08-01-2011, 06:49 AM
the complete Blade article:
Detective Jeff Kozak
![[Image: jeff-kozak-slaying-case-08-01-2011.jpg]](http://www.toledoblade.com/image/2011/07/31/800x_b1_cCM_z_cT_%232369/jeff-kozak-slaying-case-08-01-2011.jpg)
Maytee Clarke
![[Image: maytee-vasquez-clark-at-graveside-08-01-2011.jpg]](http://www.toledoblade.com/image/2011/08/01/800x_b1_cCM_z_cT_%232369/maytee-vasquez-clark-at-graveside-08-01-2011.jpg)
BY TAYLOR DUNGJEN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
There are days when Maytee Vasquez-Clarke visits her son, Johnny Clarke, several times a day. She lies next to him, talks to him, prays for him.
She wishes her son a good night.
It has been six months since Clarke, 21, and his girlfriend, Lisa Straub, 20, were found dead inside Miss Straub's parents' Springfield Township home.
Mrs. Clarke's husband found their bodies on the floor just before 4 a.m. on Jan. 31. The couple's hands were bound with duct tape, and they had plastic bags over their heads.
The killer came prepared.
At the Lucas County Sheriff's Office, Detective Jeff Kozak keeps reminders of the couple tacked to the wall at eye level across from his desk. There are printouts of the electronic billboards that feature a photograph of Clarke and Miss Straub with "double homicide victims" in bold red letters, the program and a prayer card from Miss Straub's funeral, and a list of questions and thoughts the detective turns over in his mind.
Written in black marker on lined notebook paper, No. 1 reads, "Who knew mom/dad were out of town?" No. 4: "Brought tape with them!"
The case, the circumstances, are troubling.
Detectives work the case every day. They say they are leaving no avenue unexplored, no question unasked.
"Everywhere I go, I have a working file on the homicide with me," Detective Kozak said, putting a hefty brown expandable file on his desk. It is with him, at his side, 24 hours a day, no matter where he goes.
He never knows when the phone will ring with that one bit of information that will put all of the puzzle pieces together.
"I can't tell you how many interviews I've done and how many polygraphs I've done," Detective Kozak said.
A tall filing cabinet in the detective bureau is will likely to be filled soon with information from the investigation.
Investigators are working on filling the fourth drawer now.
"We have more than 100 items in evidence," said Detective Phil Williams.
Detectives Kozak and Williams have been on the case since Day One. About 4 a.m. on Jan. 31, they got the phone call and shortly after were inside the Longacre Lane home.
'It's a nightmare'
It was horrific.
Miss Straub's parents were on a cruise celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary when family members had to call them home.
Jeff and Marybeth Straub could not be reached for comment. Jim Verbosky, Miss Straub's uncle who has been acting as the family spokesman, did not return calls for comment.
"It's a nightmare," Mrs. Clarke said. "I think about it every second of every day of every night of every minute of every hour. It's the worst nightmare. The worst pain. The worst sadness, despair, anguish, the feeling of dread from the time I wake up until I go to bed. It breaks my heart every time I open my eyes and they aren't in the room."
Mrs. Clarke keeps reminders of her son everywhere. Inside her home, she has five shrines to her oldest boy -- one in her bedroom and four downstairs.
There are dozens of photos, if not 100, on her iPhone. She has a photo of Clarke taped to the dashboard of her father's minivan.
On her arm is a new tattoo that says "JC One Love." She plans to add portraits of her son and Miss Straub.
Asked how she's doing, the mother of three said she is "horrible."
It hasn't been easy losing her son, who was also her best friend, she said.
She said she goes to her son's resting place -- she will not refer to it as the cemetery or grave -- at Ottawa Hills Memorial Park every day, sometimes multiple times. She and her 8-year-old son, Jacob, tend to the site, trimming grass around the stone or adding flowers or angels to the elaborate decor, which is visible from the road.
She doesn't leave the house unless it is to visit her son's resting place, and she won't let her other boys visit their friends. The children all have to play at her home.
"I'm stuck in my room day and night unless I'm going out there with him," Mrs. Clarke said. "I feel guilty going out without him because he's not here. … I'm afraid to let [Jacob] go out and play. It has made me really paranoid."
At Clarke's resting place last week, Mrs. Clarke was wearing a red memorial T-shirt and pajama pants.
"I don't even get dressed anymore," she said, hiding behind dark sunglasses.
Her son Jacob stood at her side pointing to various grave sites asking questions about the deceased.
Mrs. Clarke has at least three Facebook pages dedicated to her son and Miss Straub and to finding the person responsible for the "horrendous, sick acts."
