22-year-old Jennifer Servo had big dreams for her career in journalism & worked tirelessly with the goal of one day becoming the next Katie Couric. During her time on air, Jennifer covered murder cases & sadly, it was her own murder that went on to become one of the most perplexing unsolved cases in Texas history. Only weeks after she uprooted her life from Montana to Abilene, Texas to start her first journalism job after college, Jennifer was found brutally murdered inside her apartment.
Jennifer was born & raised amongst the breathtakingly beautiful landscape of Columbia Falls, Montana on the outskirts of Glacier National Park. She was born on September 23, 1979 to parents Sherry & Norman & she had a sister, Christa, who was four years older & the two were very close. According to those that knew Jennifer, she was a self-motivated person who had strong leadership qualities & remained extremely motivated to continue to learn & improve herself.
During her time at Columbia Falls High School, Jennifer was a popular, outgoing girl with a large circle of friends & someone who was described as universally loved. She was a cheerleader, part of the cross country team & when she wasn’t busy with school activities, she worked at the Columbia Falls water slides & a local grocery store. Jennifer loved video games, especially Super Mario Brothers & was a huge fan of The Simpsons. She had a love of writing & knew that she wanted to do something with writing. Despite growing up in a small town, Jennifer had big dreams & the goal of one day living in a New York City penthouse working as the next Katie Couric. She told her family that someday she would fly them all to New York City in her private jet & a black limousine would whisk them to her penthouse apartment.
To help finance her college education, Jennifer decided to join the U.S. Army Reserve & her mom, Sherry Abel, laughs, recalling that part of what inspired her daughter to enlist was the 1994 Pauly Shore comedy, In the Army Now. Sherry wasn’t happy with her daughter’s decision, but she supported her regardless & in the summer of 1997, Jennifer started basic training.
In May 2002 Jennifer graduated from the University of Montana in Missoula with a degree in journalism. During her time in college, she worked for both Missoula TV stations for three years, starting out behind the camera for the early show at 5 am. On top of her TV station job, classes & her guard duties, she was also anchoring on a local radio station. It wasn’t long until Jennifer transitioned from behind the camera to in front of the front of the lens where she reported on the news like a true natural. Jennifer worked tirelessly to be successful in all she did. Denise Dowling, an assistant professor of radio & television, immediately recognized her spark & recalled that Jennifer was extremely focused on ensuring that she had a career in television.
When Jennifer completed her final Reserve duty, she came back home with exciting news to share with her family. She would be moving to Abilene, Texas to start a job with a small television station. Her starting salary was only $7.50 an hour & she realized that it was still a long way from her dreams of New York City, but it was a stepping stone in the right direction. Sherry said that Jennifer was very excited & had a romantic view of Texas, envisioning cowboys, cowboy hats & boots.
On top of the news of her first career in journalism, Jennifer also told her family that she was dating a new man, Ralph Sepulveda, who she’d met at a Reserve training session. When Jennifer informed them that Ralph would be moving with her to Texas, they were very surprised. Jennfer had only known Ralph for about a month & they had yet to even meet him. They thought that Jennifer was smitten with Ralph & likely drawn to his role as an Army Ranger & the fact that he seemed to be a handsome bad boy with tattoos up & down both arms.
Jennifer’s family was concerned by the rapid pace their relationship seemed to be moving & the fact that Ralph was quite a bit older than Jennifer at 34 to her 22. Jennifer’s sister Christa wondered if maybe Jennifer made the decision to move with Ralph for a sense of security, at least knowing one person in her new home of Texas. When Christa broached her concern to Jennifer, she became defensive, but ended up taking it to heart. Jennifer spoke with Ralph & questioned if his coming with maybe wasn’t a good idea after all. In response, Ralph gave Jennifer a guilt trip, letting her know he’d already quit his job & rented a moving truck.
Jennifer rented a U-Haul trailer & arrived to her new home of Abilene on July 18 after she & her mom made the 25 hour & nearly 1,700 mile/2700 kilometer drive. Sherry helped Jennifer settle into her new home in the Hunters Ridge Apartments on Texas Avenue. Ralph arrived three days later, on July 21 which was the same day Sherry flew back to Montana. Before she left, Sherry had the opportunity to see Jennifer & Ralph interact & noticed that he seemed nice to her daughter so she told herself that she should give Ralph a chance.
