One woman’s promising career in Washington, D.C. is cut short when she mysteriously vanishes one night on her way home from work.
Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-joyce-chiang/
For ad-free and bonus episodes, join the Crime Junkie fan club: https://crimejunkieapp.com/.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
This podcast dynamically inserts audio advertisements of varying lengths for each download.
As a result, the transcription time indexes may be inaccurate.
This package is sponsored by better help. Better help is professional counselling than securely online with a licence therapist. That is much specifically to you and your needs, and when you sign up, you can begin your communication and under forty eight hours. So if there's
thing preventing you from achieving our goals are interfering with your happiness, visit better help that calm such crimes, Yankee, that's, better HP, LP, dot, com,
enjoying the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health. With the help of an experience, professional in fact,
Only people have been using better help that their recruiting additional councillors in all fifty states special offer for crimes of listeners get ten percent off your first month at better help that calm, flash
Thank you. So you guys have probably seen a brings branded truck or if your listening overseas, maybe it's another currency transport company thereon
roads, whelp
robbing one of those armoured trucks is supposed to be one of the most difficult and dangerous crimes to commit. So how is it that they happen?
so often buckle because odd
Trucks, newest limited series? Armoured is out right now, and not only do you get in
inside look into some of the most daring and deadly armoured truck ice in history. You get the untold stories to learn what they these perpetrators
and the investigators whose job it is to catch them all told to you,
The amazing host Jake Brennan go listen to
now on apple podcast or wherever you're listening to this right now and be sure to tune in four new episodes each Wednesday high crimes
he's, I'm your host, Ashley flowers and I'm bread and the story I have for you today takes us right to the heart of the nation's capital. People come to Washington DC from all over the country to look for opportunity to advance their careers and to get a taste of shaping the future. One woman came to DC to take her place in the grand scheme of american politics, and while she found success, she also learned that the city has a dark side.
And the darkness may have cost her her life. This is the story of Joyce Chang.
The night of January. Ninth, one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine, a man named Rodger Chang, is at home in Washington DC in the apartment he shared with his older sister Joyce they're, both politically active
working government Rogers done work for Lifeboat Clinton's campaign and Joyce in turned with a congressmen from their homes, seat of California. Before she took her current job with the immigration and naturalisation service, so
DC, is really like, be perfect place for them to call home
Since it's Saturday night Joyce is out with one of her friends from work, and she told me
they're gonna have dinner there and go see a movie and ass. The night
as on enjoys, doesn't come home Roger, doesn't think too much of it. He knows that shit
been badly a cold since new year's. So in his mind, it's totally possible that she decided to just like crash over at her friends house, instead of tracking all the way home and that cold crappy, whether that night and
honestly, besides she's twenty eight years old, she doesn't need her baby brothers permission to switch up her plans. If that's what she decided to do, Joyce isn't back by the next morning, but it's not.
Until Monday. That Roger really starts to worry, because that's when he learned that job
This was a no call, no show to work that day. According
to an article in the capital newspaper, Joyce's staff attorney at the iron s.
No one knows better than Roger how hard she's worked to get where she is. He knows,
there's no way she jeopardize her career by just ghosting on her workplace like this she's, not answering her call she's, not answering her emails.
And there's nothing around their apartment, to suggest that she's even been there at all since Saturday,
it's been moved. None of the food in the fridge has been eaten like everything is as Roger elected but Roger doesn't report his sister missing. Why not well ass Roger himself says:
an interview he gave to bill o, he really wants to wait and give her one last chance to reach out
Finally, on Tuesday January twelve Roger starts calling around to her coworkers,
and learns that none of them have heard from her in the past? Three days either since not just him and
then Roger knows what he has to do. He calls the FBI and the local police and reports his sister missing. Wait,
Why does he go straight to the FBI is actually following protocol because joy
isn't a civilian remember, she's a government employees though, according to W Usa, eyewitness news Joyce's job,
with the iron, as makes her a federal office are so that, coupled with the possibility of foul play in her case means the FBI is involved right from the jump. Ok, that that only makes sense,
they start the investigation. One of the very first things law enforcement tries to do is pieced together a timeline of Joyce's movement that Saturday they learn from her for
and that she'd been socially active all day meeting one friend for coffee in the afternoon.
