July 10, 2025 • 31 mins
Joyce Sapp had been a beloved fixture in her Liberty City neighborhood ever since she was child. At 67, she still lived in the same house she grew up in. So when she was tragically found murdered, all anyone could ask was, who would ever want to hurt Joyce?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This show discusses cold case murders and the people who
spend their lives fighting for justice. We hope to raise
public awareness and invite witnesses to come forward with evidence
that could potentially be investigated by law enforcement. We also
remind listeners that everyone has pursued innocent until proven guilty
in a court of law, and that an arrest is
not a conviction. Nothing in the podcast is intended to
(00:22):
state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted
of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I was out of town that weekend and my cousin
called me and he said, you know, we have been
trying to get in contact with Joyce. So he told me,
you say, well, see if you can call it, maybe
she may recognize your number.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Thursday, June twenty second, twenty seventeen, was when Cornelius Allen
first heard that anyone was trying to reach his friend,
sixty six year old Joyce Sap. Cornelius and Joyce had
lived across the street from each other in Miami's Liberty
City neighborhood for fifty years, ever since they were little kids.
Even though Cornelius had later moved away, they remained close friends,
(01:06):
but really everyone in the neighborhood knew Joyce. If you
didn't see her at church, you'd probably see her on
one of her regular walks. She loved walking with her
dog Gainsville or by herself and stopping to chat along
the way. But now no one had seen her for
a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I called, didn't get an answer, So then I called
her brother. I said Manuel, I said, they're trying to
contact Joyce. I say, have you heard from them? He said, no,
I haven't heard from her, but I've been calling. I
don't get an answer.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Emmanuel's Sap the brother of Joyce Francias Sap.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Emmanuel hadn't lived in Miami for decades, but he spoke
to his older sister frequently. It was odd she wasn't responding,
especially since the holiday had just passed.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
My sister normally would call me on Father's Day. That
didn't happen, so I continued to call, didn't make contact.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Emmanuel tried not to worry, but he asked a neighbor
to check in on her. That evening. The neighbor went
to Joyce's house. Joyce didn't answer, and he noticed something strange.
Her back door wasn't shut. He decided to call the police.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
So it was dispatched as a check on well being.
I believe a neighbor was concerned because they saw the
door open.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Miami Police Departments Sergeant Nikolai Triffinoff is familiar with these
kinds of calls. They come in frequently.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Many times they'll get these calls to check on someone
concerned family member. Sometimes they just go on a vacation
or something and they haven't told anyone, or they just
you know, want to take time away from speaking with
family or whatever.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So when an officer performs a wellness check, they often
don't know what to expect.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
It could be anything from finding someone that's deceased but
may have died from natural causes because they're elderly, or
it may be an accidental where they fell and they
hurt themselves. You know, it could be a murder, suicide
something like that, especially in the city like Miami, or
you're kind of prepared for encountering anything, even on something
(03:11):
that seems just very routine.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
On June twenty second, a little after eight pm, two
police officers arrived at Joyce's house on Northwest sixty fourth Street,
It was a white, one story house on a block
of similar homes, modest but well maintained. They spoke to
one of her neighbors.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Neighbor mentioned, hey, she has a dog, and we heard
the dog and we saw the lights outside the house.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Andrew Skull was on patrol at the time. He was
sent to Joyce's house that evening as a backup officer.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
We made our way to the back of the house
and that's when we noticed that the door was actually
a jar. We called another officer to come by because
we honestly didn't know at that point what we're at.
Just for our protection.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
From the backyard, the officers could also see inside the house.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Her bedroom is situated in the backyard and you're able
to see inside. And then at that point that's when
police late entry and they found her laying on the bed.
And at that point I think somebody mentioned, hey, listen,
I think we need to call fire rescue here.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Calling fire rescue is protocol in most of these situations,
but for Joyce it was also a formality because there
was a reason why she hadn't been answering her phone.
Joy sapp was dead from School of Humans and iHeart podcasts.
This is Cold Case Files Miami. I'm your host, Enrique Sanos.
Speaker 6 (04:38):
I remember it being late evening, eight nine o'clock.
Speaker 7 (04:42):
I received a call from a detective stating that they
were trying to contact her next to me, and they
told me what had happened.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Collect Colmbs was married to Joyce's brother, Emmanuel from nineteen
seventy seven to nineteen eighty four. Even after they divorced,
she and Joyce remained close.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
She was my sister from another mother, if you could
understand that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And Collette was just as shocked as everyone to hear
from the police that Joyce had died.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
They just told me that she was found it on
the floor, and they told me what had happened, and
that the dog was there, and the dog wouldn't let
them get there of Joyce's body. And all I could
do is picture in my mind what it must have
looked like, because I didn't have the strength to go
down there rows and look at her like that.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
I couldn't, I wasn't able to.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
When officers arrived at Joyce's house, it was clear she
had been dead for some time.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Miss Sapp was in stages of decomposition at the time.
So we knew that some days that had passed from
the time that she was deceased until she was found.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But the police still didn't know how she died. Was
it of natural causes or something else.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
We can never rule a death because we're not doctors,
but obviously certain things are apparent. Some suicides are a
parent overdoses, and then homicides are a parent right. Sometimes
they're not so obvious, and we do as best of
a job we can on scene with what we have
to try to determine what type of death this is.
(06:21):
Sometimes we can't. So this was one of those cases.
