There is a new story regarding the Jessica Keen case in today's Columbus Dispatch, just an fyi.

http://dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/03/15/20060315-A1-02.html

Here are an excerpt:

Jessica Lyn Keen was 15.

"I try to imagine her as older. . . . I dream about that, envision what her life would have been," said her sister, Heather. "But she’ll always be just my little sister."

Fifteen years ago today, Jessica was at a University District bus stop about 6 p.m., headed for the Columbus City Center. Two days later, her naked body was found at the back of a tiny cemetery along a Madison County road.

She has been dead now for as long as she was alive. Maybe that’s long enough for someone to help police arrest her killer, say those who loved her. Events in the past eight weeks have bolstered that hope.

Ohh, nice teaser! Now I'm gonna have to read that story! :)

Here's a 2nd excerpt:

Authorities were never able to determine whether Jessica knew her attacker. Because of that, her sister and friend asked that their last names not be published. Still, they want to make a public plea for help.

"It’s been 15 years. If we don’t do something now, this might be our last chance," Shantal said.

Hope was rekindled in January when Jonathan Gravely was arrested in the 12-year-old slaying of Stephanie Hummer.

Hummer was a 19-year-old OSU student in 1994 when she was abducted near campus and found dead in Franklinton. Police matched DNA from the crime scene with a sample Gravely was required to provide for certain misdemeanors under a new state law.

Within days, Sabin appeared on television news shows to remind people about Jessica’s case.

"With the Hummer case, we thought there were similarities," Heather said. "When it was solved, that was very hopeful for us. That was 12 years; our case is 15 years. Maybe not all hope is lost."

One of the people Jessica met at Huckleberry House posted the hopeful news on her crime blog, www.beyondfrazzled.blogspot.com.

Lisa Hall, of Hilliard, and Jessica spent only four days together at Huckleberry House, but the memory stuck, Hall said. "This girl and her family deserve closure on this.

"Let’s not have her be somebody who is forgotten. She was a beautiful person. She was a kind person."

Someone recently pinned plastic flowers to a wooden cross that marks the spot where Jessica’s body was found. Someone recently left a porcelain angel figurine on the grave marker that her mother, sister and grandfather dedicated on her 16 th birthday, six months after her death.

Crime Stoppers named the case the Crime of the Week in 1993 and 2001. It was featured on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries in 2001.

Another update:

http://10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4641184

The money is now on the table, but will it solve a 15-year-old murder?

Thursday morning, Philadelphia businessman Joe Mammana put up a $100,000 reward good for 10 days for information in the murder of 15-year-old Jessica Keen.

The Westland High School student's body was found in this Madison County cemetery in March of 1991.

Thursday, Keen's sister said someone out there must know something.

"This is a great opportunity for someone to come forward and help our family in our grief and to find some sense of closure and justice for Jessica."

The DNA of whoever raped and killed Keen is in the state's data system, but there has never been a match to it.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2009/02/27/keen.html

wow there is so many of these cases getting solved this last year!

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2009/02/27/keen.html


wow indeed

I hate plea-bargains, but at least her family, friends, and anyone else paying attention found out who did it.

Edit: I see that this was news 5 years ago, so I would assume this was already known here?

What a very detailed story. Of her running through the cemetery and how she hit the fence post trying to get to the farm house. Poor girl.

Certainly been a while since Jessica Keen was a *new story*.

This case was featured on the ID Channel program Dead Silent. The entire program was devoted to this story, including details of which I was unaware, such as that a man driving down the same road saw the perpetrator's car running with the lights on but no one in the car, thought it odd, but made no further note of it. Had he only taken down the license plate, the case would have been solved the next day instead of 17 years later! The program glossed over the police screwup regarding the murder weapon, making it sound as if they knew about the tombstone all along instead of thinking she died from running into the fence post. How do you NOT NOTICE a HUGE HOLE where a tombstone was ripped out, and NOT LOOK to see it was discarded just on the other side of the fence? Also did no one visiting the cemetery later notice this? Geez, still SMH.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6664952/jessica-lyn-keen