Heading downtown to meet her other friends friend coworker for dinner and a movie
They learn that she was wearing a sigh length, green jacket, with a hood over a black turtleneck light whitewashed genes and a red peace.
Scarf know that friend the one that she had dinner and saw the movie with tell us police that she'd given Joyce a ride back to Du Pont Circle, where her apartment was
and if you ve, never driven in DC. It's like a lot of older
cities that are kind of a tangled with one ways and side streets where sometimes it's just like faster till. I walk some place that it is to try and drive there. So we
Joyce said that she wanted to stop off to pick up a cup of tea, and the easiest thing for both of them to do is just like drop. Joyce often have her walk like they did that so joy,
got out of her friends car at about eight thirty, that night at the corner of Connecticut and our street northwest right across the street from a Starbucks as bar,
her friend New Joyce didn't have any other plans that night and she had no
reason to think that Joyce did anything else than go to Starbucks, get her tea and safely walk the three blocks back to her apartment,
so it does a Starbucks, have any security for of device and love store, not as
as we know, according to die
Eu J Ella NEWS, though the FBI does interview all of the employees who were working that night and
of them. Remember seeing a woman matching Joyce's description, but
Remember me this is a busy location that sees a ton of customers, so the bureau
does memories are super reliable because they just see so
people coming and going every day right.
Customers are really only on a stick out. If there's something really distinctive about them and right I mean I also
that they sell more than just one tea a night. So even if they did say yeah, I sold a tea tonight. It could be one of
Andrea Legged does only tell them much yeah, it's funny. I actually thought about that. Specifically obvious
Starbucks is like known for their coffee and was a girl. I wonder, if do they have a tea on their register, but your boy, I'm sure they had more than won t like on their receipts. I don't know
on top of that, like it's also evenings- and maybe you want something like more chill legatee instead of coffee or something is where my mind goes right- the way
then I will say, is like eight thirty, a short time frame, but even if they found
that only someone bought a t ride around the time she got.
Dropped off. That doesn't mean that was her that bought the t, rightly catches and get them anywhere and
he could have gone in, expecting ability and gotten something else. We have no idea what even ordered so as the poor
police and FBI keep coming through Joyce's movements that night they discover that she left her pager at home and interesting. Interestingly, Joyce got one page which police are able to actually track back to pay phone at a hotel near the Dulles International,
airport but their unable to narrow it down any more than that, so the pager proves to be a dead end at some point over the next couple of days. The FBI questions one of choices.
Boy, friends, how recent of acts,
I literally have no details about this person. All we know
comes from the W Usa. I witnessed news report saying he was questioned he whoever he is, but that he wasn't detained or anything like the end, so just like ticking
MAX you right now because they're getting nowhere. The F B. I put up a twenty thousand dollar reward for information leading to her whereabouts. They also get there first
Lee when they learned Joyce's wallet with her eye and ass. I d and expired credit card inside turned up just a day after she vanished.
According to NBC News for a female jogger found Joyce his wallet on January, tenth in Anna Castillo Park, the job or
heard the world over to the park police thinking like whoever dropped. It would eventually realising a crap my stuffs missing and come looking for it, but now
she nor the park police had any reason to suspect that this, while it belonged to a missing person, so the officers didn't take any
joggers information or ask any follow up questions at the time is this park on choices way home like? Does it make sense for her to have dropped at their
No, that's the thing it's not, and even if it was Joyce going there that night just doesn't make any sense. Like joy,
remember she had a cold, she wasn't feeling super great to begin with. It was already dark outside
two going into a park, especially this park, it's like
huge, it would not be safe for a woman on their own and not to mention this park is at least a twin
minute drive away from Du Pont Circle where we know she was dropped off right near Italian, within walking distance there,
no reason for joy to have gone anywhere near there that night? So at this point, police are brimming with questions, but the contents of Joyce's wallet only add more to the mix. Did his episode was made possible with arrest? If you ask me,
time to break out of the cycle of student that an earnest can help you buy refinancing yours student loans? Not only
offer. Low rates, didn't lonely financing with radically flexible payments and the chance to pick your long term even also check your rate risk free online in just two minutes, and if you ever have any questions you can reach out eyes and get this
You can even talk to a real life human and get your questions answered. Isn't it
you stop feeling overwhelmed by your student loans at earnest is offering our listeners in one hundred dollars cash Barnett's refinance your student at earnest, dot, com, slash crimes, Yankee terms and conditions.
