NC NC - Jenna Nielsen, 22, pregnant, Raleigh, 14 June 2007

[terminatrixator]

I have been following this case and my hearts and prayers go to Jenna's family & friends.

This is awesome news and I hope they catch who did this to Jenna. This really makes me ill.

UPDATE: Police Have DNA Evidence
http://www.ncwanted.com/ncwanted_home/story/5374651/

From NC WANTED Staff
Posted: Today at 11:53 a.m.
Updated: Today at 11:53 a.m.

WAKE COUNTY — Police investigators confirmed Wednesday that they have DNA evidence in the unsolved slaying of Jenna Nielsen, a pregnant newspaper carrier who was stabbed to death outside a Raleigh convenience store two years ago.

Nielsen, 22, was making a delivery at the AmeriKing Food Mart on Lake Wheeler Road in the early hours of June 14, 2007, when she was stabbed in the neck.

Eight months' pregnant, she was working the route to supplement her family's income as she and her husband prepared for the birth of their third son, Ethen.

Police have characterized the case as being "very solvable" but never disclosed that they had DNA evidence. Nielsen's husband, Tim Nielsen, revealed that information in a recent interview with CNN.

"They found DNA, but I can't say more than that," he said.

Lt. Karen Riggsbee, with the Raleigh Police Department's Major Crimes Division, would not say where the evidence was collected but said it is being run through DNA databases across the country.

"This has never been a cold case," she said. "We work on it daily."

Police have said little else about their investigation but said they believe the crime was a random act.

The same day Nielsen's body was found, police recovered a bloody knife near the crime scene, but they have not said if it was the weapon used to kill her.

Investigators have interviewed hundreds of people and received thousands of leads, but continue to appeal to the public for any information they might have, regardless of how small it might be.

The police department has dedicated 24-hour hotline (919-227-6220) to the case. Anyone with information can also call Crime Stoppers at 919-834-4357.

Police have released a description of a person wanted for questioning in the case – a short, slightly built man in his late teens or early 20s with black hair that was pulled back into a long ponytail. He was wearing a dark-colored sleeveless shirt and baggy blue jeans shorts.

His ethnicity is not known, and detectives have urged the public to avoid speculation based upon the physical description.

The case received widespread attention in the days and weeks following Nielsen's slaying. CNN, Fox News and America’s Most Wanted featured the case on their programs.

Nielsen's employer, USA Today, also published several full-page advertisements about the case, and a local advertising company posted a billboard near downtown Raleigh in an effort to generate leads.

Her family has also set up a Web site, justice4jenna.org, to keep the case alive and is offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

 

[lizzybeth]

I'm not very knowledgeable about DNA, but wouldn't that indicate what race the person was?

 

[terminatrixator]

They can determine race based on ancestry, and they are surprisingly accurate but there's still issues with it, the entire article is interesting.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-16-dna_x.htm

Snipped from the page

DNA tests offer clues to suspect's race

In the past 12 years, police across the USA have identified thousands of suspects by testing DNA profiles in blood, sweat, semen or skin tissue left at crime scenes, and then comparing them to the profiles of known offenders on file in government databases. But as the Kansas City case showed, advances in DNA testing are allowing investigators to learn more about suspects whose profiles are not in the databases. Tests that can identify a suspect's ancestry are being used not to identify the suspect by name, but rather to give police an idea of what he or she looks like.
DNA ancestry testing "made a huge difference" in the Precious Doe case by helping investigators sort through reports about possible suspects, says Dave Bernard, a Kansas City police detective. "It allowed us to prioritize our tips, to give special attention to tips about mixed-race children, for instance. It was invaluable."