Her family, she said, is suffering.
There's never healing
Her 15-year-old son, Jovanny, has "enclosed himself in his room where he doesn't really want to talk to anyone or do anything." Mrs. Clarke pulled him out of school and now he takes classes online.
She and her husband fight -- she blames him for not being able to revive the couple when he broke down the door to the Straubs' home.
"I will scream at him: Why couldn't he bring them back to life? Why couldn't he breathe life into them?" she said. "He says he tried. It is life in hell on Earth every single day."
Mrs. Clarke is not working and her husband is taking time off.
"He's afraid to go to work because he thinks he needs to protect the house because these people are still out there," she said.
Each passing day only gets harder, she said.
"There's never healing," she said. "You never heal from something like this."
Mom will not rest
Lucas County Sheriff’s Detective Jeff Kozak said he keeps the file on the Springfield Township slayings with him at all times and works on the investigation daily.
In an April interview, Mrs. Clarke said she had re-enacted the crime scene in her living room. She bound her hands and positioned herself like Miss Straub and tried to pull a plastic bag off of a stuffed animal's head with her feet -- acting as if the toy was her son.
She's a mother who will not rest.
She was calling the sheriff's office multiple times a day, sending emails and text messages to detectives.
Now she works through daily email messages with Maj. Ron Keel. She wants to know if progress is being made and if the case is still being worked on.
"Be assured, we are working on it daily," Detective Kozak said. "It's my case. I'm not closing it. Period."
Detectives Kozak and Williams knew from the start the case would be difficult.
"It was something I'd never seen before and, in talking to other detectives, they hadn't either," he said.
But the physical toll -- the detectives haven't taken any time off since the homicide -- matches the emotional toll.
"A double homicide is rare to begin with and to have two kids who seem so innocent and are so young, it makes it more heinous," Detective Kozak said. "It's awful, and, you know, we've all got kids."
The detectives don't always go to funerals of cases they work, but the Straub family asked them to come to Miss Straub's private ceremony.
"You get very close very fast with a victim's family," Detective Kozak said. "I wanted to go anyway. Our last picture of Lisa was not something you want to remember, and we wanted to show our support for the family."
When the case started, information and tips coming into Crime Stoppers were flooding detectives' desks. As time has gone on, the information has slowed down.
The detectives start their day by checking Crime Stopper tips and analyzing the information they have.
Is there something, anything, they haven't looked at yet? What are they missing?
Still, they are confident they will solve the case.
"A majority of our day is spent working the case," Detective Kozak said. "Even the stuff that sounds ridiculous we follow up on. We will not put this one away."
Detective Jeff Kozak
Maytee Clarke
BY TAYLOR DUNGJEN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
There are days when Maytee Vasquez-Clarke visits her son, Johnny Clarke, several times a day. She lies next to him, talks to him, prays for him.
She wishes her son a good night.
It has been six months since Clarke, 21, and his girlfriend, Lisa Straub, 20, were found dead inside Miss Straub's parents' Springfield Township home.
Mrs. Clarke's husband found their bodies on the floor just before 4 a.m. on Jan. 31. The couple's hands were bound with duct tape, and they had plastic bags over their heads.
The killer came prepared.
At the Lucas County Sheriff's Office, Detective Jeff Kozak keeps reminders of the couple tacked to the wall at eye level across from his desk. There are printouts of the electronic billboards that feature a photograph of Clarke and Miss Straub with "double homicide victims" in bold red letters, the program and a prayer card from Miss Straub's funeral, and a list of questions and thoughts the detective turns over in his mind.
Written in black marker on lined notebook paper, No. 1 reads, "Who knew mom/dad were out of town?" No. 4: "Brought tape with them!"
The case, the circumstances, are troubling.
Detectives work the case every day. They say they are leaving no avenue unexplored, no question unasked.
"Everywhere I go, I have a working file on the homicide with me," Detective Kozak said, putting a hefty brown expandable file on his desk. It is with him, at his side, 24 hours a day, no matter where he goes.
He never knows when the phone will ring with that one bit of information that will put all of the puzzle pieces together.
"I can't tell you how many interviews I've done and how many polygraphs I've done," Detective Kozak said.
A tall filing cabinet in the detective bureau is will likely to be filled soon with information from the investigation.
Investigators are working on filling the fourth drawer now.
"We have more than 100 items in evidence," said Detective Phil Williams.
Detectives Kozak and Williams have been on the case since Day One. About 4 a.m. on Jan. 31, they got the phone call and shortly after were inside the Longacre Lane home.
'It's a nightmare'
It was horrific.
