The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases.
And missing person cases.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm Ali.
And I'm Eli.
Welcome back everyone.
Yes, we have Eli back this week.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
I know my absence was mostly just for the change-up and episodes that we had, but I'm very happy
that we were able to do that last week.
Of course, last week we had a special guest, Ruby Hall, which is Alisa Roberson's sister.
And that's the case that we covered last week.
So if you haven't listened to last week's episode or you're new here, really encourage
you to go back to last week and give it a listen if you haven't yet.
We do have an update about one of our previous cases.
It's a case from quite a while back, episode 14, Kevin Graves.
If you haven't listened to that episode, we encourage you to go back.
It was actually when we were just starting out the podcast.
So we encourage you to go back and take a listen.
Yeah, I know we just brought an update episode to you at the end of last year, but we always
like to keep you up to date as things happen.
And for Kevin Graves, they have recovered remains that have been positively ID'd as
Kevin.
So his family has been able to locate him and they are continuing to ask questions around
the circumstances of his death and why it took so long to find him.
He was found near the Electric Force Music Festival where he was last seen.
So we're going to be continuing to watch this case and see what develops here, but he has
been found, which is always important and a wonderful step in the missing person case.
process.
But for this week, we're back to our regular format.
So we are bringing you a cold case this week.
That's right.
We have a cold case this week and we are on episode 115.
So let's go ahead and get into it.
Today we are talking about the cold case of Joyner Ondimu.
And this takes place in February 2005 in Newark, Delaware.
But first a little bit about Joyner.
Joyner was 23 years old in 2005.
She had been born and raised in Kissi, Kenya, but she had moved to America in 2001, just
four years prior to this.
She followed her sister and brother-in-law who were already in America and making a life
for themselves.
In Delaware, Joyner was well connected to the Kenyan expat community.
She was known for her huge heart and compassion for others.
She had aspirations of becoming a nurse and had enrolled in the nursing program at Delaware
Technical and Community College.
While going to school, she also worked part time at Chimes Delaware, Incorporated, a non-for-profit
that worked with the disabled.
She was also an amazing cook.
She could cook any kind of cuisine and everyone would be asking for seconds.
She lived in the English Village Apartments with three other roommates.
Now there were never any published reports giving any details about the roommates, but
I did find an interview a friend of hers gave that said that the roommates were three men
who were all cousins and also from Kenya.
And now a timeline of events.
On Tuesday, February 8, 2005.
A common thread in this case is that there is a lot of unknown information.
And that's also true about Joyner's last day.
It's unclear what the police do and do not know.
And it's unclear how Joyner's day went that February day.
What we do know is that at around 2.30 in the afternoon, the police are called to the
English Village Apartments on 12 Grand Hall.
When police arrive, Joyner is dead in her bedroom.
There were obvious signs of trauma to her head.
One of her roommates had found her and called the police.
Police begin to process the scene and question Joyner's roommates.
All three appear to have been at the apartment when the murder took place, but they hadn't
heard anything.
In Joyner's room, police are processing the scene.
One thing that is mentioned is that while Joyner's purse was missing from her room,
police do not think that robbery was a motive in this crime.
The next day, Wednesday, February 9, words spread quickly through the tightly knit community
about Joyner's murder.
Friends and family gather at Joyner's sister and brother-in-law's apartment to celebrate
her life.
In between toasts to Joyner, a choir sings spirituals to honor her.
Quickly, members of the community decide to gather funds to help send her body back to
Kenya.
Joyner's murder has the community on edge.
One of her friends, Chris Wemulawa, says, quote, when something like that happens to
a community, questions about security come into play.
We're asking Kenyans to be strong and let the law take its course, end quote.
The next day, Thursday, February 10, two days after the murder, Joyner's autopsy is concluded.
Police confirmed that she did die of head trauma, but there are no additional details
released about her death.
Police are keeping the details very close to the vest in this case.
On Saturday, February 19, 11 days after her murder, Joyner's funeral is held.
More than 500 people attend to pay their respects.
After the services, her body is prepared and sent back to Kenya.
Police do say that despite the international attention the case was starting to get, the
news of Joyner's murder had made it back to Kenya and was being covered in the media
there.
The police have not received a lot of tips in her case.
Police do say that they have interviewed a person of interest at this point, but declined
to name them since they're not officially a suspect in the case.
On Wednesday, February 23, just two weeks after her murder, Joyner's body arrives back
in Kenya.
