Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Jenny Lin Part 1

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

In 1994, the brutal murder of a 14-year-old inside her parents' safe suburban house left a community shaken to its core, because not only had a bright and talented life been suddenly snuffed out, but police struggled to find a motive. And the more clues they uncovered, the more investigators realized the nightmare they were dealing with: Jenny Lin’s murder was more than a crime of opportunity —it had been carefully planned. For nearly 30 years, Jenny’s murder has weighed on Alameda County and terrorized detectives as they’ve pondered the same question over and over since 1994: why Jenny?If you have any information about the murder of Jennifer Lin on May 27th, 1994, please contact the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office at 510-667-3636, or call the Jenny Lin hotline at 855-4-JENNY-LIN.To donate to the The Jenny Lin Foundation visit: jennylinfoundation.orgTo learn more about The Deck, visit: https://thedeckpodcast.com/ Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-jenny-lin-part-1/

Hi, crime junkies, I know, me again, this is like the third time this week I have dropped in your feed, and it actually won't be the last. But I'm here for a really special reason, or rather for a really special person, and that's a young girl named Jenny Lin. I know new people are finding crime junkie every day,

so some of you don't know that I host another weekly true crime show called The Deck. And if what you love about crime junkie is the fact that we are truly moving the needle in the true crime space and bringing closure to unsolved cases, The Deck is that times 10. Literally, a detective emailed us the other day and said, listen, I didn't have high hopes

that a 30 minute podcast would really help our cold case, but after your episode of The Deck, the AG's office started contacting us, and the case is moving more than it has in years. He said he officially is a believer in the power of podcasts, and so am I. I know all of you out there can make a difference, and I have this case that's been weighing really heavy

on my heart that I need you to help with. While I've been on my book tour for all good people here, one of the questions that I get asked over and over again is what case I wish the most could be solved, just one case, and the truth is there is no one case. All of them deserve resolution, but there is this one case that's been closest to my heart recently,

one that's been keeping me up at night, and that's Jenny Lin. So because Crime Junkie has a wider audience, I wanted to make sure each and every one of you heard Jenny's story, because together I know we can help her family. So please, listen close, please share, and please take a moment to go follow The Deck

wherever you listen to podcasts, because there are over 30 other cases that you probably have never heard of before that need your attention. So without further ado, here is the story of Jennifer Lin, the Queen of Hearts from California, on The Deck. MUSIC

It was about 5.30 p.m. on May 27, 1994. John Lin was at work at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, and he knew that his 14-year-old daughter was home alone in their Castro Valley home 30-some minutes away, so he called their house phone to check in on her. The call rang, but then the answering machine picked up. It wasn't like Jenny to not answer the phone if she was home, but he figured she was just busy around the house or maybe was outside playing with the family dog. So John wrapped things up at work and started heading home just before 6.

He jumped on the train as he did every day and arrived at his station at around 6.30. That's when he hopped in his car and was home by 6.45. When he walked inside the house, he was probably expecting to be greeted by Jenny, but instead there was just silence. He called out for her, but there was no response, so John started walking around the first level of the home, checking every room. As he walked, he noticed the TV was on, and on the dining room table was an uneaten microwave dinner, which meant that Jenny was definitely around somewhere.

John thought Jenny was probably outside in the backyard, again, maybe playing with her dog or something, so he opened the unlocked sliding glass door, stepped outside, and sure enough, there was the dog outside in the dog run, but there was no sign of Jenny. And something that John found odd was the fact that the sliding glass door was unlocked when he opened it, but Jenny wasn't out there. He knew that his wife, Maelyn, always checked before leaving for work that all of the windows were shut, all of the doors were locked, so this stuck out to him. John went back inside to check the one place he hadn't yet, upstairs.

