- Publication: The Red & Black (University of Georgia student newspaper)
- Author: Adina Solomon, The Red & Black
- Original Publication Date: Thursday, April 19, 2012
Jennifer Lynn Stone’s life was just beginning.
It was April 1992, and the 22-year-old advertising major stood at the verge of graduation. Stone, the youngest of five sisters, was known for her creativity in advertising. A promising career stretched ahead of her.
But on April 23, life changed. Midnight was the last time Stone was seen alive.
She was working on a class project with other students, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Suspicion was raised when she missed a group meeting at noon. After Stone did not come to another meeting at 6 p.m., her group members went to her house on North Hull Street and found her dead.
The cause of death was ruled as strangulation. Investigators believe Stone was raped and killed in the morning hours of April 23.
Her killer was never found.
Twenty years later, Sandi Turner remembers her best friend. Turner, now a public information officer for Athens-Clarke County, met Stone during rush for Kappa Delta sorority. Turner was a year ahead of Stone at the University.
“We formed an instant connection during rush, and she became my little sister pretty shortly thereafter,” she said.
Turner took time off from school after Stone died, she said.
Turner’s voice broke while describing her best friend.
“Jenny was exceptionally creative,” she said. “Her father always called it her impish smile, which is a good description. She had this just incredibly sparkly, delightful personality. She was a great friend. She was very, very smart.”
Peggy Kreshel, an associate professor in advertising, remembers where Stone sat in her classroom — fourth seat from the right in the front row — when she taught her in a media planning course. Stone took Kreshel’s class the semester before she was killed.
“She had a really fun personality,” Kreshel said. “She was always really enthusiastic and everything, even though I knew that this was not going to be her favorite class because she wanted to be creative. She wanted to design and do all those things.”
Stone’s creativity still showed in class. Kreshel said she liked how Stone always dressed “funky” and “funny.”
Turner chuckled when she recalled taking a trip with Stone across England. One day, the two hopped on a train and could not find seats because it was so crowded.
“We made friends with a bunch of people who were in the same boat who sat in between cars by the bathrooms in the freezing cold all night playing poker,” Turner said. “It was just fun. We made good travel partners because no matter what happened, we managed to make it fun and find the humor in certain situations.”
Stone enjoyed traveling and would have visited even more places as time went on, Turner said.
“I’m glad I had that trip with her, and we had planned to take more of those sorts of journeys together but,” she said, pausing, “that didn’t happen.”
Kreshel heard the news about Stone on the radio.
“To me, she was a really bright spot, and I remember the day she was killed,” Kreshel said. “I remember hearing it on the radio and just being floored. I just couldn’t believe that anybody would do that.”
Alan Brown, ACC assistant police chief, helped investigate Stone’s murder. Brown and other officers spent three days at her house collecting physical evidence.
“I’ve worked a lot of cases, a lot of murders, over the years. This was really one of the most baffling cases I’d worked at that time because we had solved just about every murder for the past 10 years prior to this,” Brown said. “I guess for me having an absolute who-done-it that we just could not get a grip on after months and months was a different experience.”
In order to find Stone’s killer, officers collected DNA from the crime scene and compared it to the DNA samples of suspects, but they never found a match, Brown said.
Since 1992, most states have implemented programs where certain prisoners give their DNA samples after conviction to contribute to a large database of DNA, he said. The DNA from Stone’s house may someday find a match.
“We’ve always hoped that one day we’d get a phone call telling us who it was,” Brown said.
Kreshel said Stone’s death affected those who knew her in the advertising department.
“The tragedy has been so magnified by the fact that they never found out who did it or why they did it,” she said. “That’s unimaginable to me as well why anyone would want to kill someone like her.”
The police department has its theories. Brown said Stone’s killer most likely did not know Stone and was not from Athens. He was also probably addicted to crack cocaine, he said. The killer may have been in and out of jail multiple times or may have died long ago from living a street life or natural causes.
“I sure hope he gets justice in this world or another one,” Brown said.
Turner said though participating in interviews is painful, she does so to remind people of what Stone’s death stands for. She said that college students sometimes think they live in a bubble, but students must remember to be vigilant because there are real threats to their safety.
Turner said she lived in the college bubble until her friend was killed.
“I think you grieve for people you love for the rest of your life when you lose them, and particularly having lost my best friend at that point in our lives the way that she died … it’s a wound that never ever heals,” she said. “As time goes by, I would think that I’m gonna be more prepared for these anniversaries and every year, I realize how wrong I am. I remember her so vividly still, and I miss her so much.”
Turner is not the only one who still remembers Stone’s life. Every time Kreshel walks by the building where Stone lived, she thinks of her former student.
Stone’s name also lives on in the Jennifer Lynn Stone Memorial Scholarship in Creative Advertising and the Jennifer Lynn Stone Award for Creativity in Advertising. This year’s awards were presented on April 17. Turner speaks about her friend at the annual ceremony, said Jennifer Griffith, the chair of the Grady College Scholarship and Awards Committee.
Griffith, a senior lecturer in advertising who taught in the department in 1992, said the scholarship is given to an advertising junior who exemplifies Stone’s passion for photography and her commitment to the creative aspects of advertising. The scholarship is for $4,000.
On the other hand, the award is non-monetary and goes to an advertising senior who exemplifies the same qualities the scholarship honors, Griffith said.
“She’s still very much in our hearts and minds because of the scholarship,” Kreshel said. “Those of us who taught her will never forget her.”
Even though he investigated the case 20 years ago, Brown said it is always in the back of his mind.
“I think most of the investigators who worked on that case, if they’re still working or they’re retired, they can be out mowing the yard or splitting logs or doing anything that you do in life and they start thinking about that case,” he said. “They start wondering. They start second-guessing. ‘Maybe we missed this or maybe this person did it.’”
Sometimes, the investigators hear about a suspect who was arrested in a similar case in another part of the country and call the station so police can check DNA samples, Brown said.
“It’s the kind of case you don’t ever forget,” he said.
Turner said she tries to focus on Stone’s life rather than dwelling on what could have been.
“I also do appreciate that there’s still interest in my friend because she was such a lovely, amazing person,” she said. “She deserves to be remembered forever.”
[Pull quote] “I also do appreciate that there’s still interest in my friend because she was such a lovely, amazing person. She deserves to be remembered forever.” — Sandi Turner, Stone’s best friend
[Photo caption] The Hull Street house where Jennifer Lynn Stone was murdered sits in downtown Athens 20 years later. The advertising student was strangled to death in 1992, and her murder remains unsolved. Friends say her death should serve as a reminder to live safely and passionately. (Kristy Densmore / Staff)