Y now Ursus giving Artlessness eight hundred dollar bonus. We finance yours, didn't loans, loans at dot, com, slash crime, junkie terms and conditions, apply ones.
Can you get a one hundred dollar cash bonus when you visit earnest account sash crime, Jackie to refinance yours student loans not available in all states terms and conditions, apply, earnestly lonely finance in May by earnest operations Elsie and am unless number one to zero for nine one set in California. Financing ought lesson number six: zero. Five. Four, seven. Eight eight I've. Thirty five Mission Street San Francisco, California, ninety or one zero five visit earnest upon such licences for a full list of licences.
Once law enforcement does get word about Joyce's while it and they start going, do the contents, they noticed something I'd juices debit card is missing, but when they check her counts for activity, her missing Debbie
hard isn't being used hasn't been used since she was last seen so police put out a public call for the jogger who found the wallet
in tat, so they can get some more detailed information. Of course, they're not just like
waiting around while they're waiting for her to get in touch so police go out to the park, ready to search all twelve hundred acres upon
grounds and make inquiries with the naval base right down the river if they have to, but fortunately this jogger does
chapter and one she does police are able to use what she tells them and they get there. First big break the John who tells law enforcement that actually she hadn't found Joyce's wallet and Anna Kostiei Park
so then where did she find it? According to another NBC News for broadcast, she clarifies that she found it near the park on the banks of the Anna Costume River, not departed
Self, armed with this new information law enforcement brings out dive teams raid, our boats and cadaver dogs to focus on this particular area
the river on January twenty first night
teen. Ninety nine twelve days after Joyce was last seen is when they finally hit on something. But it's not
in the water. According to the capital newspaper peace,
I mentioned earlier. Joyce's green jacket is found in a traffic circle near a service entrance to the Anna Costume Naval Station
near where her I d was actually found. They also find her Safeway card. Her house keys her blockbuster card and her gloves, and that's not all they find
because it turns out there is something in the water after all, a body but
its clear right away that the body belongs to a man so obvious.
Sleep, it's not Joyce with that body. On its way to the DC medical examiner and all of Joyce's thing sent, offer analysis, law enforcement resumes their search throughout the area.
They go back to the Anna Costume Park area, to scan the region with helicopters and volunteers, braving the bitter cold in their efforts to find Joyce police call off.
Rivers search around noon. The next day after their efforts, don't turn up anything else. The FBI is still hopeful that will be able to pull something like a fingerprint or some fibres off of Joyce's think something anything to give their investigation of direction to go and in addition, there hoping some national tv coverage from America most wanted will help the investigation. So they work with that tv team to get some coverage for the case once they get their lot.
Results back a couple of weeks later it looks promising, according to another report from NBC News, for the FBI manages to pull some clues, that they believe could lead them to dna samples, begbie eyes, playing coy and try really hard not to show their hand to the media. But the reporters
this news. Peace basically tell the FBI, like we already know what it is like, don't bother dancing around it, because their sources had told them that they got hairs off of Joyce's stuff. So law enforcement collects some samples of Joyce's hair for comparison against what they ve pull for.
Choices. Belongings analysis shows that the hair is found on her stuff belonged to two different people, one white person and one black person now syn
Joys is taiwanese american. Those hairs can't belonged to her around
one month mark of Joyce's disappearance. The FBI makes a statement where they tell everyone. They don't believe that she left the area of her own free will that she was taken by a stranger or even by someone she knew so between that statement and
Finding these hairs on her things than they know. Something went really wrong here right and
no that they need to find Joyce and they need to find her now, but they dont have any leads on suspects right
no, no, the FBI says they're not ruling out any potential suspects, including Joyce's roommate
and little brother Roger Chang, so we see and missing persons cases how sometimes a member of the victim's family can really become like me,
spokesperson for the Chang family, that's totally been
Roger Syn,
day. One he's been constantly giving interviews to any outlet that will listen talking to law enforcement.