As he walked in his and Maelyn's primary bedroom, he noticed something was off. The door to the en suite bathroom was shut. The door always stayed open unless it was being used, and Jenny had no reason to be using that specific bathroom. So with a lump in his throat, John slowly opened the door, and his worst fears were confirmed. Lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood was his daughter Jenny. She was nude, her arms and legs were bound with gray duct tape, and it looked like her clothes had been cut off.

Heart racing, John dropped to the floor beside his daughter and rolled her over. The front of her body was covered with puncture wounds. It was clear to John right away that it was too late for any life-saving measures. His beloved, youngest baby girl was dead. Come with shock and grief, he picked up the nearest phone and dialed 911. And through tears and screams, he begged the operator to send help. As first responders were on their way, John called Maelyn at work. I don't know how you get the words out, but John did.

I went a little bit blank. What I thought I was, is this real, is this real, and I ran, I ran all the way from, I believe I was on the fourth floor or fifth floor of the building, I ran downstairs and I ran to my car and I drove on the way back, all I can think of was, this is me, I couldn't ever see her again. I don't know. It's just so unreal at the time. That moment of like something irreversible, just a thought of, I couldn't see her again.

That's it. That thought, it tear your heart. When deputies with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office arrived, they first did a thorough sweep of the house to clear it of any suspects and medical personnel rushed in to check on Jenny. But just as John had told the 911 operator, there was nothing that could be done. And with the nature of how she was found, partially nude, bound with gray duct tape and stabbed repeatedly, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that they were dealing

with a homicide and probably the most brutal killing they had ever seen. The bloody scene was a stark contrast in the Lynn suburban upscale home. Police wasted no time. Right away, they called evidence technicians and more law enforcement to respond. The Lynn's home, which hours earlier was a safe oasis for John May Lynn and their two beautiful daughters, was now the biggest crime scene in the Bay Area. When police started searching the Lynn's backyard, that's when they began to piece together what had happened.

All over the deck, around the hot tub and even in some patches of dirt, investigators found footprints. It looked like they were boot prints, maybe from a guerrilla brand work boot or something similar. Now, none of the prints were of a whole foot, though, so detectives weren't able to determine an exact shoe size. Best they could tell after lifting them were that they were somewhere between a men's size 9 and 11.

You can actually find pictures of the prints and other crime scene photos in the blog post for this episode. That's on our website, thedeckpodcast.com. Now police also found evidence that the killer's first attempt to enter the home was unsuccessful. On the sliding glass door on the upper balcony that went from the backyard up to an entrance to the primary bedroom, investigators found small primarks. It looks like maybe a flat tip object was used to try and unlock the door, something like a flathead screwdriver, maybe?

But it didn't work, and so detectives determined that after this entry method failed, the killer went another route. Downstairs, one of the dining room windows on the side of the house that was in the dog run and looked toward the neighbor's house was smashed. Now, I'm sure probably a lot of you already know what a dog run is. I actually didn't until I saw pictures of this, which again, we have on our website. It's super helpful to see, but for those of you who can't access that right now, a dog run is kind of like this little fenced-in area on the side of the house.

It's within the yard, connected to the house, where you could basically let a dog out to just like get some fresh air, go to the bathroom, but they don't have like free rain to just roam the backyard. But anyway, it wasn't just the fact that the window was broken. To police, it looked like someone had shattered the window, then tried to cover it up. Like the interior curtain had been shifted from its usual position to cover up the window. And again, we've got pictures of this, but it's one of those where like, it's connected at the top and the bottom of the window with this like tie in the middle.

And that tie again, normally sits right in the middle, but it was way down low so they could just tell that even though the curtain itself was technically in the same position, someone had moved it or maneuvered it because that tie had kind of shifted all the way to the bottom. Aside from how the curtain was positioned, some of the glass shards also looked like they'd been moved to disguise the fact that the window is broken. So detectives suspected that that was how the killer made entry to the home. Now the opening was rather small, but it was just big enough for an adult to squeeze through.

