Janet Kovacich

To see all of the evidence in Janet's case click here: 

•27 year-old Janet Kovacich disappeared from the family home in Auburn, CA on the morning of September 8, 1982. She made an appointment on the phone at 10:00 am, and Mr. Kovacich said that he left Janet in the master bathroom at about 10:15 am, finishing her hair and makeup for the 11:10 am meeting. Mr. Kovacich said that he went shopping for two sale items he saw in the morning paper, to the gym, and then to drop off time slips and check his mailbox at the Sheriff’s office, where he was a Sergeant in charge of the jail, and the K-9 program.

•Mr. Kovacich said that when he returned home shortly after noon, Janet was not home. He believed that she was at the school appointment with her mother, and he did not grow concerned until the children’s carpool returned them from school, and Janet was not there to greet them as usual. Mr. Kovacich checked with friends, neighbors, Janet’s parents, the school, and his parents, but nobody had heard from Janet. 

Kristi, Janet, Paul, and John Kovacich

•Mr. Kovacich reported Janet missing to Sgt. Butts at Auburn PD the next morning, but the department waited 72 hours to act per their missing adult policy. Sgt. Butts explained that in 2008 at Mr. Kovacich's murder trial:

•Chief Nick Willick confirmed that he was made aware of Janet's disapperance, but did not order any action taken for several days because Sgt. Butts had spoken to Janet's mother, and he felt that she knew where Janet was:

•The Kovaich home was located at the end of a wooded cul-de-sac. The only portion of the home and yard that was visible to the neighbors was the front driveway area:

•The Kovacich's next door neighbor described the area to police in a later interview:

•The Kovacich home backed on to the 40 acres Sisters of Mercy convent property. In 1982 the entire neighborhood was very rural, with several of the nearby housing developments not yet built. Path B below led to the back fence of the Kovacich property:

•On September 14, 1982, CalDOJ did the forensic field investigation, and the criminalist found no signs of violence or struggle in the home or vehicles, but he did identify “signs of forced entry” at the rear of the house. A sliding section of the dining room window had broken glass near the lock, but the damage had gone undetected because the screen had been put in place to cover it. The criminalist also noted other bent window screens on the back of the house.

•Since Auburn Police Chief Willick believed that Janet was voluntarily missing, no effort was made to canvass the neighborhood or verify Mr. Kovacich’s alibi. However, the next door neighbor, a close friend of Janet’s, reported that she had called Janet at 9:30 pm the night before she disappeared to report that Mr. Kovacich’s K-9, “Adolph,” was in the driveway —a highly unusual and alarming event.

• Janet told the neighbor that Mr. Kovacich had left about 30 minutes earlier to pick up dinner. It appeared that a stranger had let the dog out of the fenced yard believing that Mr. Kovacich had left for his usual night shift. Janet disappeared immediately after Mr. Kovacich said he left the house the next morning.

•Years later, the neighbor's husband decribed to Auburn PD exactly how concerned he was when they saw Adolph out that night:

•The call about Adolph being let out of the gate added to a prior mystery. Two weeks earlier, K-9 Fuzz became ill in the home’s fenced yard, and died at the veterinarian’s office. 

•Transcription of Vet Notes 8/22/82 - “ Listless one week, anorexia, seemed feverish last night—Owners gave two aspirin. Licking hairs off front legs yesterday; in fenced yard; found comatose this am. Had normal stool and vomited in car on way here. D.O.A. attempts at CPR failed; owners will dispose. (OVER)  1) Save vomitus for heavy metal analysis (in refrig.); 2) Owners decline autopsy; 3) Check yard for poisons, Check vaccine record of other dog at home esp. parvo.”      (NOTE: Vet charged $20 for conducting this in-person yard check for sources of poison at 244 Forest Court.)