How the test works
DNA is a cellular acid that carries a person's unique genetic code. The company that invented the ancestry test, DNAPrint Genomics of Sarasota, Fla., says that by examining tiny genetic markers on the DNA molecule that tend to be similar in people of certain population groups, it can tell whether a suspect's heritage is European, Sub-Saharan African, Southeast Asian, Native American or a mix of those.
The test works, the company says, because population groups developed different DNA characteristics after splitting off from common African ancestors more than 60,000 years ago.
In 2003, police in Louisiana used ancestry testing to help find the suspect in seven rape/murders. Since then, police in Missouri, Virginia, Colorado, California and the United Kingdom also have used such tests to develop leads in more than 80 other homicide, rape and missing-persons cases, according to DNAPrint Genomics and USA TODAY research.
Using the same genetic principles, DNAPrint Genomics is developing tests aimed at determining a suspect's eye color from a DNA sample. In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, the government's Forensic Science Service has begun examining DNA samples for indications of hair color.
DNAPrint Genomics also sells the test to people who want to trace their roots. The test, which costs $219, has been especially popular among those seeking to determine whether they are descended from Native Americans, lab director Matt Thomas says. DNAPrint Genomics charges police departments $1,000 for each ancestry test, because testing crime scene evidence for DNA can be particularly difficult.
Bernard and many other police detectives hail the ancestry tests as a breakthrough in crime-fighting. But medical ethicists, defense lawyers and even some police officials are troubled by the push to use DNA tests to identify suspects by what amounts to their race.
Some, such as Terry Melton, president of Mitotyping Technologies of State College, Pa., say the reliability of ancestry testing remains unproved.
William Shields, a biology professor and genetics specialist at State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, says that even if the tests are correct, a person's ancestry often is a poor predictor of what he will look like. Human beings, Shields adds, are too scientifically similar to one another to be distinguished by a "layman's term" such as race.
Some defense lawyers say they fear that using ancestry testing to determine suspects' heritage could lead to genetic racial profiling, or promote the idea that certain races are more inclined than others to commit crimes.
"How far are we from having (ancestry tests) used to justify taking DNA from any black man on a street corner, because we think a Sub-Saharan African committed the crime?" asks Ingrid Gill, a Chicago lawyer who has lectured on ancestry testing at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
George Rhoden, a detective with London's Metropolitan Police and president of the force's Black Police Association, also is a skeptic. He says that in a society in which marriages between people of different ethnic backgrounds are increasingly common, racial designations often are "very broad" and "don't do us coppers much good."
Rhoden points out that suspects with similar genetic ancestry can look significantly different from one another. A person whose profile is 75% Sub-Saharan African, for example, may have skin color that is nearly identical to someone whose profile is 35% Sub-Saharan African.
"As a detective, I don't care where (a suspect's) grandfather came from," Rhoden says. "I want to know what he looks like."
Mark Shriver, an anthropological geneticist at Penn State University and a consultant to DNAPrint Genomics, acknowledges that "there's a huge sensitivity about race in our society. We are making a strong attempt to be sensitive to the issue."
But "that doesn't take away the reality that people often describe each other in terms of race. We're saying: Let DNA be the witness."
Beyond standard DNA tests
Conventional DNA analysis compares 13 relatively large areas on the molecule where the DNA sequence is known to vary greatly among individuals. If two DNA samples match at all 13 positions, statistics maintained by the FBI say it's highly likely they came from the same person.
Ancestry tests, by contrast, examine 176 mutations in which the DNA varies at only one position. Some of the mutations, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (or SNPs), have been found to occur only in certain ancestral groups. Others tend to cluster in one group more than others because of centuries of geographic separation and inter-marriage. Together, Thomas says, SNPs are "highly informative of ancestry."
In 2003, DNAPrint Genomics began to license its test to police agencies. The scientists realized, Thomas says, that knowing a suspect's race or ancestral background "may not be great for, 'Who do we arrest?' " but could help police determine, "Who do we question?"
The company's test was first used in a criminal investigation in the Baton Rouge area, where a series of at least seven rape/murders had authorities stumped. Witnesses had reported seeing a white man in a white truck near the scene of two of the killings. Police had taken DNA samples from more than 1,200 white men in the area and had not found a match to samples from the crimes.
Then the DNAPrint Genomics ancestry test found that the unknown attacker was mostly of Sub-Saharan African ancestry with a smattering of Native American.
That led authorities to focus on Derrick Todd Lee, a black man with convictions for burglary and stalking. Additional testing matched Lee's DNA to samples taken from victims. He has been convicted in two of the slayings.
In 2004, police in Charlottesville, Va., used ancestry testing to confirm the race of a suspect in six unsolved rapes that began in 1997. Police had been criticized for seeking DNA samples from local black men based on victims' descriptions of the assailant. The testing indicated that he indeed was of Sub-Saharan African descent.


Ancestry testing also has been used on a female skeleton that was found in the snow near Mammoth Lake, Calif., in May 2003. The slain woman initially was misidentified as southeast Asian, based on witnesses' descriptions of a woman seen in the area. DNAPrint Genomics found she actually was a Native American, a finding confirmed by analyses of her diet and bone composition and further DNA tests.


The ancestry test "turned around the whole investigation," says Paul Dostie, the police detective investigating the case. "We're still looking for the killer, but we know a lot more now."