Now if you look at the pictures on the website, this is something I actually can't wrap my head around because when I say that the opening was small, it looks so small. And the thing that I can't get over is there are even these shards of glass sticking up. So it's almost like, okay, say you punched a hole through the window, you've got these pokey glass pieces right on the bottom, like facing up, which I would have assumed someone would either cut themselves on at a minimum as they were coming in if they're trying to maneuver around the shards. But really, I almost would have expected those bottom pieces to be like completely flattened

off as someone is like shuffling in and taking that with them. And again, the curtain is like completely intact, which I would have imagined for a full grown adult to not rip or damage as they were entering the home like seems impossible. But the detectives told us that they actually had someone recreate it and they said it was totally possible. So the working theory was that the killer entered through the broken window before Jenny had gotten home, then tried to cover up his mess so Jenny wouldn't be suspicious and then hid upstairs where he waited for her.

Then after killing Jenny, police think that the suspect went back downstairs, unlocked the downstairs sliding glass door and left that way. As detectives combed through the rest of the house, there was something else that they found very odd. It appeared that nothing was taken from the home. Nothing had been ransacked or gone through. In reporting by the North County Times, Lieutenant Ted Nelson was quoted saying, there aren't even signs of any intent to rob the home.

The whole thing appears very controlled. While detectives and the crime scene technicians were scouring the property for clues, the coroner's bureau was conducting Jenny's autopsy and administering a sexual assault exam. It surprised no one that the coroner concluded Jenny's cause of death was multiple stab wounds. Though back at the crime scene, they weren't finding any weapons that they believed were used in the attack.

But I'd imagine it caught everyone by surprise when the exam found no evidence of sexual assault. With neither theft nor sexual assault were the motive for killing a 14-year-old girl than what the hell was. Police were stumped. In the same reporting from the North County Times, Lieutenant Nelson said, quote, it appears the motive was to kill her. But why?

She's just a cute little sweetheart of a girl, just a nice kid. Jenny was as talented as she was nice. She was a straight A student at Canyon Middle School, where she was set to graduate in less than a month. Her teacher said she was even likely to be named the class valedictorian. Her dad, John, was so proud of her. Jenny was a very lively teenager. She was excellent in school.

Academic studies was excellent. And she was also very good at playing music with piano, with viola. And she is very friendly. She loved making friends. She is very well liked at school, by students, by teachers, everyone. Aside from excelling at school, Jenny loved music, and she loved being active. She ran, danced, played tennis. Part of Jenny's bio on the Jenny Lin Foundation reads, quote, Jenny pursued many talents and

interests. She sought and welcomed new challenges voraciously and kept her family busy driving her to her many activities, end quote. Even at the young age of 14, Jenny was already showing that she was a well-rounded person. John and May Lin told our reporting team that she was always blowing them away with her wisdom and maturity. Occasionally, if she was sad or upset or disappointed on the parental decision, she would go up to her room and she stayed there, she kind of like timed out herself, you know, for five,

ten minutes. And then she'll come downstairs and hug me and say, I understand, you know, Mama, I understand why you did it. And that's one thing that I would never forget. While Jenny's family was mourning the loss of their bright, funny, kind-hearted young daughter, police were looking high and low for the person who took her life. As Jenny's murder happened in broad daylight in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood, one of those where houses are just inches apart, detectives were positive that someone

must have seen or heard something. So the sheriff's office did a canvas of the neighborhood, going door to door, seeing if neighbors witnessed anything strange in the afternoon or early evening of May 27. And just as investigators suspected, people did see some weird things, and the tips police got were a bit all over the place. One man who lived in the neighborhood said that he was driving home that day, maybe around six or 6.30, and as he approached their neighborhood, he saw a man that he didn't recognize walking away from the neighborhood.

