Hiya folks! If you’re new here, welcome to #MurderMysterMonday. Today I’ll be telling you about the unfortunate death of Jodine Serrin, better known as Jodi. This case was cold for ten long years before finally being cracked with the help of familial DNA (Thank you modern technology!) On February 14th (yup Valentine’s Day) in 2007 Jodi’s parents Arthur and Lois went out for a dinner and movie to celebrate. Though their daughter was 39 years old and high functioning, she suffered from mental disabilities that caused her to be dependent on her parents for car rides. Despite this, Jodi was able to live alone in a condo. She was one of five children and spoke to her parents every day, whether via phone calls or in person visits. Weirdly, they hadn’t heard from Jodi that day. They tried reaching her before and after their Valentine’s Day outing to no avail. They decided to go over to her apartment and check on her. They had a spare key but couldn’t gain entry because the chain was on. This was out of the ordinary and Arthur’s natural reaction was to force the door open and break the chain. (As a good dad should!) 

Once inside the condo, they ran to Jodi’s bedroom and opened the door and saw what they believed to be their daughter having sex with a friend. Arthur asked them to get dressed and said he and Lois would wait in another room. Some time passes and there’s no movement coming from the room. The parents went back to the room and knocked the door, after not receiving a response, they opened the room door and saw Jodi laying lifeless in bed. Arthur then rushes to his daughter and performs CPR on her… but it was too late. Jodi was ice cold, which means she was dead long before they even got there. Yup, you read correctly! Her parents walked in on a killer/ necrophiliac having sex with their already deceased daughter. It gets worse, in that moment he was no where to be found. It’s speculated that he managed to sneak pass the parents due to the layout of the of the condo. He wasn’t that smart though because he left his shoes and DNA all over Jodi. I couldn’t imagine how her parents felt. They were already a bit angry and embarrassed from thinking their daughter was dodging their calls and doing the nasty with a friend. They felt weird having to walk into that, but then to find out she wasn’t having sex but was dead for almost 24 hours and her dead body was being violated right before their eyes and they had no clue. 

It turned out that Jodine had been beaten and strangled, her cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. What was weird about the case is investigators couldn’t find an entry or exit point for the killer. What stood out was the killer’s shoes were left by the front door, which indicates Jodine let them in and told them to take their shoes off. Now if you remember, I mentioned earlier that Jodine’s father thought it was a friend of hers in the room with her. He then gave investigators the name of the person he believed to be  the killer. The suspect had an alibi that checked out and a DNA analysis ruled him out as a the killer. 

I can’t imagine how the family felt, they held on to the idea that they knew who took Jodine away from them and were wrong. 

Back at square one, the DNA was then put into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) which is the national DNA database created by the FBI. Once the DNA sample and sperm were ran through the database no matches were found. This could be because 1) the person had never committed a crime and  submitted a DNA sample, 2) They were never caught for a DNA sample after committing a crime, 3) they’ve been committing crimes since before DNA was routinely taken  (thank you Nancy Grace!) 

Through the use of phenotyping software they were able to figure out the ethnicity of the perpetrator and the color of his eyes. They determined it was a white male, with fair skin and blue eyes. Scientists were able to come up with 10 names that matched the phenotype. They found Dave Mabrito, who had a rocky past and was a meth addict who couldn’t keep a job. In the past he had been questioned about a robbery (that he wasn’t found guilty of) and had a mouth swab collected (one he refused by the way). The actual robber for that case was found so they never put Mabrito’s  DNA into CODIS. However every finger  was pointing to him since he lived in the area where Jodine was killed. 

Once identified as a suspect thanks to Genealogy, investigators rushed to pick him up for questioning, but unfortunately he had committed suicide THE SAME YEAR Jodine was murdered. Does that not scream “I did it?” It sure as hell does to me. Dave Mabreto had been cremated so there was no real way to get another sample to confirm that it was him. Investigators then went to visit his ex- wife Marisa and their son Dylan and told them about the entire case and Marisa was beyond cooperative. A month later, the Mabrito’s were informed that through Dylan’s DNA they confirmed his father did indeed murdered Jodine Serrin. In 2019, the Mabrito’s were awarded citizens of courage. They were cooperative and willing to help with the case by submitting DNA despite the possible outcome. Although Marisa was in a state of denial when she first heard her ex-husband committed the crime, when shown a picture of the tennis shoes from the crime scene she had no doubt in her mind that her ex-husband did it. 

Their cooperation not only gave Jodine’s parents somewhat of a peace of mind, but it also gave her and Dylan one too. They’d spent years believing that they were the cause of his suicide. Now they finally had the answer as to why he killed himself. It’s because he couldn’t live with what he did. The only thing people are still left wondering is how did he know Jodi and how was he able to get in and out of the apartment.

This concludes #MurderMysteryMonday and I’m happy to have shed some light on the Jodine Serrin case. May she sleep in paradise. Until next time, be safe everyone and I’ll catch ya next week!