Up flyers, holding vigils. Doing all of the things are concerned. Family member would do, but, while Rogers public image is that of a terrified brother who just wants his sister to come home in private, the FBI has some doubts about him, mostly because he is the one
waited till Tuesday to report Joyce missing, even though he knew better than any one. How unusual it was for her to just ghost everyone like she did
warning to Ellen governments reporting for the Baltimore son around this time. The FBI collects carpet samples from this siblings apartment and asks Roger if he be willing to take a polygraph which he does
and, and their results come back inconclusive when asked about it. Roger talks, the results up to anxiety or law enforcement trying to mess with him which
both could be possible. Everyone knows how we feel about polygraph right rate. As this Baltimore son peace goes
to say, though, even though Rogers definitely raising a few eyebrows. He is never actively pursued as a suspect and then at the start of spring, a grisly discovery changes everything around six hundred and thirty p dot m on the evening of March,
31st, one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine, a woman named Leslie Brown is having a peaceful night at her home in Fairfax County Virginia. When suddenly she hears this commotion coming from outside, she can't quite make out the word
But the tone is more than enough to hammer home that something is a very, very wrong. Leslie. Russia's outside
and she finds a canoeist bear on the Potomac River gesturing
thirdly and yelling that they found a body washed up on shore and are begging for someone to call for help. Leslie runs
inside and dials nine, when one immediately, according to appease the LOS Angeles Times when the police arrive,
the scene. They find a woman's body link face down on a rocky part of the shore line, still wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck. No, the bodies pretty badly decomposed way beyond any hope for a visual identification, but it doesn't take long for police to start forming a theory about who their Jane DOE might be, because you see the clothes she's wearing match their
description of Joyce Chang to tee, and officers also note that their unidentified woman matches choices, height and weight, so is this close to our choices? Stuff was found no
really it's actually over eight miles down river, its south of were Anna Costume River flows into the Potomac. The body is taken back to the medical Examiners office there in Virginia for autopsy and their tentative idee gets validated even more when they look inside the socks that are still on this victim and find something surprising
Getting paid up to today's early with direct deposit is another reason thinking with capital. One is one of the easiest decisions in the history of decisions even easier than deciding to listen.
To another episode of your favorite podcast and with no fee
he's or minimums on checking and savings accounts. Is it even
decision that banking, we imagined, what's in your wallet terms, apply see capital, one dot, com site
bank capital, one any member FDA, see right dear tucked away in one in the socks, is choices missing debit card to do a formal dna
comparison and confirm what there now like. Ninety nine percent, sure of law enforcement collects some blood from Roger Chang, while also comparing Joyce's dental records with their Jane DOE. Now this is pretty standard, nothing out of the ordinary right, but once the results from the autopsy comes back
things start to get weird according to an article in the leaf chronicle. Her paws of death is inconclusive, with no marks on her side
it into indicate a gunshot wound or stabbing or anything like that. So since she was,
the river? What about water and her longs to tell them if she had drowned? Apparently they can't even tell that its inconclusive.
This is common view that autopsies always hold the answers about how someone died, and I mean it's
that, more often than not, they do, and more often than not, law enforcement learned something from the autopsy, even if it's not like a black and white
this is how it was done in whatever theirs
information like information information and yet here there's nothing. I mean I'm going
I don't even think this was possible,
a dental records were a sure thing. I did too, but there's a first
for everything I guess so it this way all police can do is wait for the dna test results to come back, hopefully with that conclusive identification. Now that takes a couple of weeks, but ultimate
de. It is confirmed. Their Jane DOE is Joyce Chang.
But even now they still have almost nothing to go on.
By July of nineteen. Ninety nine six months after Joyce first went missing. Investigators are grasping at straws, like they look into some sketchy and honestly
airline racist theories about choices, financial habits. They also look into the possibility that she was abducted by a sex trafficking ray.
And police also follow up on another theory. That's got a little more substance to it, so it turns out that one Starbucks employee does come forward a little bit
leader and tell police. Like back in January that you know what they did think they saw Joyce in the shop on the night she disappeared according to Eddie Dean's reporting for the Washington City Paper, though that's not all he saw, he saw Joyce, get her tea and then spend over
an hour there at this Starbucks talking to a woman with blonde hair weight, so who's this blood. Lady, in what were they talking about for so long
While this is what so weird about all this. According to that same Washington City paper, peace police have a composite sketch of her all made up ready to go. They just haven't released to the public at four
whatever reason o cool like, I will never understand, going through all the work of building posits sketch and then just sticking in a folder in the back of a box, never to be released, which it seems like its state
there and has never been released to the stately. Nothing in my research that I could find indicates that they ever put this out there like looking for this woman to come forward, or so
who knows her. So this blue sand kind of just
days dangling out there in this case. Maybe it's nothing but just like with whoever paged Joyce on the night she disappeared. We don't know once investigators run out of straws to grasp Joyce's case turns cold. It gets warm for a hot second in February two thousand, when authorities tell the media that their basically all, but certain Joyce was the victim of foul play, but mostly it stays at a standstill.