He said that this guy was on foot cutting through a baseball field right behind the Lynn's house and was carrying a blue duffel bag with red straps. He recalled that the guy had something covering his head, maybe a hood or a hat, and he seemed to be purposely avoiding eye contact with this driver. Another resident of the neighborhood thought that they saw someone suspicious riding a motorcycle in the area that afternoon. Someone else recalled a man was going door to door trying to sell people something, and a few people reported hearing a dog barking loudly at around 3 p.m.

But if we assume that that was the Lynn's dog barking at the intruder, that conflicts with detectives' timeline. I mean, according to their theory, the killer was already inside the house well before Jenny got home. Jenny got home from school at like 2.45, and then the dog's heard at like 3, which to me at least means that the barking dog probably wasn't related. Or I guess the dog could have been barking when something was happening to Jenny if the dog heard her screaming.

I don't know, but you would think someone else would have heard her screaming. Something about this just isn't lining up. And I keep coming back to the dog, so hear me out for a second. Again, police think that this guy is in the house before Jenny comes home at 2.45. Why didn't anyone hear a dog barking earlier in the day when police think the killer broke in? I had a long conversation about this with our reporter, and we did this over Zoom, and literally when I got on Zoom, her dog lost it, seeing me on the computer.

And that's not that abnormal. Dogs, well, you know, they might not attack, but they're going to make noise, especially if they feel like the person that they love and are protecting is in danger. Like someone is breaking into the Lynn's house for God's sake. I think most family dogs would be freaking out, barking up a storm that a stranger had entered the house. And even though it's inside at this time, again, we're assuming Jenny hasn't let the dog out into the dog run area.

Again, these houses are so close together. You can see how close. We've got pictures on our website. So I can't help but think, granted, I don't know what kind of dog it was. The detective now doesn't know. It's small dog, big dog. There's very few dogs that are just cool with a stranger coming in, which makes me wonder if this dog was comfortable with whoever broke into their home, whether that means

it was a family friend or even a stranger who'd been coming around and getting the dog familiar with them while the Lynn's weren't looking. And that idea gives me chills. It's just a theory, but it's something that I keep getting hung up on. I cannot stop thinking about this dog and what it could mean. But anyway, while officers were doing a canvas of the neighborhood, detectives were talking to Jenny's friends and family to determine what she had been up to the day she was killed. It was a Friday, the Friday before Memorial Day.

And Jenny got out of school at around 2.20. She took the bus home, as she did every day since her parents both worked full time. At 2.40, she was dropped off at the end of her street, which was about a block from her house. And that means that she was likely walking in the door at about 2.45. Not long after getting home, Jenny called a friend just to chat. The friend told police that the call probably lasted like an hour and it was just a normal conversation.

They talked about school, things going on with their classmates, their big summer plans. At one point during the call, Jenny sat down and started playing the piano. She was a master pianist and friends didn't seem to even think it was weird for Jenny to be poking around on the piano during this casual call. Now not long after that call, Jenny phoned another friend. It was around 4.45 at this point. And that friend told police that she and Jenny chatted for a few minutes, but then the call ended abruptly when the friend thought that her parents got home.

A bit later, the friend called Jenny back. They chatted some more. Jenny talked about her plans for that evening. She said she was going to fix herself something to eat. Then watch Mommy Dearest on TV. Jenny didn't sound stressed or mention anything about a broken window or a weird feeling. The two chatted until like 5.30 when Jenny said that she needed to hang up to get some chores and homework done before her parents got home.

And that was the last time anyone spoke to Jenny. Investigators questioned her family too, partially to clear them of any suspicion and partially to further flesh out their timeline. Jenny's older sister, Rhoda, who was in college, couldn't provide much helpful information to aid in the investigation. She said that she was with her boyfriend and Santa Cruz that day about an hour away. Rhoda and her boyfriend both agreed to take polygraphs, and they both passed. Next police talked to Jenny's mom, Mei Lin, who confirmed that before leaving for work

that morning at around 7, she did her usual routine. She checked that all the windows were shut, the doors were locked, and the stove was off. Mei Lin recalled that she tried to reach Jenny at around 4.30 that afternoon, but the call went to the answering machine. She didn't try to reach Jenny again, and she went back to work until she received that horrible phone call from John. Police also asked Mei Lin to take a polygraph, and she too passed. Investigators then talked with John.

