In January of 1979, a Hope College senior from Muskegon, Janet Chandler, was abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered. She had been working as a desk clerk in a local Holland motel at the time of her murder.This case remained unsolved for over 25 years. Hope College students renewed interest in the case by making a documentary. The documentary, "Who Killed Janet Chandler", was conceptualized in 2003 by Dr. David Schock of Hope College and completed by a group of Hope communication students a year later. The film was released at The Knickerbocker Theater in Holland in January 2004. It was also broadcast on WGVSU Feb. 1st, 2004, at 1am , which was 25 years to the hour that Janet Chandler's body was discovered. The making of this documentary lead to a reworking of the original case, which, in turn, resulted in the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of this crime.
Don't miss Dateline Friday, May 23rd at 9pm. The Janet Chandler case will be one of the two featured stories. MSNBC will run a longer version of the Janet Chandler case at another time yet to be announced. You'll have an opportunity to hear from some of the local cold case detectives who worked to obtain a measure of closure and justice for Janet and her family.
1 comment:
I am probably violating some code of blogging ettiquette by posting comments to my own blog, but I just wanted to say that, after watching this show on Friday night, I was so proud of the Hope College group responsible for reawakening the interest in this case that eventually led to solving the case. I am also very proud and thankful for the job law enforcement and the criminal justice system did to hold the criminals accountable for their deplorable actions. For the Chandlers, I am happy that at least they have closure. There is really no way to bring complete justice to this situation because of the loss of their daughter but at least the people responsible were not able to get away without some measure of punishment.Perhaps there can be more cold cases solved in the future because of what has been learned here in Janet's case.
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