Victim’s sister: ‘How can I just sit around and not find justice?’
Billboard shines light on woman’s unsolved murder in Towson 22 years ago
OnMarch2,1996, Joann “Jody” LeCornu was found dead in her car at a York Road shopping center in Towson near the Baltimore city-county line. The 23-year-old had been shot in the back, police say.
More than two decades later, Jennifer LeCornu Carrieri is still looking for her identical twin sister’s killer. On Monday morning, a day after the twins’ birthday, a billboard commissioned by Carrieri went up on northbound York Road in Baltimore. It reads “FIND MY KILLER” and advertises a $32,000 reward from Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland for information on LeCornu’s killing.
“I just want to know what happened and find the person,” said Carrieri, who lives in Easton. “It’ll never bring her back. It’s just, how can I just sit around and not find justice?”
Shawn Vinson, a Baltimore County police spokesman, 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.
“As time goes on people tend to feel more relaxed sharing information,” Vinson said.
For Carrieri, 46, now married with children, the billboard is just one of many efforts in recent years to call attention to the case.
Jody and Jenny grew up together in Annapolis, daughters of the late John LeCornu, a former Anne Arundel County prosecutor.
“We were always together, always,” Carrieri said. They had the same room, the same classes, the same friends.
The twins shared joys, but also difficulties. Their father struggled with alcohol, and both girls began drinking in their early teens, Carrieri said. Both also experimented with drugs and struggled with anxiety and eating disorders. During their senior year in high school at St. Mary’s in Annapolis, Carrieri said, their parents put them both in rehabilitation.
Eventually, their parents sent Jenny to a ranch in Wyoming to get her away from a boyfriend. She stopped drinking and moved to California, where she got engaged. Jody stayed behind, moving in with a boyfriend in Baltimore, and continued to struggle with alcohol, Carrieri said.
“She was such a good person but she struggled so much,” Carrieri said. “We both had really bad anxiety and were drinking to try to calm that anxiety.”
Separated for the first time in their young lives, the twins talked constantly on the phone. Carrieri remembers the last time she tried to call her sister on a Saturday morning and got no answer. Then her fiance came flying in the door. Carrieri’s parents had called. “Jody’s dead,” he said.
To Carrieri, her sister’s death felt like losing a piece of herself.
“I’ll never be the same,” Carrieri said. “It changed my life. I was living one life, then you wake up and it’s like ... a part of me is gone. Like pieces being ripped out of me.”
Carrieri said police have cycled through — and ruled out — many theories: a robbery; a drug deal gone wrong; retribution for a case LeCornu’s father had prosecuted. Nothing led to an arrest.
“I’m not a detective, but to me honestly, this seems like it should not have been that difficult a case to solve early on,” Carrieri said.
The county Police Department’s Vinson declined to share details of the case because it is an open investigation.
Without progress on the case, Carrieri said, she took it on herself 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 has spent more than $3,000 to erect the billboard at 5722 York Road, atop Nailah’s Kitchen in northern Baltimore.
“Just seeing her, it’s like her picture is so big, it felt like she was right there with me,” Carrieri said Monday after seeing the billboard for the first time. “It’s like a mix of feelings. I’m really excited for it to be out there, to try to get more exposure.”
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.