This week I got to make an important announcement to my friends and family and Facebook and Instagram followers. My sister Jennifer Servo’s unsolved murder case is going to be featured on the show Cold Justice on March 30, 2024. I knew this was coming because the group producing the show and Kelly Siegler, Texas prosecutor; and the lead detective on my sister’s case from Abilene had been in my living room one morning back in October to interview my mom and me for the show.
The show had also flown us to Abilene a few weeks later to discuss with us some of what they had found in their investigation. They also flew to at least three different locations during their investigation to check into some pieces of information around her case.
I hadn’t been able to share these details with people because they didn’t want anything getting out while they were still investigating and putting the show together. All I could tell people was that after 21 years, there was finally some forward movement on my sister’s case.
This is not the first time my sister’s murder case has been featured on some kind of program. Weeks after she was murdered, America’s Most Wanted and Inside Edition competed to be the first to run her story. Her murder case has also been featured on Maury Povich, Montel, Dr. Phil, 48 Hours Mystery, Primetime Crime, Still a Mystery, and countless local news programs. She’s also been featured on two podcasts and in Cosmopolitan magazine. And I have a collection of hundreds of newspaper articles about Jen’s story.
But this time it’s different. This show worked with the detectives to dive into every bit of evidence in the case. They spent months working together to go over everything, looking for that needle in the haystack that may have been missed. They also reinterviewed many people who had been involved in the case and they flew all around the country to do it. And they have discovered some things that are leading to some progress on her case.
In the days that followed my sister’s murder, people said things. One common condolence was when people would assure us that, “Nobody gets away with murder these days.” They were sure that with all the advances in DNA technology, etcetera, there would be justice.
It has been over 21 years, and at this point, the person who murdered my sister has gotten away with it. I have reason to believe that that is about to change. It’s not over yet, but I have something right now that I haven’t felt for many years about my sister’s unsolved murder. I have hope.
When my mom, stepdad, and I went down to Abilene to retrieve my sister’s belongings over 21 years ago, we went KRBC9, the news station where she worked—the place that was supposed to be the start of a beautiful career in journalism for her.
Her coworkers had left her desk exactly the way she had left it the last time she was there. Before packing up her things, I took a picture, so I could always remember how she had left things in that place that she spent so much of her time.
Looking back on it now, it’s amazing how much has changed in 21 years. The old, corded phone on her desk with her homemade nametag “SERV-O” stuck to the front of it, the large desktop computer—both would be obsolete items now.
I also see the picture of baby Mallory, my daughter, in a framed photo right next to Jen’s computer screen. The new niece who made her an aunt for the very first time. The one she was so excited to meet. And there’s a picture of me and my dog on her desk too. She really did love me. I miss her so much.
I love gleaning little things about Jen from that picture. I can get a glimpse of what mattered to her when I see the Rosie the Riveter postcard with Hillary Clinton as Rosie hanging right next to her desk. I have that postcard hanging next to my desk in my craft room now, right where I do my writing. Yes, Jen, we CAN do it. And we will.
I have no idea about the Elvis poster with the screaming girls at a concert that says, “The King Lives On.” Was she an Elvis fan? That I don’t know. She never mentioned it. Was there some other reason that the poster meant something to her? Some things about my sister will always be a mystery.
She left an unfinished Diet Coke on her desk. And a pair of sunglasses. A notebook with her to-do list inside. So much she still had left to do.
Nobody gets away with murder these days. Twenty-one years later, I hope these words will turn out to have some truth in them. I believe they will.