In July of 2005, so it's been five months since her murder, police say that they are
pursuing a suspect who is from Kenya and was a known person to Joyner.
The person has since moved back to Kenya and police are working with Kenyan officials to
locate the person.
Again, police declined to name the person in July of 2005.
However, that was the last official update that I could find on Joyner's case.
So if you know anything about the murder of Joyner Ondimu in February of 2005, please
contact the New Castle County Police Cold Case Squad directly.
Detective Josh Smith can be reached at 302-395-8126 or Detective Theresa Williams can be reached
at 302-395-8216.
So that is the cold case of Joyner Ondimu.
You know, when I listen to you kind of describe the narrative of who the person is, you know,
when we do our episodes, my mind almost always forgets that it's that I'm listening listening
to a cold case or a missing person case because I so easily can imagine who these people are.
Even before I've seen their faces, you know, I make the graphics but it's usually after
you have told the story of who these people are and listening to who Joyner was, my heart
just has such an echo of sadness in it that this person isn't here and left so violently,
was taken so violently.
Her ending is an exact opposite of what her life was and that's so heartbreaking to me.
You know, for all of our cases, especially the ones that I don't know, which are often
a lot, like I just wish that they are in my stratosphere more and I'm so glad that Joyner
is here now, is here with our listeners and hopefully people who engage with true crime
do what they do and we can hopefully drum up more information about her.
It's just such a lovely, lovely human being, what she sounded like.
Yeah, this was a case where learning about Joyner and who she was, that was like the
wealth of information that I could find was just testimony to what an incredible person
she was to her community, but also just like in general to like everyone around her.
She was so welcoming, so warm, so thoughtful, so compassionate.
Like you hit the nail on the head, like what a tremendous loss of a person.
And you know, coming across her case, you know, it's very obvious from the timeline
that there's a lot of details that are missing.
There's a lot we don't know about this case, but it felt so important to bring her case
to cold and missing.
More people deserve to know who she is, but you know, her case deserves momentum and support
behind it as well.
I think knowing the fact that she wanted to be a nurse and from the sounds of it maybe
felt called to be one.
I don't know, honey, this one, that's just so unfair.
Like I don't know.
An angel on earth, that was the first thing I wrote down when I was learning about her.
And while I don't know her, I feel like that is a pretty true statement of her character.
Yeah, I think that that was the testimony of everyone that knew her.
And you know, it's reflected in the people who over 500 people showed up to her funeral.
So she had a huge impact to those around her.
And I think you're right, like angel on earth is a great description.
Now I know that when there is lack of details, that there's lots of room for speculation.
So while I ask my questions, I'm going to work really hard to be mindful of that.
But the first question I have is how did the roommates not hear anything?
I just don't understand that.
That's a great question.
It does appear that all three of her roommates were home during the time of the murder.
We're not exactly sure what time she is supposed to have died.
And then when she was found, how much time elapsed that has not been made clear by the
police.
But one thing that her friends did say in the interview was that she had spent the night
there with Joyner before.
And she said that you could hear everything in that apartment.
If you were in one room, you could hear people talking in the next room.
So it does seem very suspicious that nothing was heard, especially if this was during the
middle of the day when all three roommates were home.
It brings up a lot of questions.
I'm going to be honest.
I don't particularly like going back over graphic details, and specifically in cold
cases.
I'm a person and I feel uncomfortable talking about it, but in this case, the head wounds
that she experienced, my mind drew the conclusion that she was beaten to death on her head.
And I wanted to know if you maybe thought similarly.
Because I know we are still missing details on if anything else happened to her physically,
but I know we know that the blows to the head were the cause of her death.
But I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about the specifics of that.
Yeah, in the reporting on this case, initially, they'll say that Joyner died from blunt force
trauma to the head.
But then the newspaper actually prints a correction in the following days that says she died from
trauma to the head.
So they walk back that blunt force trauma statement, or it's at least corrected.
Maybe it was never said.
But I thought that was a very specific distinction to make.
And to get that detail out there in such a specific way, I thought that that was significant
to what happened to Joyner.
Yeah, there is a noticeable difference in the implications behind those two statements.
So it's interesting.
I'm glad that you caught the difference.
But I think that walking back on it is, again, very, I feel like we keep saying this a lot
about this case, but just very interesting.
There's a lot of information in the non-existent information.