Most two years until May. First of two thousand wine, when another young woman goes missing in Washington DC a woman named Chandra Levy. As Helen Kennedy reported for the New York Daily NEWS, there are some pretty striking similarities between Chandra and Joyce. Both women were originally from California. Both were congressional interns, both lived in Dupont Circle and went missing just blocks from each other. They even looked like they were both five but three inches taller. Both wait around a hundred pounds both had brown eyes and shoulder length, dark hair, but there is one major difference, but
we then, when Chandra goes missing her case explodes across the headlines of every major news outlets in America and stays. Therefore months. I mean years even
they recently with the last couple of years. It a documentary on this and if you're not familiar with her story or one a refresher. We actually covered that case back in two thousand eighteen, so you can be sure to go, listen and just think about the differences in how these women stories are handled
When Joyce went missing, she got like some lips on the local evening news and the occasional right up, but that's it so
is there any chance at Saunders. Disappearances connected to choice, though according to CNN police, don't think so at least at the time. But the
acknowledged the similarities not even just between joy,
and Chandra, though they ignore
the similarities between both of them and yet another woman.
Who was murdered in Washington DC this summer before on the night of August first, nineteen
The eight a little over five months before Joyce first went missing a man.
A woman screaming near can,
I'll road. North West he's not every.
He was doing, and with that scream still ringing in his ears, he called back to the mystery woman asking her. She was ok, she needed help in court pounding. He waited for a response, but the woman
We're responded and eventually the man assume she was fine and she didn't need help. But the very next day police find a woman's body in the woods right near the road where he heard those
screams. She was later identified as twenty eight year old, Christine Mere Zion. The autopsy found that
had been bludgeoned to death with a rock and that she was sexually assaulted before she died. As June Q were reported for the Washington Post, Christine was originally from California, just like Joyce and Chandra. She had dark hair and she'd moved in DC for a fellowship at the National Research Council. So she too had experience working in government, while police, don't believe Christine's case is connected to Joyce or genre
Joyce as friends and colleagues don't agree. They take to the media, to argue, but unfortunately makes no difference with absolutely infuriating. To me, though, is that, at the time of her death Christine's case got even less coverage than Joyce's there, maybe clips in local broadcast archives. We just don't have access to with the early
his newspaper covered, I could find, doesn't come out until July, two thousand one almost three years after Christine's murder. It's as if this poor omens case when
totally under the radar until Chandra Ledy put Deasey crime under a microscope for years, questions swirl around all three cases, but then an FBI theory
comes public one that Joyce's family just can't accept law enforcement believes Joyce might have died by suicide way, but I thought they said that fell players involved. They did. That was there thought, but police could never. Ruby
since they dont know how Joyce died and, according to Stephen Bronze peace for the LOS Angeles Times, the possibility of suicide has been on their radar for a long time. In no small part, due to some difficulties, she was having at work as the same piece goes on to say: Joyce was actually under an internal investigation at the iron ass and was supposed to have a formal interview with the agency during the week after she first went missing.
Please have soon was brought him part by modern fertility. I love fun facts and my latest one is this: did you know that is simple? Fingerprints? Can unlock loads of insights into your republic about things like a count, menopause timing,
even if your hormones and he diverted disorders or pc. Alas, all good things now
for your own wellbeing, regardless of kids are here future or not, and that's literally
Modern fertility exists, it's an easy,
affordable way to test your fertility hormones at home, with a simple finger. Prick
email it in with a prepaid label and get your results within ten days. I'm pretty sure my family
is exactly how it should be, but knowing more about my reproductive health and if there is anything to be concerned about is important to me and being able to get started in the comfort of my own home without spending. Thousands in traditional initial testing has been amazing right now. Modern fertility
offering our listeners twenty dollars off the test. When you go to modern fertility, dot com, sash crime, donkey. That means your test will cost.
