• Publication: The Red and Black (University of Georgia student newspaper) — Weekend
• Author: Kerry Hendry, Staff Writer
• Original Publication Date: Friday, April 22, 1994

University graduate Randy Brooks says he was fortunate to be the last person to see his best friend, student Jennifer Stone, before she was murdered two years ago.

Stone, 22, was raped and strangled in her apartment on Hull Street on April 23, 1992. But police, friends and family said they never stop thinking about her and remain hopeful that her killer will be caught and prosecuted.

“Jenny kept me going,” Brooks said. “There is never a time when she is not in your head.”

Brooks said he still thinks of Stone every minute of each day and has been re-enacting the ordeal he endured during spring quarter 1992 in his mind.

Sgt. W.J. Smith, of the Athens-Clarke County police, said investigators are trying to locate a “suspicious” man who was seen in Athens before Stone’s death but disappeared two weeks after her partially clothed body was found. But this man is one of more than 300 people police have questioned in connection with the case.

Smith said he works the case every day making phone calls, rereading Stone’s file and looking at serial rapists in other states.

Smith said 47 suspects have already been eliminated through DNA blood sampling.

A reward of $13,000 generated by Gov. Zell Miller, the ACC government, the University foundation and the Athens Downtown Council has been offered for anyone with information that helps police find the killer.

Smith said one of his biggest leads was in July 1992 when cameras that had been taken from Stone’s apartment were recovered. The cameras were found in a house on Jefferson River Road and were traded for crack cocaine three hours after Brooks last talked with Stone, according to Smith.

Therefore, Smith said, investigators know Stone was killed between about 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

“We’ll eventually get this guy,” he said. “I just don’t know how long it will take.”

Jenny’s father, Raymond Stone, said this is a difficult time for him and it doesn’t get much easier as time goes by.

“We obviously miss Jenny,” Mr. Stone said in a telephone interview Thursday. “We would be so happy if (police) determined the person responsible.”

A mass will be held in Stone’s memory at 5 p.m. Saturday at Saint Benedictine Church in Duluth, where a Magnolia tree is planted outside for her.

Former student Augusta Duffey said two years later she is still affected by her friend Stone’s death.

“Lately I have been more paranoid,” she said. “I think more so now than at first. After it first happened, I wouldn’t let myself think about it.”

Duffey said her anxiety is probably not solely a reaction to Stone’s death. She said the rising rate of crime has made her more cautious, but acknowledged that her friend’s murder probably aroused her fear.

“Jenny started that,” she said. “I don’t think I would feel this way now if I hadn’t had a close friend die such a violent death.”

Tracy Pisell, who lived with Stone for three years, said she has become a better person as a result of her best friend’s death.

“You see people differently,” she said. “Life is so much more valuable.”

Advertising professor Leilas Wenthe said she knew Stone from her involvement in the Ad Club. Wenthe said Stone was one of the “creative lights” of the journalism school and “had a good future ahead.”

A creativity award is presented each year at the Ad Club banquet to recognize an outstanding senior in Stone’s name.

[Photo caption] Jennifer Stone (File)