It wasn't apparent what she had died from. It was
worked as an unclassified death.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
An unclassified death is a death where the manner in
which a person died natural accident, suicide, or homicide or
undetermined isn't clear. Police don't determine manner of death. Medical
examiners do, but police are obligated to provide the medical
examiner with any evidence that may help in that decision making.
So Miami PD immediately began their investigation, just.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Like in any unclassified death. They process the scene, they
take pictures, they take everything. We want to gain as
much evidence from our time, they're unseen, so that we're
prepared for. We have the evidence we need, so it's
definitely a case of better to have and not need
than he did not have.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Joyce's body was then taken to the Medical Examiner's office.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Once they conduct the autopsy and they can make a
ruling as to the cause and the manner of the death,
they'll contact us.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
The next day, Friday, June twenty third, twenty seventeen, the
Medical Examiner's office completed the autopsy and they found something
the police hadn't seen the night before.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
The medical examiner reached out to us and basically advised
that they had located a projectile in the victim's neck
and that the case was ruled a homicide.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Now there was no question her death was no longer unclassified.
Joyce had been shot. It was a homicide, a specific
kind of homicide.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
For department and the majority of agencies, we classify our
homicides into smokers and who done its. So smokers are
just what it sounds like, a smoking gun. You have
a lot of information, a lot of evidence already provided
to you or that you've gathered when you first respond
to a scene of a homicide that points to who
(08:21):
the offender is or might.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Be, and then there are who done its where that
info isn't clear.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
So at that point we just start trying to put
everything together and seeing obviously who can we talk to,
what evidence do we have? Who are possible suspects?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Was this a robbery gone bad, a targeted killing, a
mistaken identity they didn't know? The police spoke to Joyce's
friends and family trying to figure out who might have
been involved.
Speaker 7 (08:49):
And I can't imagine nobody wanting to hurt her, never would,
thanks you enemy, And I can't imagine it being intentional,
and I don't want to because that's the kind of
person she was. She wasn't aggressive. I've never seen or
heard that kind of fighting or anything.
Speaker 6 (09:07):
She was not. That why it is.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
So suspenseful of who could have done?
Speaker 6 (09:15):
Is it someone among us? Is it? You know? It's
a lot.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
Joyce was an angel to me on Earth. She was
a good, heided person. She didn't deserve what happened to her.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Got up every morning and she went to work and
she came home. She was smart, she was easygoing, she
was fun. She took her family seriously. She took her
r neighbor. Seriously, I don't remember, I don't recall nobody
saying bad things about her.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
With few leads on a possible motive, the police returned
to Joyce's house. They hoped they might find something that
would point to what happened, something they might not have
seen the night before.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
They questioned it the last person to see her alive,
the nine to one one caller video, any footage that
there might have been from neighbors.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Joyce SAPs wellness check was the last call Andrew Skull
made as a patrol officer. Shortly after he was promoted
to detective and joined the homicide department. He didn't initially
investigate Joyce's case, but her death stuck with him and
he stayed informed on how it was progressing.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
The investigator checked that shots botter. There was no shotspotters
within the area and no nine one callers. Somebody to
call in that they heard gunshots in the area, but
unfortunately there was no reports of that. The investigators go
back out there and they try to find the evidence
to suggest if there was any ballistics that were found
inside the house, any cases and spent casings that they
(10:46):
might have find, any bits of evidence for this homicide.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Nothing seemed to miss though. No signs of struggle, no
fingerprints on the door, no gun, no bullet casings, no
broken windows, no camera foot But investigators did find something.
When they were examining the outside of Joyce's house.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
They noticed that there was evidence of an entry on
the littleman siding of the house.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
They knew Joyce had been killed by a bullet, and
here was a bullet hole. The bullet had come through
the side of the house and continued through to the
bedroom closet. Joyce's bedroom closet. The police searched for bullet fragments.
They even had the fire department come and remove part
of the wall to check, but no luck. Still, this
felt like the beginning of a lead.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
We believe she was inside of her home when she
was shot. The bullet came from outside of her home
into her home. I couldn't say where she was that
at the point that she was shot, but she was
found in her bedroom when police arrived.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Joyce Francia Sapp spent almost all of her life in
Miami in the same house on Northwest sixty fourth Street.
Miami had experienced the pop relation boom in the years
after World War Two, expanding from around one hundred and
seventy thousand people in nineteen forty to nearly two hundred
and fifty thousand people in nineteen fifty. It was a
(12:11):
deeply segregated city, as was much of the country, but
it was also a city where there seemed to be
the promise of both sunshine and opportunity. It was in
the midst of all this that Walter and Frankie May
Sap moved from northern Florida to Miami with their young daughter.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Joyce was born in Tallahassee, Florida. We moved to Day
County in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Emmanuel was born shortly after.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
We were very close, you can imagine, having been read
with only a family of four.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Both Walter and Frankie May had jobs outside the home.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
A mother worked as a nurse assistant, and my father
owned his own business.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Walter Sap did maintenance at a nearby housing project. He
also had his own repair company, doing carry and plumbing
for clients across the city. The SAPs new home in
Miami was simple but nice, a single story, three bedroom
with a big backyard for the kids to play in. Today,
the home is firmly in Liberty City, but in the
early nineteen fifties, the neighborhood lines were a little different.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
We resided in the Edison Center area, which was a
predominantly white area.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
When the SAPs arrived, they were still one of the
few black families on the block. But starting in the
late nineteen fifties, construction began on a new highway then
called the North South Expressway we now know it as
I ninety five. The city wanted to deal with its
growing traffic problem as well as encouraged business development downtown.