He said that he and Jenny left the house that morning not long after Mei Lin, probably around 7.35. He dropped Jenny off at school at around 7.50, watched her walk into the building, and then he drove to the nearby Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART Station. As he always did, he took the BART train to San Francisco where he worked. Nothing significant happened until John got home and discovered his daughter. And just like the rest of his family, John agreed to take a polygraph, and he too passed. Now, John's story about the day didn't raise any red flags for police, especially with

the support of a past polygraph. But something else he said during the interview really raised some eyebrows. It's something Detective Patrick Smith with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, who's working on Jenny's case today, still comes back to sometimes. A couple weeks or a week before the murder, there was something strange that occurred to John Lin. John said that around 7pm on May 12, 15 days before Jenny was killed, he was exiting the BART station on his way home from work, heading to his car parked just outside, when he's

suddenly confronted by a man that he didn't know. He described this guy as having a dark complexion, maybe around 5'8, 5'10, 35 to 40 years old, and what this man said to John was deeply disturbing. The man told John that he had his daughter, like he had kidnapped her, and was holding on to her. Obviously, this freaked John out. He immediately got away from the man and hopped in his car. Before John could get the chance to drive away, the man stood right beside the car and

like motioned for John to roll his window down. John did his best to ignore the guy and drive away as fast as he could, but as John was driving away, he couldn't help but feel like he should have gotten a better look at the guy. So he actually turned around and drove back. John looked around for a bit, but he couldn't find this guy anywhere. John told police that at the time he didn't take the man's threat too seriously, but it spooked him enough that he went to Jenny's practice where he knew she was supposed to

be just to make sure that she was safe and sound, and she was. So knowing Jenny was accounted for, he then phoned his other daughter, Rhoda, who's off at college, and just like Jenny, she was perfectly fine. So John tried to brush the whole interaction off. He thought that perhaps the man was struggling with potentially mental illness. But it was something that stuck with him, because John told our reporting team that in all his years taking public transportation to and from work, nothing like this had ever happened to him before or since.

The interaction also stood out to police, and they arranged for John to work with a sketch artist right away. They wanted a composite of this guy, ASAP. John didn't know how much he could actually remember, but he was willing to give it a shot. On June 3, a week after Jenny was killed, John met with the sketch artist and the first composite of this mystery man was created. Though John wasn't super happy with the finished product.

He didn't think that it resembled the man he saw, so the lens actually hired their own sketch artist to create a different sketch. You can see both of those on our website. Police didn't distribute that first sketch, because the sketch artist thought John lacked the recall to accurately describe the man he saw. But after the lens had that second one made, the family themselves actually distributed that to the local media. Detective Smith said a few tips came from that, but nothing that panned out.

To this day, police don't know who that man was. In fact, investigators today aren't so sure the confrontation was related to Jenny's murder at all. Detective Smith's gut says that it was likely just a coincidence. But I don't know, man. This has kept me up at night. I spiral on this. Part of me thinks it's too weird, too much of a coincidence.

But then I swing the other way and say, but what was the point? If the guy who approached him was the same man who would later kill his daughter, what did he gain by telling John he'd kidnapped his daughter when he hadn't? I could spend the next 45 minutes talking about this alone, because I have a hundred theories. But they're theories. They're all suspicion. None of it's solid.

But listen, even though it seemed like a coincidence to them, for a while, that was all they had to go on. Authorities in Alameda County quickly figured out that Jenny's case was going to be a tough one to crack, and they knew they could benefit from some assistance. So they asked the FBI to step in and help using their resources and expertise. Specifically, local law enforcement asked the FBI to take a look at the duct tape used to bind Jenny's limbs. To get this, the FBI lab was not only able to determine the exact brand of tape, but

they also matched up the torn ends and were able to determine the sequence of how she was bound. Police also consulted with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit and came up with a profile of the killer, one that police could pass out to the Lynn's neighbors to see if it might jog someone's memory. Here's a voice actor reading the profile. We believe that the person or persons who was responsible for Jennifer's death may be familiar with this neighborhood.

