News Reporter Murdered in Her Home in 2002
Jennifer Servo, aged 22, was found dead in her apartment in Abilene, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2002. She had only moved into the apartment a number of months earlier and was working as a News Reporter for KRBC-TV.
The Road to Success
Jennifer Servo had always dreamed of being a bigtime reporter for a national network even having stated that her ambition was to become “the next Katie Couric”. When she was 17, she joined the Army Reserve to help pay for college and graduated four years later at the University of Montana with a degree in journalism, during which time she had a weekend reporting job for KECI-TV in Missoula.
She even covered an unsolved triple homicide at a local beauty salon which appeared on America’s Most Wanted. After graduating, she accepted a full-time job with KRBC-TV in Abilene, Texas. She packed up her stuff, and moved into an apartment in South Abilene, about a mile from her workplace. She would keep a picture of Katie Couric, her personal idol, on her refrigerator, and reportedly made many strong connections over the few months at her new job.
After a number of months, on Friday, Sept. 13, she had a phone call with her mother, Sherry Able, which she had to cut short, but promised to call back on her free day, which was the following Monday. She never called back. Servo failed to show up to work, and concerned co-workers called the apartment complex a few days later. The landlord went to Servo’s apartment to check on her. They found her dead.
Disaster:
On Sept. 18, police were called to the apartment in order to make sense of Servo’s murder. Devastation hit not only Servo’s family but also the people she worked with. Taylor County Judge Downing Bolls, then a news anchor, recalls having a conversation with another young reporter who told him Servo hadn’t shown up for work and that their news director went to check up on her. Just then, an officer’s voice came through the police scanner saying that Justice of the Peace needed to head to the same apartment complex. “That girl I was talking to,” said Bolls, “just dropped to the floor and just screamed at the top of her voice”.
Who was the Perpetrator?
Two men were named as suspects in Servo’s murder, but none were officially arrested. One of the men was Ralph Sepulveda, Servo’s former boyfriend, and the other was Brian Travers, a co-worker of Servo’s with whom it is rumored Servo also had relations.
Of the two men, the one who has retained police’s suspicion is Ralph Sepulveda. He and Jennifer had been dating when she moved from Montana to Texas and shared the apartment with her for some time. Their relationship came to an end shortly after when Jennifer discovered Sepulveda had a secret fiance and child in Montana. The couple agreed to remain friends. According to Servo’s father, Norm Olson, who has reportedly never stopped searching for the culprit, Supelveda’s last known residence is in Baltimore, Maryland. Servo’s mother, Sherry Able, mistrusts Sepulveda and suspects him for a number of reasons including, refusal to take the polygraph test, initial refusal to cooperate in the investigations, and a failure to offer condolences to the family.
Brian Travers has stated in an interview that he last saw Servo while walking her to her car the night before the murder. He called her the next day but got no response. Her body was found two days later. Suspicion has since shifted away from Travers, who is now the weatherman for Channel 3.
The investigation yielded a small amount of information. It revealed she was murdered by strangulation and head trauma, and a later autopsy revealed that while she was fully clothed at the crime scene, she had been sexually assaulted. Further investigation suggests that she was murdered in her living room, but was moved to the bathroom after the fact. A number of things were missing from the scene, including her cell phone, her purse, and several DVDs. Neither her cellphone nor her credit cards have been used since the murder, however. There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle, which is what prompted investigators to believe that Jennifer must have known her murderer.
Police stated in 2014 that they have been following up on new leads, but have neglected to share any more information.
Thoughts:
It’s always incredibly disappointing to see a young woman with so much to offer snuffed out so unjustly. Jennifer Servo was just trying to make her way in the world and earn a name for herself. She was just setting off on that path when she was horrifically cut short. The thought that Servo was raped and murdered by someone she knew, perhaps even a very close friend, is saddening and deeply disturbing. Hopefully, someone will approach the authorities with more information that could finally lead to an arrest and conviction, so that not only will Servo get justice, but also so that her friends and loved ones may finally get some closure after two decades of uncertainty and pain.