The expressway, which was elevated in parts, did allow for
(13:46):
easier movement to and from the city center, but it
also displaced thousands of families, particularly from Overtown, a lower
income black neighborhood close to downtown that had once been
known as the Harlem of the South. With few options,
a lot of these families moved ten miles north to
Liberty City, and the neighborhood expanded when.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
The whites started moving away. In the sixty after Kennedy
died got murdered, That's when the neighborhood changed.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Joyce, Emmanuel and their neighbor Cornelius all witnessed these changes.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
It was pretty much sigreated. Everything was either black on
You had black schools, black churches, black stores. There were
very few Anglo Americans in Liberty City, and if they were,
they were either owned the stores or owned the businesses,
or we basically passed through. We had clarks where basically
(14:41):
you couldn't go to. You know, this was right around
the turn of the Civil rights movement, so you know,
things began to slowly integrate, but again it was still singerated,
you know, still had that line you couldn't cross.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
You know, despite this, has good memories of growing up
in Liberty City.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It was a family already in the community, and everybody
pretty much knew everybody. You knew your next door neighbor,
across the street, up the street, around the corner. Most
of the neighbors went to the same school.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And though Cornelius wasn't related by blood to the SAPs,
he lived across the street and was good friends with
Joyce and Emmanuel, so he was basically family. They'd often
spend holidays together.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
They had a lot of cousins, and a lot of
cousins was out of town. They didn't live in Miami ironically,
I met all of them. Oftentimes during the holidays able
to come in town, and her father would would have
this big barbecue he would put on, so he would
basically cook for the family and you know, invite the neighbors.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The barbecues were big affairs with lots of people invited.
The SAPs were a church going family and they believed
in giving back and being part of their community. According
to Emmanuel, church came first, but education was a close second.
In nineteen sixty eight, Joyce graduated from Miami Northwestern Senior
High School. She went on to the University of Miami,
(16:08):
where she studied to become a teacher. But while she
was still a student, she got a job at Bell South,
the telecom company. After she graduated, she stayed at Bell South,
and she stayed in the same home on Northwest sixty
fourth Street, the house she had grown up in.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
When her brother left got married and moved out. You know,
she pretty much stayed in because she, you know, mother
was the elderly. Father had died and so she was
like a caregiver. And then after her mother died and
she basically had the house to herself.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Joyce herself never married or had children, but she was
a Liberty City fixture. She was part of her church,
friends with her neighbors. Well liked.
Speaker 6 (16:49):
Everybody knew her, so she was very acted with them.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Her sister in law, Collette, remembers how close Joyce was
to her community.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
She loved her friends. She loved to go to, you know,
little gatherings with them. She laughed about. They did talk
funny things.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
So her closest friends looked across the street and they
would be out there laughing and giggling about something.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
She would laugh and giggle about the silliest thing.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Family also meant a lot to Joyce.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
She would give you Manu whatever because that was her brother.
Speaker 7 (17:24):
They had a very good relationship and they were always
there for each other.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
Always when he needed something, he.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Called her, and the same was true for Joyce and collect.
Speaker 7 (17:33):
We did everything together. I just could call her, She'd
be there. We were sisters forever. When I had my child,
I named my daughter. Her middle name is after Joyce.
Her name is Kirsten. Friends here and that is Joyce's
middle name. Joyce never had children, so this was like
(17:53):
her first child because that's how she treated her. She
took my daughter on her first cruise, she just spoilted
it out.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
So, yeah, Joyce was there.
Speaker 7 (18:03):
She did everything for my daughter, anything my daughter asked
for us.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
After Joyce retired, she did two things. She bought herself
a Jaguar and she started working in a daycare, putting
her college studies to use.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
She was a natural teacher, Garrett. I'm going to go
under her classroom.
Speaker 7 (18:21):
I was in the area and I stopped by to
say hello to her and the children, and it was
just like magic in there she had.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
I mean everything was so beautifully set up.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
Because I was like, wow, Joyce, this is what you
should have been doing all the time.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
Said you're always a teacher, and she said yeah. She
loved it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Her faith and her church continued to be very important
to her too.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
Malc Cavary Missionary Baptist Church was her heart. Oh yes,
she was on several different boards and Sunday School.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
I think she was unshering.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
Yeah, that was her heart until she was no longer here.
And it was like literally two blocks away. So if
she could walk.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
That was something everybody knew about Joyce. She loved walking.
As one neighbor told the local news station after Joyce's death,
you either knew Miss Joyce or you saw her walking
up and down the street.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
She loved it. Joyce walked a lot. She liked to walk.
She would walk to church, or she would be walking
through the neighborhood. She her voice is very loud. You
know she's coming.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
Hey, what's going on. She stopped and spoke to everybody.
They were sitting a lot of times in African American
community that we sit on the porches or they sit outside,
and so she's walking down the street.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
Of course she's speaking to everybody.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
If you've only heard the name Liberty City but have
never been there, you just might know what you've seen
on TV or in the movies. It was often the
setting of the reality show The First forty eight, which
followed homicide investigators in the hours after a murder. It
was also where much of the Oscar winning film Moonlight
was set. It's an inner city neighborhood, one that hardly
(20:10):
ever appears on Miami tourism websites, which generally focus instead
on places like South Beach, Wyndwood, Little Havana, or Coral Gables.
And it's true Liberty City is a higher crime area.
In fact, between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen, the zip
code Joyce lived in, which includes parts of Liberty City
and Little Haiti, had some of the highest homicide rates
(20:32):
in Miami Dade County. But a neighborhood is more than statistics.
