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

[zchick]

I’m going to contact Lakewood PD cold case department, and see what can be done to try and resolve this. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I feel like I am shooting in the dark.

 

[CastlesBurning]

Reward increased for information about 1991 killing of 10-year-old boy in Lakewood

 

[y2cason]

Is anybody still following this? I have some thoughts about this.

 

[ManicMuggle83]

Is anybody still following this? I have some thoughts about this.

I am here! Share your thoughts.

 

[y2cason]

Anybody else think this investigation got on the wrong track from day 1?

 

[y2cason]

I am here! Share your thoughts.

My foremost thought is why does the Lakewood Police Department still consider Chinn a suspect?
Despite his other history, there is not a shred of physical evidence to connect him to Jakeob's murder. He gave blood, saliva and hair samples. He voluntarily turned himself in for questioning and also offered to take a polygraph test. He is a total in life, but if he had killed Jakeob, the cops would have had him almost 30 years ago.

 

[Bradley]

My foremost thought is why does the Lakewood Police Department still consider Chinn a suspect?
Despite his other history, there is not a shred of physical evidence to connect him to Jakeob's murder. He gave blood, saliva and hair samples. He voluntarily turned himself in for questioning and also offered to take a polygraph test. He is a total ******* in life, but if he had killed Jakeob, the cops would have had him almost 30 years ago.

Maybe, but it did rain the night Jakeob was killed. I'm given to understand that much of the physical evidence that there would otherwise have been got washed away.

 

[Bradley]

Chinn was released on parole on the unrelated *advertiser censored* charges a couple of years ago, but I see that he is back in prison now.

CDOC Offender Search

 

[y2cason]

We are coming up on the 30th anniversary of Jakeob's murder. I am a writer who has been working on a book about this case for five years. <modnsip>

 

[zchick]

Bumping for Jakeob

 

[Bradley]

We all believe that Chinn is beyond a doubt a person of interest.It has also been stated that there were other suspects ,at least 3 to 4 individuals if I am not mistaken.

1) Jakeobs brother and the convienence store clerk both identified Chinn as the person last seen with Jakeob.Supposedly Chinn had bought Jakeob candy at the 7-11.:waitasec:

2) It occured in the evening,not sure exactly what time.

3) I believe there is D.N.A. evidence,not sure if he was sexually assaulted.:sick:

4) Chinn was swimming with all of the boys that day and had showed them a bag of Marijuana.:loser:
I don't believe that Chinn had met or had known Jakeob before.

About three years ago, there was an article in the Denver Post online edition about Jakeob's murder. Both Jakeob's father and John Chinn responded. Chinn said that he was never at the 7-Eleven with Jakeob, and that the convenience store clerk identified the person who accompanied Jakeob there had long hair, as Chinn has, but also had acne, which Chinn claims he never did. In another Denver Post article, the 7-Eleven clerk said that she asked Jakeob if he was buying some ice cream (not candy) for his brother, to which Jakeob replied that the person who was with him was not his brother.

As for #2, nobody is quite sure what time Jakeob died, but the autopsy reports indicate that it was sometime the evening before his body was found.

#3 There may or may not be DNA evidence, but it did rain hard that night, which caused a significant loss to most, if not all, of the DNA evidence that might otherwise have been collected. The fact that it's still a question whether Chinn was involved in the murder indicates that no useful evidence that would either convict or exonerate Chinn has ever been available.

Both Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News articles at the time reported that Jakeob was not sexually assaulted.

#4 Chinn is indeed a loser, and has done absolutely nothing with his life in all the decades since, except to be arrested for mostly petty crimes like theft and drug possession in Seattle and Denver over the following three decades, as well as doing some significant prison time for a conviction on sexual assault on another boy in Colorado. There is no longer much in this world that scares me, but looking at Chinn's mugshot chills me to the bone. Notwithstanding what he may or may not have done to Jakeob McKnight, his eyes are those of an unfeeling, cold-blooded sociopath, and he frightens me tremendously.

It is quite probable that Chinn had no prior association with, contact with, or knowledge of Jakeob prior to the day that he swam with them.

 

[Bradley]

Anybody else think this investigation got on the wrong track from day 1?

Definitely!

The Lakewood Police Department is, and always has been, mostly incompetent, and they were especially so in this case.

John Chinn and Tom Judge's lawyers told the LPD that they would sue if they continued to "harass" their clients, so the LPD backed off!

What fresh hell is this?!

Since when does an active investigation "conclude" simply because the suspects' lawyers tell the police that they have to?!

Since when does any police department or investigative authority not say, "Sorry, pal, we're conducting an investigation here, and until we are able to clear the suspects and 'persons of interest,' we are going to do our jobs?!"

 

[Bradley]

My thoughts:
1. Jakeob, according to the Lakewood Police Department, was not sexually assaulted.
2. Whether this is indicative that Chinn was not involved is anybody's guess.
3. Chinn is definitely a very sick and terrifying individual, as evidenced by his later convictions involving children.
4. Although a rainstorm the night of Jakeob's murder did likely remove some evidence or contaminate the crime scene, the Lakewood Police Department certainly mishandled the investigation from the start.
5. Most importantly, although Tom Judge has since died, there is somebody out there, somewhere, who knows something about Jakeob's murder, and that person or those people have a moral obligation to come forward.