GUILTY GA - Jasmine Benjamin, 17, VSU student, murdered in her dorm, 18 Nov 2012

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SurfieTX

SurfieTX

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I know what this is like. I got a "mass text message" learning about my best friend's death. All it said was R.I.P. and his name, and it was from an "acquaintance" who knew someone at the hospital.

Unfortunately, people just want to be the first one to get the word out, and during that, the family's feelings are overlooked.

Just like when Nancy Grace was already talking about gruesome details in Jessica's case, before LE had released details to the public, and very likely her family.
 
According to Surfie's link the victim was laying on a couch in the study area for 12 hours before anyone noticed she was dead. Then it was thought to be a natural death but later found to be murder.
 
I went to Jasmine's candlelight service last night. It's been 3 weeks and no news! This occurred on a university campus, for goodness sake!
 
http://www.11alive.com/news/article...dents-parents-fear-investigation-growing-cold

VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) -- The parents of a Gwinnett County teen found murdered in her campus dorm at Valdosta State University before the Thanksgiving break say they're concerned the police investigation has grown cold.

"The person who did this got to enjoy Christmas, New Year's eve, New Year's day," Jasmine's stepfather James Jackson. "We have no closure. She's gone."

It's been more than six weeks since students discovered 17-year-old Jasmine Benjamin dead in the study hall of her campus dorm.

Police in Valdosta say they're treating the death as a homicide.

He said the autopsy raised more questions about the death, but declined to provide details. He said toxicology testing, which involves testing for possible substances in a person's body, has not yet been completed

*more at link w/video
 
Evidently some delay in reporting Jasmine's death - parents find out via Facebook

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/parents-learn-daughter-death-facebook-article-1.1210042

Two heartbroken parents want answers from a Georgia university after they learned about their daughter’s on-campus death through Facebook.

Nursing student Jasmine Benjamin, 17, was found dead earlier this month on a couch in her dorm’s common room at Valdosta State University. Her parents told CBS Atlanta police said she had been dead for at least 12 hours.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...eath-facebook-article-1.1210042#ixzz2HFoozNKJ
 
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/11/28/murder-investigation-after-student-found-dead-dorm

Martinelli described Jasmine as “very bubbly, very energetic” and fun-loving. She had been a straight-A student at Central Gwinnett High School and was studying to become a nurse at Valdosta State. Martinelli said she hoped to follow in the footsteps of her mother, who has been a trauma nurse for 15 years.

According to Martinelli, Benjamin and her mother were extremely close. She also had two younger sisters. The family was holding visitation for Benjamin on Wednesday, with a funeral scheduled for Thursday night at 6 p.m. at the Gwinnett Chapel in Lawrenceville.

Benjamin’s mother and stepfather had told WGCL they were unhappy that the university did not contact them directly to inform them of her death and said they first learned about what happened from a friend’s Facebook post.

University Director of Communications Thressea Boyd provided the following statement on the school’s handling of the notification process: “In regards to death of a student, it is Valdosta State University's standard procedure to contact the law enforcement agency within the hometown of the student's parents or next of kin. The Valdosta State Police Department notified the Gwinnett County Police Department and two officers from this agency made the official notification to Jasmine's parents.”

Martinelli said it was sad that the family learned of Benjamin’s death online before the officers arrived to give the official notification but not unexpected given the way information spreads through social media.
 
http://www.facebook.com/jasmine.benjamin.756

She has almost three hundred friends from the FB page that was set up for students to provide tips. I hope it has been resourceful.

She was a beautiful young lady.

RIP Jasmine.

jasminesullivan.jpg
 
Ive spent a lot of time going through Jasmine's timeline on twitter in the past 24 hours. She had two 'main' cyber friends when she started the account, one male and one female. I presume she knew these people from high school.

I would hope LE have spoken to these two, only to eliminate them from the investigation and to also garner any information that could lead to Jasmine's killer being found.

Jasmine appeared to be a very warm and caring person with a very quick wit from her minimal twitter entries. I hope her killer or killers are swiftly brought to justice.
 
I hope LE are now giving this case their full focus after taking their eye spectacularly off the ball in the early stages of the case.

I've read through Jasmine's TL on twitter, and I believe there are a few good people on there who would be willing to talk if asked.
It would be so so good if we had a local on here to answer some questions, like,

Was her nickname 'Slick'?
When was the last time someone spoke to Jasmine face to face?
Had she complained of headaches or ill health?
What was her eating, drinking regime?
 
It saddens and amazes me how little media coverage injuries, crimes, deaths etc on school campus' seem to get apparently due to the image of the school becoming tarnished. Living very close to a university town we locals do hear about the crimes but watch almost ever story crumble and stall rather than to be picked up by AP and to go national. It is so very sad that the success of the school and money is more important than student's safety and wellbeing or than justice in on campus crimes.
 
It is sickening angelwngs.

With regard the foul play on the campus', could some of them be attributed to fraternities?
 
So depressing. Not only was she only 17 and beautiful and full of life, but she wanted to be a trauma nurse like mom. So now the world loses out on yet another precious soul who would have gone on to help how many others in her life?? !!

Such a huge loss to us all. Peace to her family, and my hope for justice to be done! :rose:
 
jellybeanz said:
It is sickening angelwngs.

With regard the foul play on the campus', could some of them be attributed to fraternities?
Click to expand...

I would imagine that lots of accidental alcohol poisionings, or hazing 'gone too far' and many 'party accidents' can be attributed to fraternities and the college kids being college kids, Jellybeanz, but I doubt that much of the 'foul play' can be attributed to college frats. What always infuriated me as a former educator was being witness to many things 'brushed under the rug' to keep a clean the image of the school. The 'cover-ups' gets even worse at the university level as parents research the schools and towns in which the university is located in order to select the most safe, most reputable school to 'pay' to send their children. Parents constantly seeing the crime rate rise on campus or in the local town of the university where they are considering sending their child, most often look elsewhere to a safer setting which boasts of low crime rates and healthy happy students. The media sincerely controls the 'cash flow' at universities. They can report the crimes as they happen or they can kill stories to downplay the crimes so the local town and university can keep their reputations clean.
 
So sad to hear of another mysterious death for a college student. What in the world. So young, a nursing student...her poor family.

I remember our dorm had three different common rooms. One was near one of the front entrances, and was rowdier, that's where people stopped, chatted, watched TV, waited for visitors, etc. The other one was actually off a courtyard area, and was very quiet. That's the one where students would go to actually...study, LOL. They had couches and it wasn't uncommon to see kids crashed out there, either. It wasn't used all that frequently, compared to the other one.

This was before Thanksgiving break, correct? Might they have been having exams before break, and maybe kids were pulling late or all-nighters?

I could envision, in my old dorm, that someone might have been laying down on a couch for hours on end and other students wouldn't give it another look, assuming someone was just napping. Or...on weekends, the dorms were quiet as a whole, because so many students left on weekends and common rooms weren't used that much.

Re FB, I also learned of a dear friend's death from a car accident last April through FB. Someone driving by saw the accident scene.

And just as in this case...we had a local 19 year old girl killed in a car accident one morning when she was on her way to school. Yes, her parents found out through FB. Again, because other students driving to school saw it and started posting.

As someone upthread said, it's becoming more and more common as people want to be the first to state something...or purely innocent reasons, such as shock and disbelief, type their thoughts and grief...not realizing that other family members may not even know yet.

I hope to read more...this is a mystery, as to what wasn't evident in the beginning, but what the autopsy showed that led to more questions. Tox results might be critical. Drugs, alcohol, pin needle marks, internal trauma...what???

RIP, dear Jasmine
 
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