It's also the regular people who live there. And while yes,
there may be some areas to avoid, not every block
is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We didn't have a lot of crime in the neighborhood
per se. You had crime in the area, but the
area might have been made up of three or four
different neighborhoods. You know, it's in worse in some areas,
and it's bad than others. Some days nothing happens, and
then some days everything has happened at one time all
(21:05):
over the place.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
The truth is most people are just decent people trying
to live their lives and looking out for each other too.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
You see, one thing about neighborhoods is that everybody knows everybody.
So it's not like a stranger going to walk in
the neighborhood and breaking your house or rob you or
try to hurt you. Because everybody watched his out favorite body.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Joyce knew everybody, everybody knew her. It didn't seem like
anyone wanted to harm her, So what could have happened?
Sergeant Trivenoff, who's been with the City of Miami Police
Department for more than twenty years, has seen a lot
of difficult cases, but Joyce SAPs is especially challenging.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
This is a case where we really didn't have much
to go on, only what evidence was collected on the
scene and then basically talking from neighbors and everything.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
There were no signs of force entry or robbery. But
Joyce's back door had been found open. Was that a clue? Possibly?
But one of her neighbors offered the police a potential explanation.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
She had the dog, so it's very possible she was
going to walk the dog, or she would let the
dog out to do its business, and then the dog
was supposed to come back in and she would close
the door, you know, after the dog was done. And
she never got to that step, you know, she never
made it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Unfortunately, after Joyce Sapp's body was found in June twenty seventeen,
the City of Miami police had searched for any evidence,
any motive that might explain when she was shot and
by who, but they didn't have much. No known enemies
no fingerprints, just a single bullet hole and no gun.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
A case like this with miss sap it has the
tendency to go cold much quicker than other cases because
we didn't really have any leads at all, even just
to begin with. So unfortunately, when you're out of leads
and any possible work that can be done, so you
get to that point where there's just nothing left, with.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Very little to go on. Joyce's case files sat and
as the years passed, the original investigators who'd worked on
the case all left the homicide unit.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
The case was transferred over to cold case because any
detective was generally aside to that case is no longer here.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Detective Andrew Skull had spent four years in homicide before
moving to the cold case unit in twenty twenty one,
and one of the cases he was assigned was Joyce's.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
It was always weighing heavily in my heart, just because
of the nature of how she was bound. That always
sticks to me.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
And even though he already knew the details and the
detectives who'd originally worked on the case, he made sure
to approach it as if for the first time.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
So I wanted to see if maybe I have a
different perspective from the eyes of an investigator, maybe I
further along the investigation. What I tend to do and
most of the guys tend to do here is the
full breakdown of the case down to its foundation. That's
the process we work. You break it down and then
you build it back up.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And that's what I tried to do with this case,
and he felt hopeful he could find something new.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
The probability of you solving it tends to be a
little higher just because you're more invested in it. Sometimes
not everybody worked the same way, but for me, it's
worked out.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Detective Skull poured over the case file trying to see
if there was anything someone might have missed, a lead
that wasn't followed. But the truth was there wasn't much.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
The most relevant information is that, you know, it's that
stray round that struck.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So he reached out to the greater public, hoping that
someone who knows something might say something.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
We did a plead to the public to see if
anybody had some information to come forward that could help
further along this investigation.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Detective Skull spoke to Miami's ABC affiliate Local ten News
back in May twenty twenty three.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
Miami Police detective Andrew Skull worked patrol at the time
of Joyce's death.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
It was a model citizen. She was a school teacher.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
She kept quiet, she kept to herself.
Speaker 8 (25:13):
The department's cold case unit expanded to four detectives, including Skull,
who's focused on unsolved cases.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I would hope with something like this that yes, somebody
would volunteer and come forth and give their peace or
have some information that would help us out. You know,
we need the help of the public. Considering the circumstances
here were hands tied behind our backs. You know, we're
a little stumped here.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
With so little evidence, it's been hard to determine why
joy Sap was killed, or even exactly when there's only
speculation and theories. One theory investigators have is that Joyce
was hit by a stray bullet fired at random.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
It was suggested that at stray bullet that struck the
side of the house it came from along the highway
in order for that trajectory to make its way down.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
House. It's a couple of blocks about half a mile
from the expressway, the one they started building back in
the nineteen fifties. How far a bullet travels depends on
a lot of things. Its size, the wind, the altitude,
the angle the gun is fired at. But given the
right conditions, they can sometimes travel thousands and thousands of feet,
even a couple of miles.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Firearms are not poised, you know, I know they're Fourth
of July in New Year's Eve. We get reports of
that all the time, people firing their guns in the air,
and you know, those bullets need to come down, and unfortunately,
sometimes they strike people and someone might lose a loved one,
as in this case.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And as far as why Joyce was killed.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
There is no motive here. It was just an unfortunate
circumstance that took place here.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
As I record this, Joyce SAP's case is still cold.
The person who took her life is still out there.
It's a who done it with no suspects and no
credible leads, and the fact that there are still no
answers is distressing to Joyce's family.
Speaker 7 (26:59):
I don't know the details of it. I just know
it's still a cold case, and I don't know how
that happened why, I don't understand, and my daughter is
still troubled in a mess because of it. I went
(27:20):
to the dedication they had for Joyce at our little school,
and I took the grandkids with me, and all the
beautiful sentiments from the parents and the church, and the
little church was just pat with people. And then of
course we went to the funeral that was closed. We
never got to see her, my grandkids, and we never
(27:44):
got a chance to say goodbye in that regard. We
just attended this service, but it was awful. It continues
to be that air of not knowing, why, how, who,
what was the reason. It's just a cloud of uncertainty,
(28:04):
a cloud of not knowing.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Klet's grief is still so profound she can't even bring
herself to go back to that block on Northwest sixty
fourth Street anymore.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
I never went down there to the house. I just couldn't.
