FINAL THOUGHTS: Police have solved the Jeong Im murder

Jeong ImWatring's comment is unbelievable

COLUMBIA, 11/3/09 (Commentary) -- To prepare for what became a seven-part series on the murder of MU biochemist Jeong Im, I read several dozen stories across half-dozen newspapers, including the Columbia Missourian, the MU Maneater, the Columbia Daily Tribune, and the Kansas City Star. 

One thing stood out over time: a change in the MU police department's behavior. Coupled with information from our own series -- the revelation of not one, but two suspects, and the idea that an MU police officer would reveal intimate details about the case while firmly insisting to a credible source that his department had solved it -- a logical, albeit arguable, conclusion is suggested: 

The University of Missouri police department has indeed solved the murder of Dr. Jeong Im. They simply can't prove it -- yet -- in a court of law. 

A flurry of police-public interaction highlighted the aftermath of Im's stabbing in the University of Missouri's Maryland Avenue parking garage. For over a year, MU police officers actively solicited public input, working with big-name investigators from out of the area, and routinely releasing information -- about the murder weapon, footprints, the crime scene, even a suspect description.

Then, nothing, coupled with standoffishness toward reporters whose help the police had earlier courted. 

 

"MU Police Chief Jack Watring was even less forthcoming about the case," wrote Columbia Tribune reporter Janese Heavin in a July 2008 updateJanese Heavin in a July 2008 update.  "He instructed a reporter to use information from archived news stories and at one point asked why the Tribune was interested in writing another article about Im’s murder."   

In an age when John Walsh and America's Most Wanted have solved some of the nation's thorniest homicides with help from press and public, Watring's comment is unbelievable -- unless he doesn't need any more help.  Carefully read news accounts of the case and you can almost pinpoint, to the month, that police attitudes changed. The logician in me suggests they have all the information they need.

They know who did it, and why, and how, and when.  They have the Big Three of any homicide investigation: motive, means, and opportunity. 

But as the OJ Simpson case starkly reminds, that can be a far cry from proving murder to a jury.