Hundred and thirty nine dollars, instead of the hundreds or thousands, of course at a doctor's office, get tweet whores off
or fertility test when you go to modern fertility, dot com, such crimes, Yankee, modern fertility, dot, com, slash crime junkie. Now the FBI doesn't make public the reason behind the investigation, but between the stress from this probe
going on for who knows how long and this upcoming interview the F B. I wondered if the stress was just too much for Joyce to handle, adding to their suspicion, Joyce's Jim,
it was found near a bridge that actually has a reputation for suicide attempts
ok, but without knowing how she died. There's no way to prove any of this, not totally Joyce's friends and fear.
Your adamant that she wouldn't take her own life. She wasn't showing any signs of mental illness. Her sunny disposition was intact. They say when she went missing and she didn't leave a note which
some huge misconception- is a hallmark for death by suicide. I went
Google Rabbit Hall on a previous case, and I read an article on health talk dot org about how only like twenty five to thirty percent of people who die by suicide leave,
Yes, I am innocent necessarily proof that their theories, a hundred percent wrong, but her brother Roger says I wasn't sure she was stressed about the interview, but he tells police it certainly wouldn't be enough to make Joyce do something so extreme. So what does he
think happened, will Roger and the rest of the Chang family believe Joyce was murdered. They point to incidents, Joyce told them about before she died like a peeping Tom and a subway creep following her after Joyce died. Roger says that he found some weird graffiti out in the alley behind the Starbucks were Joyce was headed on the night. She vanished and it honestly creepy here, but I won't
read it. It says quote good day. J C may never missed a thrill of being near. You end quote and that weird
super weird. My first thought is, it seems kind of hoaxing by. It also reminds me of the Cynthia Jane Anderson story
we do ass, where there was like graffiti, like across the street, from her office and
with super creepy issue. Yet she like took a downwards in and they like put it back up the thing I don't know about this
Zack. We, when it was fun
sounds like was it was already there was it before. Was it after? I dont?
A lot of information around that, but it is
bizarre and it's bizarre that this is not the first time we ve seen this year. For short, according to the ball
more sign the chains look at all of these things as evidence that Joyce was murdered and they feel that long
it isn't doing enough to look into all this stuff as potential leads, in fact, Roger Chang, actually files a formal complaint against the Deasey Metropolitan Police for Miss Hale
billing Joyce's case and I think, there's a pretty big disconnect in how the different branches of law enforcement involved in the investigation handle their public comments. Just give you an example,
within the span of a couple of weeks. They flip flock, but
wean suicide.
Homicide kind of depending on who is talking to the media, so does he feel if everyone is even a line and to make matters,
even more confusing, drawn wash gets involved. What,
not just to do the Americas most wanted special. According to Fox five news joins convinced that
ways and Chandra were victims of a serial killer, and he takes that theory to end
outlet that listen to him even after police DIS,
count the theory over the summer of two thousand one. So I just him
I did my own independent investigation as yes, John walls as journalist yeah, and this is what I have come to that's literally all he has right. It's strange, yeah, ok, cool, continue,
by the end of the summer, with Saunders case, still dominating the headlines, attention on Joyce's case thieves law enforcement is right back at the same standstill that they were before and listen little
pieces pop up in the media. Over the years, John Walls states adamant about the serial killer. Theory Roger keeps giving in
views he actually in a strange twist kind of wines. Up as a producer on America most wanted, I did not cease,
you like that coming at all mean either, and it's not like it's like a flash in the PAN, Pena GIG either. Like he's, therefore judge other yeah anyway, more than
ten years go by with no news and no movement
January twenty fifth, two thousand eleven, just over twelve years to the day after joys first vanished, ass, Paul Wagner, reported for Fox five news police
have new evidence, finally shining a light on what might have happened to join that night, apparently
They now believe that she was abducted from Du Pont Circle by three suspects and taken down to the banks of the Anna Castillo River, where these three suspects planned to rob her
but, didn't you say that the rivers pretty far away from Dupont, Sir
oh yeah, I guess to me it seems like a really inconvenient.
Way to rob somebody? No less,
I agree I actually just looking at Google MAPS and it does. It make any sense to me as a good robbery plan, but like hey, I'm
not a criminal? What do I know? According to this.