I just I couldn't. Right now, I won't really pass
by the house that that street no to this day,
I won't do it. And my church is right over
from it. But it's just too painful, too painful.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Finding out why Joyce died and who killed her won't
take away that pain, but it might help her family
move forward.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
But to have that not knowing always there on the
shelf of a loved one that has gone on.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
It's so so difficult.
Speaker 7 (28:57):
If there's anybody, I'm pleading, begging if you or someone
you know know.
Speaker 6 (29:06):
Anything about this case.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
Joyce Frience Us SAP, please come forward. Please, I'm begging you,
please shed some light on the darkness.
Speaker 6 (29:21):
As it's a petted and peeded our family for so long.
Please help us.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
We can only heal with truth, and we're asking whoever's
out there.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
That can help us move forward to please do so.
She deserves that, her family deserves that.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Please look within your own family for mercy. If something
was to occur like it occurred with me and my sister,
I'm asking them to come forward, could assist me and
I want no one else to go through this.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
If you have information to share on any cold case,
please call or send in a tip with your local
crime stoppers or law enforcement department in Miami. That number
is three zero five four seven to one tips. That's
three zero five four seven one eight four seven seven.
You can also visit crime Stoppers three oh five dot
com and select give a tip. Cold Case Files Miami
(30:39):
as a production of Iheart'smichael Duda podcast network and School
of Humans. I'm your host, Endrique Santos. This show is
written and researched by Marissa Brown. Our lead producer is
Josh thing He. Delis Peres is our senior producer. Sound
design and mix by Josh Thain, fact checking by Savannah Hugley.
Our production manager is The Church. Executive producers include me
(31:03):
Imbrique Santos, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley from
School of Humans. For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
This show discusses cold case murders and the people who
spend their lives fighting for justice. We hope to raise
public awareness and invite witnesses to come forward with evidence
that could potentially be investigated by law enforcement. We also
remind listeners that everyone has pursued innocent until proven guilty
in a court of law, and that an arrest is
not a conviction. Nothing in the podcast is intended to
(00:22):
state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted
of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I was out of town that weekend and my cousin
called me and he said, you know, we have been
trying to get in contact with Joyce. So he told me,
you say, well, see if you can call it, maybe
she may recognize your number.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Thursday, June twenty second, twenty seventeen, was when Cornelius Allen
first heard that anyone was trying to reach his friend,
sixty six year old Joyce Sap. Cornelius and Joyce had
lived across the street from each other in Miami's Liberty
City neighborhood for fifty years, ever since they were little kids.
Even though Cornelius had later moved away, they remained close friends,
(01:06):
but really everyone in the neighborhood knew Joyce. If you
didn't see her at church, you'd probably see her on
one of her regular walks. She loved walking with her
dog Gainsville or by herself and stopping to chat along
the way. But now no one had seen her for
a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I called, didn't get an answer, So then I called
her brother. I said Manuel, I said, they're trying to
contact Joyce. I say, have you heard from them? He said, no,
I haven't heard from her, but I've been calling. I
don't get an answer.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Emmanuel's Sap the brother of Joyce Francias Sap.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Emmanuel hadn't lived in Miami for decades, but he spoke
to his older sister frequently. It was odd she wasn't responding,
especially since the holiday had just passed.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
My sister normally would call me on Father's Day. That
didn't happen, so I continued to call, didn't make contact.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Emmanuel tried not to worry, but he asked a neighbor
to check in on her. That evening. The neighbor went
to Joyce's house. Joyce didn't answer, and he noticed something strange.
Her back door wasn't shut. He decided to call the police.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
So it was dispatched as a check on well being.
I believe a neighbor was concerned because they saw the
door open.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Miami Police Departments Sergeant Nikolai Triffinoff is familiar with these
kinds of calls. They come in frequently.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Many times they'll get these calls to check on someone
concerned family member. Sometimes they just go on a vacation
or something and they haven't told anyone, or they just
you know, want to take time away from speaking with
family or whatever.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So when an officer performs a wellness check, they often
don't know what to expect.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
It could be anything from finding someone that's deceased but
may have died from natural causes because they're elderly, or
it may be an accidental where they fell and they
hurt themselves. You know, it could be a murder, suicide
something like that, especially in the city like Miami, or
you're kind of prepared for encountering anything, even on something
(03:11):
that seems just very routine.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
On June twenty second, a little after eight pm, two
police officers arrived at Joyce's house on Northwest sixty fourth Street,
It was a white, one story house on a block
of similar homes, modest but well maintained. They spoke to
one of her neighbors.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Neighbor mentioned, hey, she has a dog, and we heard
the dog and we saw the lights outside the house.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Andrew Skull was on patrol at the time. He was
sent to Joyce's house that evening as a backup officer.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
We made our way to the back of the house
and that's when we noticed that the door was actually
a jar. We called another officer to come by because
we honestly didn't know at that point what we're at.
Just for our protection.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
From the backyard, the officers could also see inside the house.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Her bedroom is situated in the backyard and you're able
to see inside. And then at that point that's when
police late entry and they found her laying on the bed.
