KBI renews efforts to solve old homicide

? Fifteen years ago, just days after her wedding, Jennifer Judd was stabbed to death in the duplex she shared with her new husband.

Now, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is renewing efforts to find out who killed her.

“What we’re looking for are people who have information – stories, observations – information that might help us solve this case,” said Kyle Smith, the bureau’s deputy director. “It’s a cold case. It’s 15 years old, but it still can be solved.”

While acknowledging that 15 years is a long time for a case to remain unsolved, Smith noted that Wichita’s BTK serial killer case finally broke 30 years after Dennis Rader’s first murders.

Authorities and Judd’s family members hope a $10,000 reward, announced Thursday, will spur someone to come forward.

“Money talks,” said Judd’s sister, Angela Davis, who was 15 at the time of the killing on May 11, 1992. “I know there’s people out there who do know what happened to my sister. I believe there’s a group of them that knows what happened to my sister.”

A $5,000 reward from the state was offered five years ago and has been reauthorized by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The other $5,000 is from the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, a California organization devoted to helping solve missing persons cases and violent crimes.

The KBI’s cold case squad has been working on Judd’s killing since 1999. Assistant director Larry Thomas has been on the case since the day after her death.

“A lot of times, people with information have some type of change of heart or change of circumstances where they’re able to come forward and talk,” Thomas said.