 

[terminatrixator]

http://www.ncwanted.com/ncwanted_home/video/4886109/

NC Wanted did a great job with this story too. Gerald Owen and NC Wanted really showcase a story well.

Jenna Nielsen's murder is sad but I noticed some more interesting things.
I've seen it said they believe it was a "random act" but they said robbery was not a motive and it was a crime with sexual overtones.

They stated the sketch is no longer valid, they found a hair in her hand and in the very last interview they even said it's not beyond the possibility that Jenna may have known the murderer or was acquainted with the murderer.

I wonder if it was someone that worked in the area or lived in the area and noticed her routine.

I really pray for her family and friends and children. You can see the heartbreak in her father's face and it really is sad.

 

[TGIRecovered]

I would speculate that LE may be aware or the race of the suspect as a result of DNA testing, but could be witholding this bit of information. Witholding this info from the published description could avoid discouraging any tipster who may have important info, but incorrect assumptions. It could also help to avoid the possibility of a defense lawyer for a future defendant to claim that their client was targeted because of racial bias.

One problem with crimes that happen in the dark is that it could be difficult to tell a person's race from a fleeting glimpse of a suspicious person. A would-be tipster might see a person dressed a certain way, or in shadows and assume incorrectly that they are hispanic when in fact they are white, or black rather than arabic, etc.

Someone needs to tell what they know.

Susan

 

[chicoliving]

~snip~

Anyone with information about the case should call Crime Stoppers at 919-834-4357.

Family members are offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.

Raleigh police said Tuesday the case remains under active investigation. Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said in a statement that the department is “confident that it can be solved and her killer can be brought to justice.”

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/9728682/

 

[SeekingJana]

Remembering Jenna's family-- her boys, her husband,and her parents during this holiday season. I pray her case will be solved!!!

 

[masootz]

bump. any new news?

 

[athy]

haven't heard anything in a long time

 

[scriptgirl]

This case has stayed with me since I read about it. Almost 10 years have passed since Jenna's murder.

 

[rainbowdash]

Recently came across this case and I am fascinated. Couple questions for anyone who might still be monitoring this post...

1. DNA was found at the scene, but didn't match any National/State databases? Did they get DNA samples from family members, co-workers, neighbors, known sex offenders in the area?
2. The knife that was found (and thrown over a fence) by a homeless man... did they ever recover it? DNA testing?
3. Any camera's at the gas station? Or at any neighboring businesses? It was 2007 off of a relatively major rd, they had to have something... Seems like all of the descriptions of the suspect were by people who saw him in the area, not video footage.
4. I read in one report that the USA Today papers were already placed at the front door of the store, probably meaning that Jennifer had finished her drop off and was approached by the assailant while returning to the vehicle? That seems most probable.
4. The assailant must have been known she would be there, or had been following her, if only for a short while, right? How random would it have to be for the killer to randomly see her, for the brief few mins she is at the store, and have the time/chance to attack. It just seems like the killer had some knowledge of her movements.

Again, I just recently got interested in the case and am still learning details each day. Hoping someone knows a little more about and can offer some insight.

RD

 

[LeBlack]

Bump for Jenna

 

[Mistyjks]

Just catching a show on ID featuring Jennas murder, which also included her son she was pregnant with at the time

. It remains unsolved. I haven’t seen anything that shows LE disclosing any info about the DNA results to the public. It’s been well over 10 YEARS since they admitted having the DNA and while it appears no match, they did find out the killers profile. Whatever the reason they chose to keep this info guarded doesn’t seem to have been fruitful. I saw a MSM article stating while they felt the attack was random, Jenna may have known her attacker. She had one hair in her hand, and DNA under her nails, and that the attack is believed to have had “sexual undertones”. Perhaps this means they found the killers saliva on Jenna? Or other bodily fluid in the area? Can they tell from DNA if said person is male/female? What happens when LE runs a DNA sample with no matches. I’m assuming the sample material must be virtually housed somewhere. Will it auto try to match with future adds of DNA profiles from criminals, user submitted, etc? Or would one have to resubmit the query? I would think that over 10 years later the data should be ran again if it hadn’t.

idk this girl got to me. Reminds me of myself at her age maybe. I too had a paper route when my babies were young to help make ends meet, I hated it and I was always scared/nervous even though it was a relatively safe rural area.

I really hope Jenna, and her unborn son, Ethan find justice. So sad.

moo