CARLSBAD ? A new television series may help solve the Katie Sepich murder case.
It's been almost three years since the brutal slaying of the 22-year-old Sepich, a New Mexico State University graduate student from Carlsbad.
Her killer has yet to be found.
A new television series set to begin on Court TV in June could bring forth more leads for investigators to follow up on, and possibly lead to the killer, said Katie's mother, Jayann Sepich.
Katie was raped and strangled and her body was dumped at a former landfill site in Las Cruces. Her body was found on Aug. 31, 2003, and with few leads, the case has grown cold.
Jessica McCool, production coordinator for the new series titled "Haunting Evidence," explained that the show uses two well-known psychics who are filmed over a 24-hour period as they look for new evidence in an unsolved murder.
According to Court TV's Web site, psychic profiler Carla Baron, medium and psychic John J. Oliver and paranormal investigator Patrick Burns work together as an unconventional team of experts to find clues that will provide new insights into real-life cases that have gone cold.
McCool said the production team and one of the psychics met with the Sepich family about a month ago.
"We also went to Las Cruces to the site where Katie's body was found," McCool said. "The show about Katie is currently in editing and it is scheduled to air sometime in July."
McCool said that after the show airs, the information gleaned from the psychics will be shared with the Do?a Ana County Sheriff's office, which handled the homicide investigation.
McCool said that psychic John Oliver comes into the cases without prior knowledge about them. He is not told the name of the deceased person until he arrives on the scene where the body was found.
Jayann Sepich said Oliver and the producers assured the family that he knew nothing about their story prior to filming.
"If that's true, then I am truly amazed," she said.
"We had a private reading and he told us things about ourselves and Katie that no one would know outside of our family. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will come up with one good lead to help find Katie's killer."
Sepich said she hopes the show is respectful to her daughter, and that the family agreed to participate in the Court TV show for two reasons.
"Maybe it will help to solve Katie's murder. Her case essentially has grown cold. It's been almost three years since it happened and they have no new leads," she explained.
The second reason involves Jayann Sepich's successful efforts to pass a state law that requires DNA testing at the time of a felony arrest.
"The more people see the show, hopefully it will bring to their attention the need for every state to have a law that requires people arrested for certain felonies to submit to a DNA sample for entry into a data base," she said.
"Six other states have passed the law, but we still have 44 states to go," Sepich said.
"The fact is that they may never find who killed Katie. But I don't want any other family to go through what we have gone through.
"It's a fact that most offenders repeat crimes," Jayann Sepich said. "If we have their DNA in a data bank, it might help save someone else's child."
Stella Davis writes for the Carlsbad Current-Argus, a member of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership.Psychics will try to solve murder
Source: http://lcsun-news.com/news/ci_3900121
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