•Her inspection of the Kovacich property failed to find a toxic item, so she was unable to order testing on the sample she saved from Fuzz:

•Later, during an attempt to gain custody of the Kovacich children, Janet’s mother accused Mr. Kovacich of killing Fuzz to “scare” Janet. Investigators interviewed Dr. Hershenhouse, and she confirmed that she had excluded blunt force trauma, and diagnosed poisoning:

•The claims of animal abuse were found to be false following multiple independent police, child welfare, and court investigations. Mr. Kovacich continued serving with the Sheriff’s Office until his retirement a decade later. He supervised the jail and K-9 program with no citizen or staff complaints, and he received numerous commendations during his 20 year career. In the early 1990s he obtained his private investigator’s license, and worked in that field until his conviction in 2009.

•In 1995 some people walking at Rollins Lake north of Auburn found a skull while the water in the reservoir was temporarily lowered. Additional searches found a femur and set of dentures. 

•The lead PCSO investigator on Janet's case asked their forensic anthropologist to identify the remains as Janet, leading to the conclusion that the leg bone and skull came from the same person--a female. Later DNA testing proved that the leg bone belonged to an unidentified male, as did the dentures. 

•The medical examiner could not determine a cause of death, the gender of the remains, or determine how long the skull was outside--although all parties agreed it could have been decades--not the 13 years Janet had been missing. Despite the uncertainty, the judge at Paul Kovacich's 2008-09 trial allowed the jury to hear that the skull might have belonged to Janet, and the broken section might have been a bullet hole. 

•In 2005, with the help of the FBI, Auburn PD obtained a search warrant for the property of Mr. Kovacich’s parents, where investigators theorized they would recover Janet’s remains. The only “remains” they recovered were of K-9 Fuzz, and the dog then became the focus of the investigation.

•FBI Special Agent Christopher Hopkins sent the dog’s remains to multiple private labs, hiding some of those actions using his personal “Hotmail” account. Mr. Kovacich had no history of violence in his marriage, personal, or professional life, so in those undisclosed emails, SA Hopkins asked his friend, forensic anthropologist Dr. Symes, to “find” broken bones on the dog because, “we need to demonstrate to the jury that the suspect has a violent side.” SA Hopkins secretly asked Dr. Symes, to manufacture evidence, but Dr. Symes refused:

•Dr. Symes' findings were confirmed by forensic anthropologists at Chico State, and veterinarian pathologist Dr. William Spangler. Just as Dr. Hershenhouse at determined at the time of Fuzz's death, the experts concluded that he had died with no broken bones or traumatic soft tissue injuries. 

•In 2023, it was learned that Dr. Symes had also discovered the true cause of Fuzz's death--a stranger had fed Fuzz a pork spare rib in his fenced yard, and the bone was still inside the dog's digestive tract when he died. Dr. Symes secretly wrote to SA Hopkins that he could not confirm the absence or presence of poison after more than 20 years of burial. FBI SA Hopkins hid the report and "Hotmail" communications. 

•The rib bone had been found in the bag with Fuzz's remains, and SA Hopkins hoped that it was human, and would prove that Janet had been buried in Fuzz's grave at some point:

•SA Hopkins secretly sent the rib bone to Dr. Symes (a friend and former colleage) for identification instead of using the FBI Lab's own expert. Nobody would have ever known about the bone's origin if Dr. Symes hadn't randomly blurted out the story on the witness stand:

•So, in 2005, three years prior to the trial, SA Hopkins knew exactly how Fuzz died--a stranger fed him a likely poisoned spare rib. Presumably this was the same stranger than let Adolph out of the yard two weeks later, and kidnapped Janet the next morning. During the trial, nobody understood what Dr. Symes was saying about Fuzz's death. The defense was just relieved that he said that the rib bone did not belong to Janet.

•SA Hopkins also knew that the rib bone found by Dr. Symes within the dog’s remains matched one found on the Sister's of Mercy property, near the Kovacich rear fence. Auburn PD had taken that bone into evidence after it was excavated by convent workers installing a sprinkler line in the 1990s. Inexplicably, that area had not been searched by CalDOJ during the 1982 field investigation.

