On March 2, 1996, Joann āJodyā LeCornu was found dead in her car at a York Road shopping center in Towson near the city-county line. The 23-year-old had been shot in the back, police say, by a man whose name to this day is unknown.
More than two decades later, Jennifer LeCornu Carrieri is still looking for her identical twin sisterās killer. On Monday morning, a day after the twinsā birthday, a billboard commissioned by Carrieri went up on northbound York Road in Baltimore.
āI just want to know what happened and find the person,ā said Carrieri, of Easton. āItāll never bring her back. Itās just, how can I just sit around and not find justice?ā
The billboard, which beckons āFIND MY KILLER,ā advertises a $32,000 reward from Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland for information on LeCornuās murder. It stands at 5722 York Road, atop Nailahās Kitchen in northern Baltimore City.
Shawn Vinson, a spokesman for the Baltimore County Police Department, said calling renewed attention to cold-case investigations can prompt people with information to come forward who might not have been comfortable doing so initially.
āAs time goes on people tend to feel more relaxed sharing information,ā Vinson said, adding later, āIf they were in a relationship with the suspect or friends with the suspect, maybe at this point they donāt feel intimidated.ā
For Carrieri, 46, now married with children, the billboard is just one of her many efforts in recent years to call attention to the case in order to help keep it moving forward. Her husband worries about her overextending herself in her mission. "But Iām doing something,ā she said.
āAlways togetherā
Twin sisters Jody and Jenny grew up together in Annapolis, daughters of the late John LeCornu, a former Anne Arundel County prosecutor.
āWe were always together, always,ā Carrieri said. They had the same room, the same classes, the same friends.
āThey were so much fun to be around,ā said Courtney Holtzman, a childhood friend who met the twins in middle school. āJody was the life of the party, and Jenny was a little more reserved.ā
The sisters shared joys, but also struggles. Their father struggled with alcohol, and both girls began drinking in their early teens, Carrieri said. Both sisters also experimented with drugs and struggled with anxiety and eating disorders. During their senior year in high school at St. Maryās Annapolis, Carrieri said the twinsā parents put them both in rehab.
Eventually, their parents sent Jenny to a ranch in Wyoming to get her away from a boyfriend they disapproved of. She stopped drinking and decided to move West, to California, where she got engaged. Jody stayed behind, moving in with a boyfriend in Baltimore, and continued to struggle with alcohol, Carrieri said.
āShe was such a good person but she struggled so much,ā Carrieri said. āWe both had really bad anxiety and were drinking to try to calm that anxiety.ā
Separated for the first time in their young lives, the twins racked up phone bills, talking constantly. Carrieri remembers the last time she tried to call her sister on a Saturday morning and got no answer. She had a bad feeling.
Then her fiance came flying in the door. Carrieriās parents had called. āJodyās dead,ā he said.
āA part of me is goneā
To Carrieri, her sisterās death felt like losing a piece of herself.
"Iāll never be the same,ā Carrieri said. "It changed my life. I was living one life, then you wake up and itās like ... a part of me is gone. Like pieces being ripped out of me.ā
It took years, Carrieri said, to wrap her head around her sisterās murder and the investigation that followed.
āYou just go into shock,ā she said. āAll the details, it just didnāt register to me for so long. I was just like a zombie.ā
Those details, learned through a police investigation that is still open because LeCornuās killer has not been found, left Carrieri with more questions than answers.
First: What was Jody doing there, alone in the Drumcastle Government Center parking lot at 6401 York Road in Towson past 3 a.m. on March 2?
LeCornu had fought with her live-in boyfriend, Steve Dubin, that morning about her drinking, Carrieri said, saying he told her she should go to her parentsā house that night. The couple lived just over the city line on Gittings Avenue, less than a mile from where she was found.
Dubin declined to comment on the record for this story.
Police reports state that LeCornu spent the evening of March 1 at the Mt. Washington Tavern, where she was a regular. LeCornu drove an employee of the bar home after it closed, Carrieri said ā something that seemed out of character for her anxious sister, especially while it was snowing. Afterward, LeCornu stopped at a liquor store to buy a six-pack of beer, Carrieri said.
Somehow, LeCornu ended up in the Drumcastle parking lot. One theory was that she was buying drugs, but Carrieri said that other than Xanax for her anxiety, her sister preferred alcohol to drugs. There were no drugs found in her system, Carrieri said.
LeCornu made some calls from the parking lot, Carrieri said ā to the Mt. Washington Tavern and to a roommateās boyfriend.
Then, according to news reports at the time, witnesses saw a stocky black male in a camouflage jacket drive up to where Le Cornu was parked in a white BMW. They may have had a conversation. Then, at 3:41 a.m., LeCornu was shot from behind ā the bullet went through the driverās-side rear window and through LeCornuās seat, evidence photographs show. The bullet went into her spine.
Police said LeCornu managed to drive across York Road to the York Road Plaza shopping center and into the Giant grocery parking lot, between where the Firestone Auto Care and Boston Market stand. Carrieri said witnesses at neighboring businesses watched as the man in the BMW drove up to LeCornuās car, reached inside to take something ā police are not sure what ā and slowly drove south on York Road.
āIt just doesnāt add up'
āIt just doesnāt add up,ā Carrieri said. She said police have cycled through ā and ruled out ā many theories: a robbery; a drug deal gone wrong; retribution for a case LeCornuās father had prosecuted. Nothing led to an arrest. Now, 22 years later, no one has been charged in LeCornuās killing.
āIām not a detective, but to me honestly, this seems like it should not have been that difficult a case to solve early on,ā Carrieri said. āThey had a description of the vehicle, they had witnesses.ā
Vinson, with the police department, said it is fairly rare for a case to go this long without an arrest. The majority of the countyās annual 25 to 30 homicide investigations are closed within the same year, he said.
In many of the remaining cases, Vinson said police have often developed a person of interest but do not have sufficient evidence to charge anyone.
āIn this particular case, we havenāt received sufficient information to charge someone,ā Vinson said. āBut weāre always looking into possibilities, and detectives constantly review the case to see if thereās any options, especially with technology always improving.ā
Vinson declined to share details of the case because it is an open investigation.
Carrieri sued the police department in 2016 to gain access to her sisterās case file in order to pursue a private investigation. She said she spent thousands of dollars and eventually had to settle with the department in 2017 without ever seeing the file. She was unable to disclose the terms of the settlement but said the department is communicating with her about the case.
Vinson declined to comment on the lawsuit but said that, in general, police do not disclose case files until an investigation is closed. Homicide investigations are only closed if police identify a suspect and make an arrest, he said.
Without progress on the case, Carrieri said she has taken it into her own hands to get the word out. She has done interviews for news media, podcasts and true crime documentaries. She created a website and a Facebook page. And now she is spending more than $3,000 to erect a billboard.
"Just seeing her, it's like her picture is so big, it felt like she was right there with me,ā Carrieri said Monday after seeing the billboard for the first time. āIt's like a mix of feelings. I'm really excited for it to be out there, to try to get more exposure."
āItās been frustrating for her that sheās been taking this all on kind of on her own,ā said Holtzman, the childhood friend. "I think she is absolutely amazing. Itās taken a lot out of her emotionally. She kind of canāt move on.ā
Carrieri said she will never truly move on ā but knowing who killed her sister might help.
āSheās always there,ā Carrieri said. āYou carry on with your life but thereās still a gulf of sadness. And you wonder: What happened?ā
Police ask that anyone with information about the case call Baltimore County Police or submit an anonymous tip to Metro Crime Stoppers by calling 1-866-7LOCKUP.