Miss Straub's parents were on a cruise celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary when family members had to call them home.
Jeff and Marybeth Straub could not be reached for comment. Jim Verbosky, Miss Straub's uncle who has been acting as the family spokesman, did not return calls for comment.
"It's a nightmare," Mrs. Clarke said. "I think about it every second of every day of every night of every minute of every hour. It's the worst nightmare. The worst pain. The worst sadness, despair, anguish, the feeling of dread from the time I wake up until I go to bed. It breaks my heart every time I open my eyes and they aren't in the room."
Mrs. Clarke keeps reminders of her son everywhere. Inside her home, she has five shrines to her oldest boy -- one in her bedroom and four downstairs.
There are dozens of photos, if not 100, on her iPhone. She has a photo of Clarke taped to the dashboard of her father's minivan.
On her arm is a new tattoo that says "JC One Love." She plans to add portraits of her son and Miss Straub.
Asked how she's doing, the mother of three said she is "horrible."
It hasn't been easy losing her son, who was also her best friend, she said.
She said she goes to her son's resting place -- she will not refer to it as the cemetery or grave -- at Ottawa Hills Memorial Park every day, sometimes multiple times. She and her 8-year-old son, Jacob, tend to the site, trimming grass around the stone or adding flowers or angels to the elaborate decor, which is visible from the road.
She doesn't leave the house unless it is to visit her son's resting place, and she won't let her other boys visit their friends. The children all have to play at her home.
"I'm stuck in my room day and night unless I'm going out there with him," Mrs. Clarke said. "I feel guilty going out without him because he's not here. … I'm afraid to let [Jacob] go out and play. It has made me really paranoid."
At Clarke's resting place last week, Mrs. Clarke was wearing a red memorial T-shirt and pajama pants.
"I don't even get dressed anymore," she said, hiding behind dark sunglasses.
Her son Jacob stood at her side pointing to various grave sites asking questions about the deceased.
Mrs. Clarke has at least three Facebook pages dedicated to her son and Miss Straub and to finding the person responsible for the "horrendous, sick acts."
Her family, she said, is suffering.
There's never healing
Her 15-year-old son, Jovanny, has "enclosed himself in his room where he doesn't really want to talk to anyone or do anything." Mrs. Clarke pulled him out of school and now he takes classes online.
She and her husband fight -- she blames him for not being able to revive the couple when he broke down the door to the Straubs' home.
"I will scream at him: Why couldn't he bring them back to life? Why couldn't he breathe life into them?" she said. "He says he tried. It is life in hell on Earth every single day."
Mrs. Clarke is not working and her husband is taking time off.
"He's afraid to go to work because he thinks he needs to protect the house because these people are still out there," she said.
Each passing day only gets harder, she said.
"There's never healing," she said. "You never heal from something like this."
Mom will not rest
Lucas County Sheriff’s Detective Jeff Kozak said he keeps the file on the Springfield Township slayings with him at all times and works on the investigation daily.
In an April interview, Mrs. Clarke said she had re-enacted the crime scene in her living room. She bound her hands and positioned herself like Miss Straub and tried to pull a plastic bag off of a stuffed animal's head with her feet -- acting as if the toy was her son.
She's a mother who will not rest.
She was calling the sheriff's office multiple times a day, sending emails and text messages to detectives.
Now she works through daily email messages with Maj. Ron Keel. She wants to know if progress is being made and if the case is still being worked on.
"Be assured, we are working on it daily," Detective Kozak said. "It's my case. I'm not closing it. Period."
Detectives Kozak and Williams knew from the start the case would be difficult.
"It was something I'd never seen before and, in talking to other detectives, they hadn't either," he said.
But the physical toll -- the detectives haven't taken any time off since the homicide -- matches the emotional toll.
"A double homicide is rare to begin with and to have two kids who seem so innocent and are so young, it makes it more heinous," Detective Kozak said. "It's awful, and, you know, we've all got kids."
The detectives don't always go to funerals of cases they work, but the Straub family asked them to come to Miss Straub's private ceremony.
"You get very close very fast with a victim's family," Detective Kozak said. "I wanted to go anyway. Our last picture of Lisa was not something you want to remember, and we wanted to show our support for the family."
When the case started, information and tips coming into Crime Stoppers were flooding detectives' desks. As time has gone on, the information has slowed down.
The detectives start their day by checking Crime Stopper tips and analyzing the information they have.
Is there something, anything, they haven't looked at yet? What are they missing?
Still, they are confident they will solve the case.
"A majority of our day is spent working the case," Detective Kozak said. "Even the stuff that sounds ridiculous we follow up on. We will not put this one away."