[RETYPED VERSION OF ABOVE FOR LEGIBILITY]

9/25/97  We met with Lindy VIRGIL at Sisters of Mercy. He's been there over 20 years and recalls Janet's disappearance. He does not recall any search of the grounds. The German Shepards at 244 Forest Court always acted vicious, as he recalls. No memory of ever seeing the residents. Last spring, Lindy and a new employee (another "Joe") trenched for a pipeline to install sprinkler valves in the NE pasture. They dug up a bone that we need to relocate and examine.  He'll call when Joe returns from funeral leave next week. 

[RETYPED VERSION OF ABOVE FOR LEGIBILITY]

10/14/97  Called Lindy at Sisters of Mercy at 1310. Joe is there today... I'll go by and pick up the bone for analysis. Met Joe OLIVERA and recovered bone at 1400 hrs. Eddie and Rebecca are sure it's an animal bone... it's been sawed at one end... looks like a bovine bone.  

•Because SA Hopkins had hidden the cut rib bone found inside Fuzz's remains, nobody was able to make the connection, and realize that there was proof that someone had fed Fuzz the spare rib from the convent property. It also appeared that the stranger had a second one for Adolph that ended up being left near the Kovacich fence. Both bones went "missing" in evidence, and were not given to the defense experts.

•Since the pork rib bones were unknown prior to trial, the judge in Mr. Kovacich's murder case ruled that the cause of Fuzz's death was a mystery that could not be solved, and the DA could tell the jury that Janet's deceased mother had*claimed* that Mr. Kovacich had kicked the dog to death. She was dead, and could not be crossed examined, but the jury heard her disproven double hearsay statements anyway--all because FBI SA Christopher Hopkins intentionally hid the real evidence. 

•Instead of the death of Fuzz being evidence that a stranger killed him in order to kidnap Janet, it was used as "proof" that Mr. Kovacich was secretly violent.

•During pre-trial motions the judge ruled that the defense could not tell the jury about any of the other unsolved Placer homicides because they did not have an identified offender that could be tied as a suspect in Janet's kidnapping. The judge said that the defense would have to solve those cases, and then ruled that they could not see the case files. All that the jury was allowed to hear was that nothing like Janet's case had ever happened before in the area--so it had to be her husband. 

•The rest of the DA's case against Mr. Kovacich was "a stranger didn't do it."

•The DA gave the jury several specific reasons why he believed that a stranger could not have kidnapped and killed Janet:

--The house was in a safe middle-class suburban neighborhood on a cul-de-sac;

--Nobody had a motive to kidnap and kill a woman like Janet;

--A stranger did not have the knowledge of the area to get Janet out of the house through the backyard;

--A stranger would not have known how to get into the house undetected;

--A kidnapper would not have made Janet take her purse;

--The time between when Paul left at 10:15 and when Janet would have needed to leave around 10:30 was too short for a stranger to come in and kidnap her;

--The was no offender who kidnapped women using the MO in Janet's case; 

--A stranger could not have gotten past Adolph, who was in the yard when Janet disappeared; and

--Only a police officer trained in restraining people, hiding forensic evidence, and carrying a .38 or .357 revolver could have committed the crime without getting caught.

THE SAFE CUL-DE-SAC

•There was an offender who fit that description--the man the press had dubbed the "Cul-De-Sac Killer"--Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr.  He favored homes on suburban cul-de-sacs, where he targeted the petite brunettes in their 20's who lived inside.

“The killer seemed to fixate on pretty brunettes between the ages of 18 and 33”

- Ventura Star 11/26/2002

•The preferred victim type of the Cul-De-Sac Killer was exactly the same as the EAR and Visalia Ransacker--young petite brunettes, with or without their successful male partners.

