A Homicidal Sex Criminal Eludes Justice in Jacksonville
(“Cold Feet,” Forensic Files)
By chance, 17-year-old James “Jimmy” Elmen Jr. escaped prosecution for a homicide in Florida in 1984. But as viewers of Forensic Files know, some criminals who get away with murder once just can’t stop pushing their luck (Barbara Stager, Bart Corbin).
Instead of reforming after his acquittal, Elmen went on to terrorize three women and kill one of them, a 21-year-old newlywed named Julie Estes.
Very bad hombre. Elmen’s crimes and his Charles Manson-like mannerisms make him especially disturbing. He’s among Forensic Files’ most frightening subjects.
“I would say that James Elmen was an outlier,” former Jacksonville detective Frank Mackesy, who helped investigate Elmen, told ForensicFilesNow.com. “Fortunately, most law officers don’t deal with such offenders regularly.”
Nonetheless, as true crimes fan know well, even especially cruel murderers sometimes win release despite life sentences. (Wood-chipper killer Richard Crafts recently got out).
Sunshine State child. For this week’s post, I checked on James Elmen’s incarceration status in hopes that he’s securely locked away for good.
So let’s get going on the recap of “Cold Feet” along with extra information drawn from phone interviews and internet research:
Julie Stoverink came into the world on Dec. 12, 1963, and grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida, as the eldest of four kids born to Kathleen and John Stoverink.
Night shift. As a teen, she enjoyed playing video games and working at Burger King along with her best girlfriend, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story. She graduated from Fort Zumwalt High School in 1982.
Julie married a truck driver named Rod Estes in April 1985 and took a job as a late-shift cashier at a Jacksonville convenience store.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get much time to enjoy adulthood or married life.
Missing person and money. On Oct. 22, 1985, a passerby called police after noticing that the Lil’ Champ store at 6892 Old Kings Road South, where Julie worked, was dark at 10:30 p.m. It normally didn’t close until 11 p.m.
The next morning, an employee arrived to find the store had been robbed of $500.
And Julie had never returned home on the night of the theft.
Shrimpy driver. A police helicopter spotted Julie’s blue Camaro stuck in some mud in woods about four miles from the store.
Her body, with her hands tied with her own sneaker shoelaces, lay under some cardboard and other debris nearby. She’d been raped and killed via a blow to the head.
Investigators believed someone shorter than Julie had driven her car that night; the seat had been moved forward. Inside the vehicle, they found Julie’s purse and the store’s empty cash bag.
Early focus on spouse. The trunk had traces of Julie’s blood. Investigators believed someone had tied her hands first, then put her in the trunk.
The No. 1 suspect, husband Rod Estes, told detectives that he spent the night of the murder home alone and didn’t report Julia as missing because they had a fight that day.
Police don’t particularly like unverifiable alibis like Rod’s, but they found him cooperative and ultimately cleared him.
Case revived. Investigators began to suspect that Jacksonville had a serial killer on the loose.
Months before Julie’s homicide, police had discovered a 15-year-old girl named Christina Casey murdered just a few miles away from Julie’s crime scene. And Dana Loomis, a missing 10-year-old, had turned up dead and hanging from a tree in the area.
Still, Julie’s homicide went unsolved until 2003, when Frank Mackesy, who had been promoted from patrolman to chief of detectives in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, suggested a cold case squad reopen the investigation.
“Her family came and thanked me because they thought she had become forgotten,” Mackesy recalled.
Rescued by cop. Detectives discovered that shortly before Julie’s murder, a woman Forensic Files calls Carla Nobles (probably a pseudonym) had been abducted from a different convenience store, about 30 miles away in Callahan, but survived. Carla, 19, had given a ride to a man she met in the parking lot, none other than the impish-looking James Elmen.
After raping Carla, Elmen forced her at knifepoint to get behind the wheel and drive. Along the way, she managed to stop the car and get the attention of a law officer, who arrested Elmen.
Elmen ultimately pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed kidnapping, and four counts of unarmed sexual battery. (Some of the charges stemmed from an incident a few days before the rape — Elmen grabbed a woman and threatened her with a knife, but she escaped.)
Suspect connection. For those crimes, Elmen got a sentence of 42 years, with parole eligibility after 22 years.
