Suspect Arrested In 1998 Chat Line Murder Of Teenager

Back in 1998, teenager Jennifer Brinkman was a social butterfly. She lived with her dad in Marysville, Washington, and she enjoyed modern methods of making friends like phone chat lines. Tragically, it was through a phone chat line that police believe she met her killer.

When her father and his then-girlfriend came back from a vacation on March 21, 1998, they discovered Brinkman dead on her bedroom floor. "It was evident from the beginning that a significant attack took place with Jennifer and an ax ended up causing her death," Marysville Police Detective Sergeant James Maples said, according to PEOPLE.

Police investigated the murder extensively, and they had the ax that killed her and other evidence. However, the case eventually went cold. Finally, on Nov. 28, 2022, police arrested suspect Jeffrey Paul Premo, 52, for the gruesome murder. He was booked into the Snohomish County Jail, and he was charged with first-degree murder in a criminal complaint that was filed into district court. The prosecutor is expected to file formal criminal changes this month.

The Seattle Times reported that investigators were able to link Premo with the murder weapon using advanced DNA technology such as genetic genealogy. Although Premo denied knowing the teenager, police found a letter he had written her, showing that he did, in fact, know her.

Police Commander Robb Lamoureux, who was the original detective on the case, said that Jennifer Brinkman’s mother was overwhelmed when she learned about the arrest, according to NBC King 5. Brinkman’s father passed away in 2013.

“It’s one of those things where it never leaves your thought process because it continues to be unsolved. It wasn’t until yesterday when we made the arrest and I was sitting at home thinking about it that it really hit that we’ve got a conclusion to this and we’re finally able to put it on a shelf and have some closure not only for us as investigators who have been involved in it but the family and the community,” Lamoureux said.