The next day, Monday, July 22, Jennifer started her new job at NBC Abilene affiliate KRBC-TV the next day & worked alongside anchorwoman Jennifer Loren & weatherman Brian Travers. Her new co-workers quickly saw that she was a natural. Loren was well aware that in their industry you either had it or you didn’t & Jennifer clearly had it & hit the ground running from day one. Another anchor, Downing Bolls, said that it was very obvious that Jennifer had the tools it would take to move up in the industry to bigger & better things. After seeing Jennifer’s talent up close, they figured she wouldn’t be with them for long, likely moving up the ranks sooner rather than later.
According to her diary entry, within less than a handful of days of living together, Jennifer couldn’t stand Ralph since she felt he was smothering her. He didn’t have a job & she felt she was being taken advantage of financially. The deal breaker came when Jennifer learned that at the time they met, not only had Ralph been engaged to another woman, but he had also fathered a child during the relationship & never saw his child.
After Ralph told Jennifer the startling news, she was done & asked him to move out of her apartment which was only weeks after they began living together. On August 6, Ralph moved out, but rather than heading back to Montana, he decided to stay in the area & moved into a nearby apartment. Sherry recalls a feeling of relief when her daughter let her know the situation, but also worried that Ralph might retaliate somehow, unhappy with the fact that he was still nearby. However, Jennifer assured her mom that she & Ralph were still friends.
Jennifer did go on to tell her friend that a few weeks after their breakup, Ralph came back to her apartment crying & begging her to take him back, but she refused. Those that cared about Jennifer felt that he had weaseled his way into her apartment & was mooching off her both financially & emotionally & were happy to see him out of her life.
With the weight of their relationship off her shoulders, Jennifer seemed to blossom & thrive in her new environment. According to Brian Travers, she seemed to be much lighter & care-free after Ralph moved out of her apartment. She also told her mom just how happy she was; she had a new job pursuing her passion in journalism, her own apartment that had a swimming pool, her cat & cable TV. As far as Jennifer was concerned, her life was right on track.
Only eight weeks into her new role, Jennifer was quickly an essential part of the KRBC team. So in September 2002, when Jennifer didn’t respond to a call to cover for a sick colleague, her co-workers were immediately concerned. Jennifer normally worked Thursday through Sunday & she had last worked Sunday, but they hoped she would cover on her off days while they were short-staffed.
Jennifer Loren & Brian Travers decided to drive over to her apartment to check on her. They noticed that Jennifer’s car was parked in the lot, but when they knocked on her door, there was no answer. They left & just hoped that she would turn up soon, but when two more days went by & calls to Jennifer continued to go unanswered, it was clear that something was seriously wrong.
When the news director, Toby Dagenhart, was updated on the situation, a phone call was placed to the apartment complex office where Jennifer lived & a welfare check was requested. Jennifer’s colleagues recall hearing the police scanners within the newsroom mention something about Jennifer’s apartment building & they were horrified when they overheard the word DOA, meaning dead on arrival. They were absolutely stunned & saddened, never imagining that only weeks after arriving to start her dream job, they would be tasked with reporting that one of their own had been brutally murdered. KRBC made the decision to cancel their 5 pm newscast that Wednesday & the only story reported at 6 pm was Jennifer’s murder. Anchors Downing Bolls & Sherry Roberts struggled with delivering the news, their voices wavering as they spoke of their co-worker’s death.
When the apartment manager entered Jennifer’s 2nd floor apartment for the welfare check on Wednesday, September 18, only five days away from her 23rd birthday, they immediately noticed blood on the carpet in front of the bed that sat in the living room just upon entering the front door. Drag marks of blood led away from the bed toward the bathroom that was situated at the back of the unit. As the manager followed the tracks, they found Jennifer’s body draped over the side of the bathtub, her face submerged into water. She wore a t-shirt & boxer shorts.