He could have lived, worked, or visited the neighborhood sometime around or before May 27. Because the offender may have been around here for purely legitimate reasons, he may not have stood out in your mind. Please keep in mind that the person responsible for Jennifer's death would not necessarily appear strange, threatening, or weird if you would have had some type of interaction with him. We believe the offender is a loner who may live with others and interact with others,

but he prefers his own company. He has reasonably good interpersonal skills, is comfortable in the neighborhood, would not necessarily stand out for any reason, and following the murder would have indicated concern or worry over what happened to Jennifer. It is likely that the person has a problem with alcohol, but would not normally appear drunk or out of control. It is possible he left for a day, perhaps longer, for what would appear to be legitimate reasons.

However, if he still has ties to this area, he would have returned. This part about her killer knowing the neighborhood I personally think is really important. We have some aerial footage of the neighborhood on our website, and it wasn't what I was picturing at all. It is like out there on its own in the middle of the California hills. This is not a place that someone just passes through without having a reason to be there. Now even with all of these incredible resources at detectives fingertips, there was a weeks long lull in the investigation.

Sure, police were getting tips and following leads, but nothing was materializing. They didn't have any suspects. Jenny's name stayed in the headlines, though. In July, John and May Lynn were interviewed for a piece in the Oakland Tribune by William Wong. In the column, Wong described John and May Lynn's journey moving from Taiwan to the United States in 1973 to pursue graduate degrees. After getting married in 1974, they decided to stay in the U.S. because they thought it

would be a better place to raise their children. They settled in California because of its pleasant climate, and they ultimately chose the affluent Paulomaris Hills housing development because of how safe it felt. It was a new community, it was a pretty upscale community, usually people, good jobs, working diligently, really like to have a good environment to bring up their family. That's the kind of environment we're in. We thought that could be safer than any other place who knows that things like this could happen.

The Lynn's illusion of safety was crushed on May 27, 1994. In his piece, Wong wrote, quote, just like that, without any rational explanation, without any warning, the Lynn's American dream was shattered. It will never be the same for a family that, until that awful moment, had every reason to celebrate their close-knit, comfortable middle-class existence, end quote. Although Jenny's case was still getting the media attention it deserved, police still didn't have any solid leads. That is, until August 3, just over two months after Jenny was murdered, when investigators

first promising suspect came on their radar, a 22-year-old Castro Valley resident who police asked us to call Doug. Doug shared a home with his parents in the same neighborhood as the Lynn's. Now, it's not clear who tipped police off about Doug or what they found suspicious about him, but the more detectives learned about this guy, the more their suspicion grew. They learned that Doug's father owned a surgical instrument's sharpening business, which I didn't know was a thing, but to police, it meant that he would have had access to sharp tools if he wanted to commit a murder.

Though, again, they didn't have a murder weapon at the scene, and as far as I can tell, never even determined with 100% certainty what she was stabbed with. Detectives reached out to Doug's parents to see if they could provide an account of where he was on May 27. They said they couldn't be of much help. That was the start of Memorial Day weekend, remember, and they were out of town. Now I say they, but they did not include Doug, who stayed behind. So investigators went straight to their new person of interest, Doug, and they asked him

what he was doing up to and on the day of Jenny's murder. He said that he was home all day until he picked up his girlfriend from work. After that, he and his girlfriend went back to his house and hung out. In fact, he said that's all they did the entire weekend. They didn't leave the house really at all. He told detectives that he didn't even know Jenny and he didn't hear about her murder until a few days later. But here's the thing.