And at that point I think somebody mentioned, hey, listen,
I think we need to call fire rescue here.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Calling fire rescue is protocol in most of these situations,
but for Joyce it was also a formality because there
was a reason why she hadn't been answering her phone.
Joy sapp was dead from School of Humans and iHeart podcasts.
This is Cold Case Files Miami. I'm your host, Enrique Sanos.
Speaker 6 (04:38):
I remember it being late evening, eight nine o'clock.
Speaker 7 (04:42):
I received a call from a detective stating that they
were trying to contact her next to me, and they
told me what had happened.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Collect Colmbs was married to Joyce's brother, Emmanuel from nineteen
seventy seven to nineteen eighty four. Even after they divorced,
she and Joyce remained close.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
She was my sister from another mother, if you could
understand that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And Collette was just as shocked as everyone to hear
from the police that Joyce had died.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
They just told me that she was found it on
the floor, and they told me what had happened, and
that the dog was there, and the dog wouldn't let
them get there of Joyce's body. And all I could
do is picture in my mind what it must have
looked like, because I didn't have the strength to go
down there rows and look at her like that.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
I couldn't, I wasn't able to.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
When officers arrived at Joyce's house, it was clear she
had been dead for some time.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Miss Sapp was in stages of decomposition at the time.
So we knew that some days that had passed from
the time that she was deceased until she was found.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But the police still didn't know how she died. Was
it of natural causes or something else.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
We can never rule a death because we're not doctors,
but obviously certain things are apparent. Some suicides are a
parent overdoses, and then homicides are a parent right. Sometimes
they're not so obvious, and we do as best of
a job we can on scene with what we have
to try to determine what type of death this is.
(06:21):
Sometimes we can't. So this was one of those cases.
It wasn't apparent what she had died from. It was
worked as an unclassified death.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
An unclassified death is a death where the manner in
which a person died natural accident, suicide, or homicide or
undetermined isn't clear. Police don't determine manner of death. Medical
examiners do, but police are obligated to provide the medical
examiner with any evidence that may help in that decision making.
So Miami PD immediately began their investigation, just.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Like in any unclassified death. They process the scene, they
take pictures, they take everything. We want to gain as
much evidence from our time, they're unseen, so that we're
prepared for. We have the evidence we need, so it's
definitely a case of better to have and not need
than he did not have.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Joyce's body was then taken to the Medical Examiner's office.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Once they conduct the autopsy and they can make a
ruling as to the cause and the manner of the death,
they'll contact us.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
The next day, Friday, June twenty third, twenty seventeen, the
Medical Examiner's office completed the autopsy and they found something
the police hadn't seen the night before.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
The medical examiner reached out to us and basically advised
that they had located a projectile in the victim's neck
and that the case was ruled a homicide.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Now there was no question her death was no longer unclassified.
Joyce had been shot. It was a homicide, a specific
kind of homicide.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
For department and the majority of agencies, we classify our
homicides into smokers and who done its. So smokers are
just what it sounds like, a smoking gun. You have
a lot of information, a lot of evidence already provided
to you or that you've gathered when you first respond
to a scene of a homicide that points to who
(08:21):
the offender is or might.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Be, and then there are who done its where that
info isn't clear.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
So at that point we just start trying to put
everything together and seeing obviously who can we talk to,
what evidence do we have? Who are possible suspects?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Was this a robbery gone bad, a targeted killing, a
mistaken identity they didn't know? The police spoke to Joyce's
friends and family trying to figure out who might have
been involved.
Speaker 7 (08:49):
And I can't imagine nobody wanting to hurt her, never would,
thanks you enemy, And I can't imagine it being intentional,
and I don't want to because that's the kind of
person she was. She wasn't aggressive. I've never seen or
heard that kind of fighting or anything.
Speaker 6 (09:07):
She was not. That why it is.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
So suspenseful of who could have done?
Speaker 6 (09:15):
Is it someone among us? Is it? You know? It's
a lot.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
Joyce was an angel to me on Earth. She was
a good, heided person. She didn't deserve what happened to her.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Got up every morning and she went to work and
she came home. She was smart, she was easygoing, she
was fun. She took her family seriously. She took her
r neighbor. Seriously, I don't remember, I don't recall nobody
saying bad things about her.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
With few leads on a possible motive, the police returned
to Joyce's house. They hoped they might find something that
would point to what happened, something they might not have
seen the night before.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
They questioned it the last person to see her alive,
the nine to one one caller video, any footage that
there might have been from neighbors.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Joyce SAPs wellness check was the last call Andrew Skull
made as a patrol officer. Shortly after he was promoted
to detective and joined the homicide department. He didn't initially
investigate Joyce's case, but her death stuck with him and
he stayed informed on how it was progressing.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
The investigator checked that shots botter. There was no shotspotters
within the area and no nine one callers. Somebody to
call in that they heard gunshots in the area, but
unfortunately there was no reports of that. The investigators go
back out there and they try to find the evidence
to suggest if there was any ballistics that were found
inside the house, any cases and spent casings that they
(10:46):
might have find, any bits of evidence for this homicide.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Nothing seemed to miss though. No signs of struggle, no
fingerprints on the door, no gun, no bullet casings, no
broken windows, no camera foot But investigators did find something.
When they were examining the outside of Joyce's house.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
They noticed that there was evidence of an entry on
the littleman siding of the house.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
They knew Joyce had been killed by a bullet, and
here was a bullet hole. The bullet had come through
the side of the house and continued through to the
bedroom closet. Joyce's bedroom closet. The police searched for bullet fragments.