Meanwhile, Jennifer’s mom Sherry later indicated that she had an unexplainable, strange feeling in her heart for several days before she was notified of her daughter’s death. She recalls that she tried to contact Jennifer on both Sunday & Monday, but she hadn’t been able to reach her daughter. She was immediately concerned since it wasn’t like Jennifer to not be in contact, but hoped that she was just busy with work.
Two days later, Sherry was at home when she looked up & noticed a sheriff’s officer at her house & recalls that her heart just dropped as she instantly knew that something must be terribly wrong with Jennifer. Jennifer’s dad Norm remembers the feeling of crashing through panes of glass when he heard the news of his daughter’s murder. When Christa picked up her phone, she heard her mom’s voice & immediately knew that something was wrong. All Sherry could manage to say was, Jen’s dead.
As investigators responded to the scene, they found Jennifer’s apartment in a very chaotic state which was indicative of an attack. There was an appearance of someone panicking & grabbing items while they tried to figure out what to do. Investigators collected fingerprint, blood & DNA evidence from the scene, but unfortunately it was determined that much of the evidence was badly contaminated by Jennifer’s cat, Mr. Binx. It took the lab some time to determine the difference between human hair, cat hair & various fibers.
An autopsy found multiple blunt force injuries to Jennifer’s head & her cause of death was manual strangulation, her manner of death was clearly homicide. Because no water was found in her lungs, it was determined that she was deceased by the time her assailant dragged her body across the apartment & submerged the upper part of her body into the water in the bathtub.
Bruising found around the exterior of her genitals made investigators initially believe that Jennifer had been sexually assaulted, but the rape kit was negative & there were no findings of internal trauma. There was also the fact that Jennifer was found fully clothed which was not suggestive of a sexual assault since most perpetrators do not redress their victims. It’s likely the bruising occurred as her assailant was strangling her, their knee pressing into her body as they knelt above her. Other than a broken fingernail, no defensive wounds were found on her body.
Police began to trace Jennifer’s last known final hours & in the process, they learned that she had been in a very brief relationship with her colleague, Brian Travers who was the station’s meteorologist. He had known Jennifer throughout the eight weeks she’d been in Abilene. On Sunday, September 15 at about 11 pm, Jennifer & Brian left work to go shopping at Walmart which was confirmed by the store’s surveillance footage.
The two left at about 12:30 am, now in the early morning hours of Monday, September 16, 2002. According to Brian, Jennifer dropped him off at his place & helped him bring some things inside, he kissed her goodnight, watched her pull away & this was the last time he saw her. After Jennifer got back to her apartment, she called her ex-boyfriend Dave Warren, who was working as a weatherman in Montana. They spoke about potentially meeting up in Dallas in December & according to Dave, Jennifer didn’t sound concerned about anything. Their call ended at 1:39 am. Sometime after that, likely within the next twenty minutes, based on a witness account, she would have opened the door of her home to allow her killer inside.
Investigators found no sign of forced entry into the apartment which led them to believe that Jennifer had known her killer & willingly allowed them entry into her apartment. Friends of Jennifer were also adamant that she would have kept her door locked when home alone & she would not have opened the door to a stranger.
A neighbor who lived below Jennifer woke up at 2 am to a loud noise coming from the apartment above where Jennifer lived. He got up & went to his kitchen for a glass of water & heard two people yelling at each other, making the assumption that they were arguing inside Jennifer’s kitchen since her apartment mirrored his own. He couldn’t make out what they were saying or even if the voices were from a man or a woman, but it was a two-way conversation. Next, he heard running, the footsteps moving in the direction of the living room followed by a steady, rhythmic hitting sound that lasted for three to four minutes. At the time, he just assumed it was the sounds of a couple having sex.