When police talked to Doug's girlfriend, they found out that her shift on May 27 didn't end until 8 p.m., more than an hour after Jenny's body was found. Police also learned that not long after Jenny's murder, Doug moved out of his parents' home and in with a friend. But a few weeks later, moved back in with his parents. Ring a bell? That's exactly in line with what the FBI profilers said would happen. So investigators kept their eye on Doug, but they didn't have any solid evidence or enough

probable cause to make an arrest. So they took time to pursue other leads that came along. Like one in August of 1994, when detectives in Alameda County got a call from another agency letting them know about a suspicious guy who'd just come on their radar, who they might want to look into for Jenny's murder. 600 some miles north in Portland, Oregon, police found a man sleeping in a car that had been stolen from San Ramon, California. And what they found inside was disturbing.

Things like around weight, books on topics ranging from satanic culture to body chemistry to first aid, pornographic material, two blue ski masks, plastic flex cuffs, handcuffs, a knife, a claw hammer, binoculars, combat boots, a blue bag, and gray duct tape. The man who'd been sleeping in the stolen car was 26-year-old Oregon resident Sebastian Alexander Shaw. Police took him into custody and called authorities in San Ramon to let them know about the stolen car. And when a detective in San Ramon heard about the Sebastian guy and the contents of his

car, his mind immediately went to Jenny Lin. He thought that there might be a connection, so he's the one that called Alameda County Sheriff's Office right away. The Sheriff's Office agreed that this Sebastian guy seemed like a promising suspect, especially considering what was found in his car. So they got a hold of the duct tape that was found and sent it to the FBI's lab to compare it to the tape used on Jenny. While the FBI was analyzing the tape, Alameda County detectives were looking hard at Sebastian,

trying to figure out if he had any connection to California. And sure enough, they found out that he worked in Southern California from April to at least May of 1994. And since Jenny was killed in May, they could reasonably prove that Sebastian was in California when Jenny was killed. But just as police were getting their hopes up that they'd caught the killer, the FBI analysis results came back. The duct tape found in the stolen car did not match the tape used to bind Jenny.

So as suspicious as Sebastian seemed, police had nothing on him, aside from the fact that he was in California when Jenny was killed. So they were right back to square one. Police couldn't shake the feeling that the answers they were looking for were in the Lynn's neighborhood. So in September, police organized a thorough canvas of the area. They'd already done a traditional door knocking canvas, but this one involved a detailed written questionnaire that the FBI put together for police to deliver to every house within

the Lynn's neighborhood. And it included all kinds of questions. Have you ever heard of Jennifer Lynn? Have you heard about what happened to Jennifer? Were you in the neighborhood on May 27, 1994, who all lives in your house? Who was at your home that day? Who else did you see in the neighborhood at the time? Did you have any repairmen or other maintenance type house calls on May 27?

What's your opinion as to the type of person who could be responsible for Jenny's murder? And boy, oh boy, did the questionnaire pay off. It resulted in a major tip for police. Apparently at least one neighbor did see something suspicious on the day that Jenny was murdered, for some reason decided to keep the information from law enforcement. I'm going to tell you about that in part two of Jenny Lynn's story, which you can listen to right now, either here in the crime junkie feed or in the feed for our other podcast, The Deck.

Now we split this episode into two because the rest of this investigation is long and complicated with so many twists and turns. So please go listen right now to the rest of Jenny's story, which is far from over. Until then, if you have any information about the murder of Jennifer Lynn on May 27, 1994, please contact the Alameda County Sheriff's Office at 510-667-3636 or you can call the Jenny Lynn Hotline at 855-4, Jenny Lynn, J-E-N-N-Y-L-I-N, that's 855-453-6695. There is currently a $200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jenny's killer.

If you don't know anything about her murder, but you'd still like to help in some way, you can donate to the Jenny Lynn Foundation at JennyLynne, that's L-I-N-Foundation.org. The Deck is an audio chuck production with King Music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?