Yeah, it does appear that overall what happened to Joyner was likely very violent.
And to me, there's some elimination.
So to me, it doesn't seem like she was shot.
There's no gunfire involved.
There's no stabbing.
So it seems like it was a very physical and violent death.
Yeah, and again, if you are someone who engages with learning about true crime quite a bit,
you know that that usually means aggression and that quite possibly the person, that the
two know each other.
That sign of violence is usually personal, which made me wonder about her dating life
and romantic life and if there were any prospects in her life and if there was a possibility
that someone from that part of her life was involved there.
I don't know.
But again, so many questions with very little answers and I just wanted to know thoughts
and opinions on that.
In the reporting, there was no mention if there were signs of forced entry or not.
And because they didn't mention that, I did tend to think that maybe this was somebody
that was known to her.
And again, for the reasons that you said, just the level of violence that appears to
have been used in her murder, it does seem very aggressive, very angry and like it could
have been the murderer could have been known to her for sure.
But then again, one of the best sources of information we have in this was coming from
her community.
And no one in the community was mentioning, you know, boyfriends, romantic relationships.
That wasn't mentioned by anybody and they had talked to several people.
So whether it was something people just weren't mentioning or if there just wasn't anybody
very specifically that she was dating or, you know, had been known to date.
Yeah, I think the fact that she was, you know, very heavily involved in such a tight knit
community, there's the possibility that someone from within that community came over to drop
something off and, you know, she let that person in.
It could be something as easy as that and doesn't have to be as deep as romantic involvement.
But again, you know, there's a lot of room to speculate in the unknown.
But I do want to touch base on the possible suspect of interest or person of interest
who is now back in Kenya.
I know it doesn't become an international case, but because there are two different
countries looking for the same person of interest, that it very much complicates things.
And it makes sense to me that cards would be held close to the chest, i.e. all of the
information about the case because the case has now become so large because of the distance.
Yeah, the person that they were pursuing, you know, in July of 2005, kind of that last
update, they did say that this person was known to join her.
So we don't know how closely, if they were just acquaintances or if they knew each other
very well.
But Joyner did know this person.
And you know, they were in America and they have since gone back to Kenya.
And yeah, the complications of a person of interest or suspect going abroad, or in this
case, like going back to their home country really complicates things.
Basically at this point, once they do locate them, they have to kind of get extradition
papers, which is its own thing to get that person back in the United States.
So it's a very complicated and potential political thing.
But this is a case that I think, you know, there could still be answers and police could
still solve this and bring justice for Joyner.
Absolutely.
I mean, it was only 20 years ago.
I can remember things from 20 years ago.
So I think it's absolutely solvable.
I think a lot of our listeners here will be grateful to know Joyner's name and case.
And hopefully just talking about her creates some echoes and more people start talking
about her and what a lovely person she was and how much justice she deserves.
Yeah, I really hope that, you know, by bringing Joyner's case here, other people start to
talk about her case, bring it up.
And you know, just other people talking and sharing the case does put pressure on the
police to get these cases solved.
If the community wants answers, they'll keep looking at a case.
So I think this is a case that's easy for police to put on the back burner, especially
if maybe their main person of interest isn't in America.
But I think we can put, you know, pressure on the police to give answers, give an update
to stay committed to Joyner and justice for her.
So again, if you know anything about the murder of Joyner Ondimu in February of 2005, please
call the New Castle County Police Cold Case Squad directly.
You can reach Detective Josh Smith at 302-395-8126 or Detective Teresa Williams at 302-395-8216.
We will have on our Instagram at Cold and Missing a picture of Joyner that I was able
to find so that way you can see her and sometimes putting a face to the name and the
case just makes it all that more personal.
So please, if you haven't, go follow us at Cold and Missing on Instagram.
You'll stay up to date with not only this case, but cases happening all around the country.
So keep up with us there.
We'll also always update about the podcast should we need to move anything around in
the week.
If you have some time today, if you could rate and review us, we've seen so many wonderful
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If you're an Apple podcast, leaving us a written review really helps the algorithm suggest
us to new people, which ultimately gets this case out there to more people.
And if you or someone you love is hard of hearing, we have transcripts on our website,
www.coldandmissing.com.
And it also includes our back catalog.
So all our episodes are up on there if you want to go back and listen to any of our past
cases.
But that's all I have.
Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Allie.
And I'm your cohost, Eli.
Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.
Stay safe, y'all.