Based on evidence as well as the neighbor’s account, investigators theorize that Jennifer allowed someone she knew into her apartment that night. They began to argue in the kitchen & moved to the living room where they stood in front of Jennifer’s bed. Jennifer was likely struck in the head at this point & knocked to the floor. The assailant likely held his elbow to her throat as he knelt above her, strangling her to death while striking her multiple additional times in the head. In the process, the assailant’s knee caused trauma to the exterior of Jennifer’s genital area. Now deceased, her body was then dragged to the bathroom at the back of the apartment. Despite the fact that she was deceased, the assailant likely submerged her head into the water to ensure that she was dead or to potentially erase evidence
Because Brian was the last known person to have seen Jennifer alive, he was initially a top suspect in the case. Investigators indicated that he was cooperative & did a walk through of Jennifer’s apartment to determine if anything had been taken. Several random items appeared to be missing which included Jennifer’s Guess-brand purse, a cell phone, keys & two DVDs (Saving Private Ryan & Sex & the City). Despite these missing items, investigators do not believe this was a burglary gone wrong.
Strangely, more than a year after Jennifer’s death, on November 6, 2003, books from the Mansfield Library at the University of Montana were checked out on Jennifer’s account. This could have been a clue in the crime or simply a clerical error. Four books were checked out, mostly on philosophy.
Brian explained that he & Jennifer immediately hit it off as she began working at the news station. However, since she was with Ralph at the time, their relationship started as a friendship, but after Jennifer & Ralph’s breakup, they gradually grew closer. Jennifer & Brian had had sex once or twice during their time together.
DNA from Brian’s semen was found in Jennifer’s bed, but did not prove anything criminal since the two were involved in a romantic relationship.
Based on Jennifer’s diary entries as well as conversations with friends, it was clear that she only wanted a casual relationship with Brian & wrote: We sort of had a thing going for about three days or so, but I put an end to that. He knows I just want to be friends, but I don’t think he likes it. She wrote that he was a very nice guy, just not her type. According to Jennifer’s friend, she regretted having sex with Brian, but Jennifer said that they were fine, it had just made things awkward between them. Despite the fact that Brian was said to have “carried a torch” for Jennifer, people did clarify that Brian was far from violent. One co-worker even referred to Brian as the news station sweetheart & said that he was an extremely nice, fun guy.
On the other hand, many acquaintances voiced concerns between Jennifer & Ralph & the fact that he left his long-term girlfriend who had become his fiance in order to relocate to Texas so soon after meeting Jennifer. Neither Brian nor Ralph had a criminal history, but Jennifer’s family & friends immediately suspected that Ralph could be the person responsible for killing Jennifer.
Brian told investigators that he & Jennifer saw a dark colored car in the hours before her murder that might have been following them. He said they’d noticed the car at both Walmart & his house & investigators wondered if maybe Ralph was jealous about her relationship with Brian & followed them, ultimately confronting & attacking Jennifer once she was home.
When investigators spoke with Ralph he told them that he was home alone & went to bed around 10:30 pm after watching football, but no one could verify his story. Detective Bell was immediately suspicious of Ralph’s matter-of-fact demeanor. He wasn’t the least bit emotional & didn’t seem to be asking the questions which would be typical. Detective Bell recalls that when he informed Ralph that Jennifer was dead, he responded, Oh, that sucks. He never once asked how she died, what happened to her or any details that would be expected.
In talking with two of Jennifer’s friends, they learned that one of the things that she didn’t like about Ralph during their relationship was that he enjoyed strangling her during sex which was something that she was not at all into. It was not lost on investigators that Jennifer’s cause of death was strangulation. When he was asked about the reported rough sex & choking, he denied this to be true. Investigators asked him why Jennifer would possibly say such a thing if it wasn’t true & he responded, I do not know. I wish I could help you.
Ralph was initially cooperative & consented to interviews, searches & DNA sampling, but as time went on, this shifted. He refused to take a polygraph test & later requests for additional interviews were refused. One source indicated that while Ralph lived in Phoenix, before moving to Missoula, he had two criminal charges of child molestation filed against him & one alleged that he was having a sexual relationship with his 15-year-old niece.
After Jennifer’s murder, investigators became aware of a letter that Ralph wrote to his ex-girlfriend from Montana right around the time of Jennifer’s murder. In the letter he indicated that he no longer had feelings for Jennifer & instead, he still loved her.
When they tracked the woman down, she said that she & Ralph dated for three years, they were living together & had plans to get married, but during the summer of 2002, while she was working in Phoenix, Ralph stayed in Montana. While apart, he started hanging out with people she had never heard of & he told her that he was developing a new life. She was unable to get a hold of Ralph for a day or so & when she finally tracked him down through one of his co-workers, Ralph told her he met someone else, he no longer loved her & he was moving. This was the last she heard from him. This told investigators that the letter was likely a ruse to make investigators believe that he was no longer invested in his relationship with Jennifer.
Less than ten days after Jennifer was murdered, Ralph moved away from Abilene & re-enlisted in the U.S. Army for active duty. He severed all ties with any mutual acquaintance he shared with Jennifer & did not attend her funeral whereas Brian traveled to Montana for Jennifer’s funeral & kept in touch with her family throughout the years, checking in on any updates in the case.
Recently the Abilene Police Department reached out for help from the TV show, Cold Justice, which is an investigative true crime series that reopens unsolved murder cases with the consent & assistance of local law enforcement. They hoped that the team could potentially bring Jennifer’s killer to justice despite the fact that over twenty years have gone by & no arrests have been made. Prosecutor Kelly Siegler & Abilene detectives pour over every aspect of the case, reinterviewing old witnesses, re-evaluating the crime scene & autopsy reports & looking at previous statements with a fresh set of eyes.
In 2023, when investigators tracked down Ralph at his home in Honolulu, Hawaii for the filming of Cold Justice, he indicated that he had absolutely nothing more to add to the case. He voiced his apologies that the detectives had wasted a trip to see him & remained completely unconcerned, never once asking them how the case was coming, if there were any leads, if there was a main suspect.
Meanwhile, Brian Travers was tracked down where he was living & working in Des Moines, Iowa & he declined to be on camera or have their conversation recorded, but he remained cooperative.
As the case was re-evaluated, the team from Cold Justice discussed the three possibilities of who could have killed Jennifer: An unknown assailant, Brian or Ralph. Because there was no sign of forced entry & neighbors didn’t hear screaming, an unknown assailant was eliminated as a possibility.
When looking at Brian, there was nothing in his history that indicated he was capable of violence & witness statements painted him as a wholesome guy. He had been the last known person to see Jennifer, but he remained cooperative over the course of the investigation, even at the advice of his own lawyers. Investigators believe he was far more interested in Jennifer than she had been in him & he was described as a bit socially awkward, but he voluntarily provided his DNA, traveled to Montana to attend Jennifer’s funeral & kept in contact with her mom for updates on the case. Because of this, Brian was not a strong suspect & he was cleared from the case.
Investigators felt that all roads lead back to Ralph. They believed that he was angry & scorned after Jennifer broke up with him & kicked him out of her apartment. For six weeks after their breakup, he sat in his nearby apartment by himself with little to no furniture. He failed to rekindle his relationship with Jennifer despite the fact that he came groveling back. The anger & jealousy only grew when he learned about her relationship with Brian. He also had an interest in sexual strangulation, he’d likely written the bogus letter to minimize his love for Jennifer, he quickly re-enlisted into the military & moved away after Jennfer’s murder. He cut all ties that connected himself to Jennifer after her death & he remained detached & unemotional despite the brutality of her murder.
Currently, there are no other suspects besides Ralph & during Cold Justice, detectives planned to present their case to their prosecutor seeking charges for Jennifer’s murder against Ralph Sepulveda. They had a meeting with the DA’s office & are seeking charges or going to a grand jury on Ralph.
When Jennifer’s mom & sister were updated, they shed tears of relief, finally believing that they will have justice for Jennifer.
References:
- ABC News: ‘She could have gone anywhere she wanted to’
- Oxygen True Crime: Texas prosecutors reexamine Montana reporter’s senseless & “chaotic” 2002 murder
- The Montana Review: Two decades later: Jennifer Servo case still unresolved
- Aol: Justice for Jennifer Servo: Is an indictment on the horizon?
- Cold Justice: The Reporter
- Montana Right Now: Season 7 premiere: The 20-year-old haunting homicide of Jennifer Servo
- Wikipedia: Cold Justice
