Family hopes billboard helps to solve homicide
A local family says it won’t give up until the murderer of a loved one is brought to justice.
BY MAYSOON ABDELRASUL
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
NILES — A new billboard on U.S. Route 422 is the latest step a family is taking to bring closure to the loss of a loved one.
Jane Ellen Kleese, 35, was killed Jan. 23, 2002, and the person responsible has not been found.
Her family posted a billboard with a picture of Kleese and the question, “Do you know who killed me?” in hope of gaining information about her death.
This Saturday would have been her 41st birthday; the sign near the Eastwood Mall complex shows her birth date and death date.
Her family wants people to remember her birthday.
Her brother, Tom Woodward of Youngstown, said he believes someone knows about the murder. He hopes the sign will prod someone to come forward.
“We are doing what we can as private citizens to keep this in the public eye,” he said.
Earlier efforts
This is the second sign that has gone up, and the family also posted the case on America’s Most Wanted Web site last year.
Kleese, who lived on Cynthia Street, was found dead at the bottom of her basement stairs by her children.
She had dropped her daughter off at school in the morning and was found dead that afternoon. Police initially believed the death was an accident, but the Trumbull County coroner’s office ruled that Kleese died of asphyxiation by assault.
Woodward said the family is not giving up and will do whatever it can with the resources it has to find the killer.
“We are in this for the long haul,” he said.
Two years ago, fliers covered the Warren downtown area with her picture in hope that somebody would know something about the death.
Fliers are still placed in strategic places in the Warren and Niles areas.
Prosecutors and police say that signs and media coverage can be very effective — and that is why Woodward said he wants the public to remember his sister.
He said her life was taken away from her children and the rest of her family, and everyone is still grieving.
“The healing process can’t begin until we have closure,” he said.