Meanwhile, cold case investigators found another tantalizing piece of circumstantial evidence: The 10-year-old murder victim found in the tree circa 1985 was a half-sister to James Elmen.
So who was this button-nosed psychopath? A few biographical details on Elmen came up.
Troubled youth. He was born on Sept. 12, 1966, and reportedly dropped out of school after ninth grade.
Although he had parents who gave him moral support during at least one of his court dates — his mother, Pamela Loomis, “kissed him and handed him a pack of cigarettes as he was led back to jail,” according to a Florida Today story — at some point he moved in with his aunt and uncle in Titusville.
Wanda and Randall Gurr hoped the “small-town atmosphere” would “straighten him up” — and were shocked when their tousle-haired nephew was arrested in connection with the murder of 18-year-old Steven Linthicum in 1984.
Buddies turn. Prosecutors had a strong case that the then-teenage Elmen stabbed Linthicum to death after he and an accomplice stole Linthicum’s Walkman, jewelry, and decorative swords.
Elmen associate Tom Pack, 22, told the court that he and Elmen committed the burglary and later took the stolen goods to Glen Stroman, also a friend of Elmen’s. Stroman admitted to selling some of the stolen jewelry and got immunity for testifying against Elmen.
Plus, Elmen had been seen wearing bloody clothes around the time of the murder, according to an Orlando Sentinel story.
Menace to society. Despite the strong case against Elmen, an oddball factor unexpectedly kneecapped the prosecution. A tracking-dog handler named John Preston, who had provided some evidence for the trial, was discredited as a phony. That was enough to tip the jury’s verdict to not guilty.
By the time cold case investigators took up Julie Estes’ murder, however, Elmen was in prison for the 1985 attack on Carla Nobles, but he was eligible for parole. The cold case squad wanted to ensure he’d never get out. He was way too dangerous. Police, doctors, medical workers, and public defenders were all afraid of Elmen, detective James A. Parker said during his Forensic Files appearance.
“I was so worried he would reoffend that we made a case to put him on 24-7 surveillance,” Mackesy recalled.
Planned attack. Fortunately, authorities were able to hold Elmen in prison thanks to the Jimmy Ryce Act, which allows extended incarceration for convicted violent sexual offenders because they’re a threat to society. The court classified Elmen as a “mentally disordered sexual offender.”
Elmen probably had no intention of ending his attacks on women. “I think Julie Estes’ murder was definitely premeditated,” Mackesy said. “She matched all the physical traits of all his victims. They had the same body style, hair color, and hair style.”
After reopening the case, detectives hit some forensic pay dirt when a lab identified Elmen’s DNA on Julie’s socks.
Sudden confession. Investigators believe that on the night of Julie’s murder, Elmen noticed there were no customers inside the Lil’ Champ store, entered and turned off the electricity, and forced Julie to empty the safe. He made her drive to a lot, then raped and killed her and ditched her car.
Just as Julie’s family was preparing to attend Elmen’s trial at the Duval County Courthouse in 2008, Elmen surprised them by pleading no contest to Julie’s rape and murder. He got life without the possibility of parole.
“This was probably the better of the two options,” Julie’s dad, John Stoverink, said in a TV news interview. “You never know what a jury is going to do. This way, he doesn’t have a chance to get out.”
Throw away the key. Despite the guilty plea, Elmen’s defense lawyer Frank Tassone thought the judge made some wrong decisions.
“People picked and chose the facts they considered,” Tassone told ForensicFilesNow.com. “There were some mitigating things the judge didn’t allow.”
Nonetheless, it looks as though James Elmen has zero chance of leaving prison on two feet. “His plea deal was contingent on him not being able to appeal or get out,” Mackesy said. “Part of that deal was our prosecutor didn’t go after the death penalty.”
Grief relief. Today, Elmen lives in Graceville Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility in Florida and is on the sex offender registry. The Florida Department of Corrections lists his status as life without the possibility of parole, and he’s in close custody, meaning maximum supervision.
The sentence relieves Julie Estes’ family of having to attend parole board hearings for the killer of their eldest child.
According to Florida Times-Union account, as a tribute Julie, her brother Tom Stoverink “named his daughter Samantha Julie after his big sister, whom he followed everywhere when she was living at home.”
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. – RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube
