JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — First Coast Crime Stoppers will host a live stream digital press conference to highlight a cold case homicide.
Julia Vernise Vegas was found stabbed to death in a shed behind a home in Jacksonville, Florida on November 26th, 1999.
After 25 years without answers, her daughters have reached out to First Coast Crime Stoppers, requesting a public release to help bring renewed media attention to the case.
“With the case happening back in 1999, I mean if you even do a basic Google search there’s not a lot out there on it. So, we want to give these family members, specifically these two daughters, coming down a voice to show the kind of person that their mother was, the details on the case, where it occurred,” said Chase Robinson from First Coast Crime Stoppers.
Digital Press conferences are the first of their kind in the state of Florida for Crime Stoppers.
“Trust with law enforcement is hard to gain and we want to be that avenue that the community can use to trust law enforcement and can trust giving information about crimes to law enforcement through Crime Stoppers,” said Robinson.
Over the last 25 years, technology has evolved to help with cold case homicides like Vegas.
The press conference will showcase satellite imagery, providing aerial flyovers of Jacksonville areas tied to Vegas’ murder, and offering the community essential tools to fight crime.
“Technology with like Crime Stoppers where there’s ways to reach the public like never before that wasn’t present in 1999. With our P3 mobile app and our website, people can submit pictures and videos that they might have that you know could be in a shoe box in their closet that hey never brought out before and getting that anonymously to law enforcement, that’s never been possible before until now,” said Robinson.
The First Coast Crime Stoppers will not only hold a press conference, but they will also go engage with the community.
“We are going to be going with the two daughters, the representative from the Chicago victims advocacy group, hopefully members of MAD DADS project cold case, possibly the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office to have a united group go through and hand out flyers and tell people hey here’s who we are looking for,” said Robinson.
First Coast Crime Stoppers automatically offers up to $3,000 cash reward for anyone that is arrested based off of information given to them.
This digital press conference will be held on May 3rd.
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