They even had the fire department come and remove part
of the wall to check, but no luck. Still, this
felt like the beginning of a lead.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
We believe she was inside of her home when she
was shot. The bullet came from outside of her home
into her home. I couldn't say where she was that
at the point that she was shot, but she was
found in her bedroom when police arrived.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Joyce Francia Sapp spent almost all of her life in
Miami in the same house on Northwest sixty fourth Street.
Miami had experienced the pop relation boom in the years
after World War Two, expanding from around one hundred and
seventy thousand people in nineteen forty to nearly two hundred
and fifty thousand people in nineteen fifty. It was a
(12:11):
deeply segregated city, as was much of the country, but
it was also a city where there seemed to be
the promise of both sunshine and opportunity. It was in
the midst of all this that Walter and Frankie May
Sap moved from northern Florida to Miami with their young daughter.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Joyce was born in Tallahassee, Florida. We moved to Day
County in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Emmanuel was born shortly after.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
We were very close, you can imagine, having been read
with only a family of four.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Both Walter and Frankie May had jobs outside the home.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
A mother worked as a nurse assistant, and my father
owned his own business.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Walter Sap did maintenance at a nearby housing project. He
also had his own repair company, doing carry and plumbing
for clients across the city. The SAPs new home in
Miami was simple but nice, a single story, three bedroom
with a big backyard for the kids to play in. Today,
the home is firmly in Liberty City, but in the
early nineteen fifties, the neighborhood lines were a little different.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
We resided in the Edison Center area, which was a
predominantly white area.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
When the SAPs arrived, they were still one of the
few black families on the block. But starting in the
late nineteen fifties, construction began on a new highway then
called the North South Expressway we now know it as
I ninety five. The city wanted to deal with its
growing traffic problem as well as encouraged business development downtown.
The expressway, which was elevated in parts, did allow for
(13:46):
easier movement to and from the city center, but it
also displaced thousands of families, particularly from Overtown, a lower
income black neighborhood close to downtown that had once been
known as the Harlem of the South. With few options,
a lot of these families moved ten miles north to
Liberty City, and the neighborhood expanded when.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
The whites started moving away. In the sixty after Kennedy
died got murdered, That's when the neighborhood changed.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Joyce, Emmanuel and their neighbor Cornelius all witnessed these changes.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
It was pretty much sigreated. Everything was either black on
You had black schools, black churches, black stores. There were
very few Anglo Americans in Liberty City, and if they were,
they were either owned the stores or owned the businesses,
or we basically passed through. We had clarks where basically
(14:41):
you couldn't go to. You know, this was right around
the turn of the Civil rights movement, so you know,
things began to slowly integrate, but again it was still singerated,
you know, still had that line you couldn't cross.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
You know, despite this, has good memories of growing up
in Liberty City.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It was a family already in the community, and everybody
pretty much knew everybody. You knew your next door neighbor,
across the street, up the street, around the corner. Most
of the neighbors went to the same school.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And though Cornelius wasn't related by blood to the SAPs,
he lived across the street and was good friends with
Joyce and Emmanuel, so he was basically family. They'd often
spend holidays together.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
They had a lot of cousins, and a lot of
cousins was out of town. They didn't live in Miami ironically,
I met all of them. Oftentimes during the holidays able
to come in town, and her father would would have
this big barbecue he would put on, so he would
basically cook for the family and you know, invite the neighbors.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The barbecues were big affairs with lots of people invited.
The SAPs were a church going family and they believed
in giving back and being part of their community. According
to Emmanuel, church came first, but education was a close second.
In nineteen sixty eight, Joyce graduated from Miami Northwestern Senior
High School. She went on to the University of Miami,
(16:08):
where she studied to become a teacher. But while she
was still a student, she got a job at Bell South,
the telecom company. After she graduated, she stayed at Bell South,
and she stayed in the same home on Northwest sixty
fourth Street, the house she had grown up in.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
When her brother left got married and moved out. You know,
she pretty much stayed in because she, you know, mother
was the elderly. Father had died and so she was
like a caregiver. And then after her mother died and
she basically had the house to herself.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Joyce herself never married or had children, but she was
a Liberty City fixture. She was part of her church,
friends with her neighbors. Well liked.
Speaker 6 (16:49):
Everybody knew her, so she was very acted with them.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Her sister in law, Collette, remembers how close Joyce was
to her community.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
She loved her friends. She loved to go to, you know,
little gatherings with them. She laughed about. They did talk
funny things.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
So her closest friends looked across the street and they
would be out there laughing and giggling about something.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
She would laugh and giggle about the silliest thing.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Family also meant a lot to Joyce.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
She would give you Manu whatever because that was her brother.
Speaker 7 (17:24):
They had a very good relationship and they were always
there for each other.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
Always when he needed something, he.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Called her, and the same was true for Joyce and collect.
Speaker 7 (17:33):
We did everything together. I just could call her, She'd
be there. We were sisters forever. When I had my child,
I named my daughter. Her middle name is after Joyce.
Her name is Kirsten. Friends here and that is Joyce's
middle name. Joyce never had children, so this was like
(17:53):
her first child because that's how she treated her. She
took my daughter on her first cruise, she just spoilted
it out.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
So, yeah, Joyce was there.
Speaker 7 (18:03):
She did everything for my daughter, anything my daughter asked
for us.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
After Joyce retired, she did two things. She bought herself
a Jaguar and she started working in a daycare, putting
her college studies to use.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
She was a natural teacher, Garrett. I'm going to go
under her classroom.
