Jennifer Servo's murder still unsolved after 11 years
MISSOULA, Mont. - A talented young journalist left her job at NBC Montana in Missoula and her family in Columbia Falls to pursue a professional dream in Abilene, Texas.
Three months later the dream ended when she was found murdered in her apartment.
That was 11 years ago and we still don't know who killed Jennifer Servo. Jennifer had been beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted. It has been eleven years without answers. "We knew it was going to be difficult so I don't think that this case being unsolved for this long is a shock," said the lead detective on the case Jeff Bell. "I thought for sure it would've been solved within months," says Servo's mother Sherry Abel. Police say the DNA evidence in Jennifer's apartment was tainted. The crime scene was made difficult because her cat's hair was mixed with human hair. There was no sign of forced entry, detectives believe the killer knew her. There are persons of interest, an ex-boyfriend, Ralph Sepulveda who moved with servo from Montana to Texas. They lived together for a short time before breaking up. There was also a new man in her life former Abilene Weatherman Brian Traver. To everyone involved Sepulveda seemed to be a likely suspect. "All the times that we interviewed him he really never said anything that made us think this wasn't our guy," according to Bell. For her parents it never gets easier. "He's lived 11 years with freedom, we don't have our daughter anymore and he is free," said Sherry Abel.