•Janet Kovacich was DeAngelo’s preferred victim type—a petite brunette housewife living in a new house at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac, with a private yard, backing onto an open space and irrigation canal. 

• When DeAngelo targeted couples, he chose men who had a successful career and family that he particularly envied—and wanted to feel powerful over.

•Additionally, DeAngelo had a specific grudge against Mr. Kovacich because he and Adolph received a commendation and positive press coverage for capturing a suspect that DeAngelo had failed to properly arrest.

•Another possible motive never investigated was that someone was obsessed with Janet. She had reported being followed in the fall of 1979 by someone she thought she recognized as local law enforcement--the exact same time that Nick Willick reported being stalked by DeAngelo at his home near the Kovacichs. 

•Not only did Janet fit DeAngelo's preferred victim type, but she had attended San Juan High School with Sharon and Patricia Huddle. There could have been a personal motive between Sharon and Janet, or just DeAngelo's general obsession with girls from that school.

•Former Auburn PD Chief Nick Willick supervised and fired DeAngelo, and Willick gave numerous interviews where he recounted incidents of being stalked at his home, and DeAngelo's desire to get revenge on him for "ruining" his career in law enforcement. 

•DeAngelo had a very well documented and known window entry method:

•At Paul Kovacich's trial, the prosecutor argued that his status as a trained police Sgt. made him uniquely qualified to carry out the crime:

•DeAngelo has an AA and BA in law enforcement, and more than six years active duty service which included burglary and homicide investigations. 

•Perhaps most importantly, DeAngelo worked with all of the Kovacich case investigators at Auburn PD, and knew exactly how Janet's disappearance would be investigated, the 72 "wait and see" policy, and that the department would be extremely short staffed during the Gold Country Fair.

• DeAngelo was an Auburn Police Officer from August, 1976-July, 1979. 

• Although he left Exeter PD as a Sergeant, assigned to investigate burglaries and major crimes, he never rose above patrol officer in Auburn. At APD, he conducted initial scene investigations on traffic accidents, shoplifting calls, and a couple of residential burglaries, but must of his time was spent on nuisance complaints. 

•During this same period of time, DeAngelo committed about 50 EAR attacks across northern CA, and killed Brian & Katie Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. 

• For three years, a serial rapist and killer also patrolled the Kovacich neighborhood with a gun, badge, uniform, and police car. 

Closing argument of prosecutor David Tellman to the jury.

•DeAngelo patrolled the Kovacich's Forest Court neighborhood, and answered several calls directly behind their home:

A few days before DeAngelo responded to the call at the community pool behind the Kovacich home, he was committing this crime:

• EAR Attack - July 6, 1978 - Thursday, 2:50 am, Amador Ave., Davis 

33 yr-old female, two children present.  This residence was located approximately 700 feet from another EAR attack (6/24/78). DeAngelo removed a window screen and used a screwdriver to break a small hole in the kitchen window at the rear of the residence to make entry.  Armed with a gun and a knife from her kitchen, DeAngelo confronted the victim in her bedroom. 

Closing argument of prosecutor David Tellman to the jury.

•DeAngelo's long history of injuring and killing dogs is well known, and documented.

•In addition to being the type of person who would have killed Fuzz with a poisoned pork spare rib, DeAngelo is exactly the person who could have easily gotten past Adolph, but not Fuzz:

•DeAngelo worked with Adolph because he was the K-9 contracted to assist Auburn PD, so the dog knew him. 

•DeAngelo's known MO was to enter his victim's home immediately after her husband or parents left her alone, tell her that he just wanted/needed money, and ask her for her purse. It was a ruse to keep the girls and women calm until he had them tied up. He did not steal money from the purses, but occasionally took the victim's photo ID. 

•The Placer DA's entire case against Paul Kovacich actually pointed directly and specifically to Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr.--a serial killer living nearby, whose wife was known to be working at DeWitt Center in Auburn on 9-8-82.