Same article law enforcement believes that Joyce could have been pushed into the river or maybe she could have slipped and fair
into the freezing river ass. She tried to escape her attackers and eat ouch busily,
caught up, she wasn't able to pull herself out of the river if I might pitching
so? Maybe that's how her coat ended up? Maybe they try to grabber idle. I dont know if they tried to grab
hope she, like kind of finagled, her way out of it and ran and slipped and fell in the river or something. Maybe I don't know. According to a Fox news, broadcast police have been quietly working for about a year to nail down their suspects it over the rest of the winter and into the spring of two
eleven law enforcement, reveals more and more information about these suspects. One of them a guy named,
Steve. Alan is already imprison serving a life sentence for similar crimes and and
their guy Neil, while keen is thought to be.
Out of the United States in Guyana. Withers, no extradition treaty, ok, but what about the third one
W J Allay news reported that there isn't
enough evidence to prosecute the third person police
leave Steve and I worked as a pair to abduct unsuspecting people and take them to more secluded locations to rob them according to more Paul Wagner's reporting for Foxfire
whose Stephen Neil were arrested and ninety ninety nine. This is like three months after Joyce's disappearance for abducting another woman from a busy part of DC not far from do pots.
Google and driving her a few miles away to rob her, but then they release
her and no one in law enforcement was like hey this kind.
Sounds familiar right. It's to me, it's so weird that they're making this connection what twelve years later and not like three buns right after when this happened, but apparently no like
it, took some ten years and some prison rumours to get Steve and Neil on polices. Radar for Joyce's death on May thirteen
Two thousand and eleven is twelve years for months and four days after Joyce Chang vanish from Dupont, Circle police, officially rule her
ass, a homicide which is at least some of the news that the chain family has been waiting for, while not quite because
one hand, there's. Definitely this vindication of what they ve known in their hearts, all along that Joyce was murdered, but this very same day
Please also announce that Joyce's case is gonna, be closed and they're not gonna, be pressing any charges against Steve or Neil. Why not? As law enforcement explains at a press conference that same day, basically their competent that they ve got enough evidence to get arrest warrants, but not enough to grab a slim
conviction so that's sit like I wish. I had a more satisfying resolution for you, but I don't I get what their say
because you don't want to put the case
situation where Europe against double jeopardy, knew you'd. You lose and you can't
them again and then the cases just there by it. But there are not
being an open their thing, they're closing it, and it's like a what I dont get. Is that basically saying we're? Never gonna do anything so
if you're never gonna do anything. Why not at least try yeah like and then, if you lose, you lose but like try or like you, so they just don't close it and try
later. All you do is just not close. It yeah
If you're gonna say hey, we're not can keep it acted because we don't think will ever find anything more. There's, never gonna be more physical evidence. We have already had people come forward. I go back
two, if you're never gonna have more, and you know that- and you know that enough to close it shoot your shot exactly and again like
keeping open. How many cases have we talked about where the case these open sits in the back.
A filing cabinet, for God knows how long with just a unsolved,
History is taking the box or would have her. I like
Benchley, something happens. I like no
and has touched it for twenty years with something happens and you have something. Finally, why not just keep it open? Just keep it open, that's all like I
just say: keep it open like for the next twenty minutes, but that wouldn't be very entertaining well run.
Chang has Self published a book about his experiences. Around Joyce's death called my piece. I offer you over twenty two years have passed since Joyce's debt and while her case is still officially closed, I have to wonder: has just has been done.
Time helps he'll, but does the desire for closure ever really go away, not just for Roger and Choices family, but for her friends and her colleagues and everyone who loved her? As I don't have the answers?
I mean we do right. I really think we do. I keep it open to your shot, but maybe there's stuff we don't know, I don't.
If anyone knows this completely a hunt
sent inside and out. That's part of why I wanted to tell you Joyce's story to remind all of us that, even when the ending isn't as need and tidy as we'd like there is still a human at the heart of it all and that person's life mattered, Joyce's life
mattered, you can find.
All the source material for this episode on our website, crime, junkie, podcast dot com, and we should have always uninstall aimed at crime. Keep outcast we'll be back next week,
with a brand new episode
Crime junkie is an audio chuck production, so
What do you think chuck disapprove
Transcript generated on 2021-10-17.