opinion suspect at best.

Chinn's lawyers threatened to sue the Lakewood Police Department if they continued to investigate the case after they took a hair sample from Chinn. I find this truly bizarre and wish that LE would enlighten us on that situation; I've never before heard of a police department dropping an investigation because they were threatened with a lawsuit.

Was a murder weapon ever recovered? No. Within a day or two after the murder, volunteers and police scoured the area but never found the knife.
Was any DNA recovered? It seems that there should have been some, but LE is keeping quiet about it, if they did recover any.
Was Jakeob sexually assaulted?According to Rocky Mountain News reports, Jaakeob was NOT sexually assaulted.
Was Chinn ever given a lie detector test? (would be interesting to know the results as a tool if he was)I am not certain, but I do not believe that Chinn ever submitted to a lie detector test.

This is in NO WAY a judgment on the parents, but why was a 10 year old boy out swimming so late without a parent present? A profile published in the Rocky Mountain News a few months after the murder quoted Jakeob's father as saying, "I used to be happy-go-lucky[/i]."

I think this is very sad. I surmise that Jakeob's parents felt comfortable allowing him to go to the park to play. Whether he was allowed to swim, or just did without his parents' knowledge, I can only guess. But, evidently, Jakeob's parents did not feel he needed supervision every moment of the day, and I think it's sad that so many parents now keep their children on such a tight leash - although I do understand why they do, in light of such horrrible tragedies as this one.

Was Jakeob a very trusting type who would just leave with a stranger? I do get that impression, but it's just based on what I have read about the case. According to one newspaper account, the clerk at 7-Eleven asked Jakeob if he was buying ice cream for his older brother. Jakeob replied that the man who was with him was not his brother.

(The clerk's description of the man who was with Jakeobb matched Chinn's very closely, although on another now defunct blog, Chinn claimed to have never been at the 7-Eleven with Jakeob, and said that he had never had acne, as the clerk described.)

I just can't get my head around this case and how this MONSTER was able to snuff out an innocent life right out in public.
Click to expand...

I agree!
 
Armchair14 said:
As a follow-up to my last post, one other point to consider is how likely it would have been that Mr. Chinn would have murdered (and sexually assaulted?—it seems the only possible motive), Jakeob in the wake of his activates with the boy that day.

It is also possible that the murderer was an unrelated party who had observed both Jakeob and Mr. Chinn together and saw an opportunity. .
Click to expand...

As I mentioned: Rocky Mountain News reports stated that Jakeob had not been sexually assaulted.

As for a possible other murderer, Jakeob's father indicated that he might think so on the now-defunct Denver Post blog. Based on the information regarding charges of sexually assaulting another boy, I still think Chinn is less than slime mold, but as to who killed Jakeob, I'm witholding judgment. I just wish that the case would be solved, and that the perpetrator, whoever he/they may be, is/are brought to justice.
 
Person of interest in old murder case arrested on unrelated child *advertiser censored* charges

http://kdvr.com/2012/09/10/person-o...nrelated-child-*advertiser censored*-charges/

Unfortunately the arrest is unrelated to Jakeob's disappearance, but maybe this could lead to something...
 
Colorado Department of Corrections has no record of Chinn as either (a) Currently in custody; or (b) Currently on parole. Maybe he has not been brought to trial yet, and remains free on bond?

It is very strange to me how Chinn seems to avoid incarceration time after time: I believe that the latest oxycodone case, which led to the *advertiser censored* arrest, is at least his second drug arrest. And yet, Chinn has not spent any time in prison, as far as I know, although to my knowledge he was suspected of:

A) Molesting a 9-year-old boy in 1991;
B) Selling drugs to an undercover officer in Seattle in the late 90's;
C) Involvement in an Oxycodone case in Denver in, I think, 2009;
D) Which led to his arrest for child *advertiser censored*.

In addition, what appears to be a very flimsy alibi seems to have stopped the investigation into Chinn's likely involvement in Jakeob's murder in its tracks before the police ever really even got started.

Seriously: I'm sure that if I even neglected to pay a traffic fine, I would end up doing the maximum 90-day sentence. Yet Chinn is suspected in more than one heinous crime against children, and in at least two drug cases, and has never, I believe, spent a day in prison. (If anyone has more information than I, please share it here.)

What's going on? This guy seems to be untouchable.
 
Bradley said:
Seriously: I'm sure that if I even neglected to pay a traffic fine, I would end up doing the maximum 90-day sentence. Yet Chinn is suspected in more than one heinous crime against children, and in at least two drug cases, and has never, I believe, spent a day in prison. (If anyone has more information than I, please share it here.)

What's going on? This guy seems to be untouchable.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the EXACT same thing. I wonder if he is some kind of criminal informant for the police. Seems like they always get a free pass.
 
Certain Detectives should lose their jobs if they're allowing child molesters, much less possible child murderers, to work as informants! (What information could Chinn possibly have to give them that would mitigate involvement in the murder of a child? In essence, someone would have to be saying that the information Chinn has is sufficient to give him on a pass on everything he's done and is suspected of doing.)
 
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