Case Spotlights

By David Swets

This story is part of a collaborative project between Project: Cold Case and a University of North Florida Journalism class.

To the average visitor, the worn coat seems little more than a vintage Orlando Magic jacket that employees at Bruster’s Ice Cream put on when they enter the walk-in cooler.

But that simple blue and black jacket hanging on a hook near the freezer is really the heart of the shop on the corner of Atlantic and Kernan boulevards.

It’s been at the store as long as it’s been open. It belonged to Chris Devenny, whose idea it was to open the ice cream shop that is now owned and operated by his family. Read more

By Andrea Davis

This story is part of a collaborative project between Project: Cold Case and a University of North Florida Journalism class.

It was 5:39 a.m. The sun hadn’t even come up yet.

After a night of dancing and celebrating the birthday of a Jacksonville friend, all Jillian Berrios wanted to do was go home, climb into bed and sleep before waking up to her kids.

That never happened, because at that moment, her life came to an end. Read more

By Michael Card

This story is part of a collaborative project between Project: Cold Case and a University of North Florida Journalism class.

Two Secret Service agents in black suits greeted Jessie Mckinnon at the door of her home outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after she returned from a routine day at work.

The two men had targeted a person they assumed to be her husband, Jason Pelishek, for hacking into a company’s online database, and said needed to talk with him immediately.

“Jason is my 14-year-old son, not my husband,” Mckinnon said to the agents. Read more

By: Brianna Bartlett

This story is part of a collaborative project between Project: Cold Case and a University of North Florida Journalism class.

 

“Something terrible has happened, please come,” Norma Jeannette Sims pleaded with a Tallahassee funeral home ambulance service. She stood in her parents’ bedroom overlooking the bound bodies of her father lying on the bed while her mother and youngest sister lie on the beige carpet.

On that Saturday, Oct. 22, 1966, then seventeen-year-old Sims had been babysitting for a family that attended the Florida State football game. When the game ended and the family returned, she returned home with no one there to welcome her. Read more

By Sara Crouch

 

The lessening of the constant pain never comes easily – if at all — for the families of the murdered.

But it’s even harder when there’s are few answer in a case that’s gone cold.

That’s the case with Bernard Chapple, the father of then-23-year-old Kelli Chapple.

“You know, they say you’ll get closure,” Chapple said. “You don’t ever get closure. You suffer every day. You just want to know the answers to what happened.” Read more