Speaker 7 (18:21):
I was in the area and I stopped by to
say hello to her and the children, and it was
just like magic in there she had.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
I mean everything was so beautifully set up.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
Because I was like, wow, Joyce, this is what you
should have been doing all the time.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
Said you're always a teacher, and she said yeah. She
loved it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Her faith and her church continued to be very important
to her too.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
Malc Cavary Missionary Baptist Church was her heart. Oh yes,
she was on several different boards and Sunday School.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
I think she was unshering.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
Yeah, that was her heart until she was no longer here.
And it was like literally two blocks away. So if
she could walk.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
That was something everybody knew about Joyce. She loved walking.
As one neighbor told the local news station after Joyce's death,
you either knew Miss Joyce or you saw her walking
up and down the street.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
She loved it. Joyce walked a lot. She liked to walk.
She would walk to church, or she would be walking
through the neighborhood. She her voice is very loud. You
know she's coming.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
Hey, what's going on. She stopped and spoke to everybody.
They were sitting a lot of times in African American
community that we sit on the porches or they sit outside,
and so she's walking down the street.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
Of course she's speaking to everybody.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
If you've only heard the name Liberty City but have
never been there, you just might know what you've seen
on TV or in the movies. It was often the
setting of the reality show The First forty eight, which
followed homicide investigators in the hours after a murder. It
was also where much of the Oscar winning film Moonlight
was set. It's an inner city neighborhood, one that hardly
(20:10):
ever appears on Miami tourism websites, which generally focus instead
on places like South Beach, Wyndwood, Little Havana, or Coral Gables.
And it's true Liberty City is a higher crime area.
In fact, between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen, the zip
code Joyce lived in, which includes parts of Liberty City
and Little Haiti, had some of the highest homicide rates
(20:32):
in Miami Dade County. But a neighborhood is more than statistics.
It's also the regular people who live there. And while yes,
there may be some areas to avoid, not every block
is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We didn't have a lot of crime in the neighborhood
per se. You had crime in the area, but the
area might have been made up of three or four
different neighborhoods. You know, it's in worse in some areas,
and it's bad than others. Some days nothing happens, and
then some days everything has happened at one time all
(21:05):
over the place.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
The truth is most people are just decent people trying
to live their lives and looking out for each other too.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
You see, one thing about neighborhoods is that everybody knows everybody.
So it's not like a stranger going to walk in
the neighborhood and breaking your house or rob you or
try to hurt you. Because everybody watched his out favorite body.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Joyce knew everybody, everybody knew her. It didn't seem like
anyone wanted to harm her, So what could have happened?
Sergeant Trivenoff, who's been with the City of Miami Police
Department for more than twenty years, has seen a lot
of difficult cases, but Joyce SAPs is especially challenging.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
This is a case where we really didn't have much
to go on, only what evidence was collected on the
scene and then basically talking from neighbors and everything.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
There were no signs of force entry or robbery. But
Joyce's back door had been found open. Was that a clue? Possibly?
But one of her neighbors offered the police a potential explanation.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
She had the dog, so it's very possible she was
going to walk the dog, or she would let the
dog out to do its business, and then the dog
was supposed to come back in and she would close
the door, you know, after the dog was done. And
she never got to that step, you know, she never
made it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Unfortunately, after Joyce Sapp's body was found in June twenty seventeen,
the City of Miami police had searched for any evidence,
any motive that might explain when she was shot and
by who, but they didn't have much. No known enemies
no fingerprints, just a single bullet hole and no gun.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
A case like this with miss sap it has the
tendency to go cold much quicker than other cases because
we didn't really have any leads at all, even just
to begin with. So unfortunately, when you're out of leads
and any possible work that can be done, so you
get to that point where there's just nothing left, with.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Very little to go on. Joyce's case files sat and
as the years passed, the original investigators who'd worked on
the case all left the homicide unit.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
The case was transferred over to cold case because any
detective was generally aside to that case is no longer here.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Detective Andrew Skull had spent four years in homicide before
moving to the cold case unit in twenty twenty one,
and one of the cases he was assigned was Joyce's.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
It was always weighing heavily in my heart, just because
of the nature of how she was bound. That always
sticks to me.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
And even though he already knew the details and the
detectives who'd originally worked on the case, he made sure
to approach it as if for the first time.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
So I wanted to see if maybe I have a
different perspective from the eyes of an investigator, maybe I
further along the investigation. What I tend to do and
most of the guys tend to do here is the
full breakdown of the case down to its foundation. That's
the process we work. You break it down and then
you build it back up.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And that's what I tried to do with this case,
and he felt hopeful he could find something new.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
The probability of you solving it tends to be a
little higher just because you're more invested in it. Sometimes
not everybody worked the same way, but for me, it's
worked out.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Detective Skull poured over the case file trying to see
if there was anything someone might have missed, a lead
that wasn't followed. But the truth was there wasn't much.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
The most relevant information is that, you know, it's that
stray round that struck.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So he reached out to the greater public, hoping that
someone who knows something might say something.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
We did a plead to the public to see if
anybody had some information to come forward that could help
further along this investigation.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Detective Skull spoke to Miami's ABC affiliate Local ten News
back in May twenty twenty three.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
Miami Police detective Andrew Skull worked patrol at the time
of Joyce's death.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
It was a model citizen. She was a school teacher.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
She kept quiet, she kept to herself.
Speaker 8 (25:13):
The department's cold case unit expanded to four detectives, including Skull,
who's focused on unsolved cases.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I would hope with something like this that yes, somebody
would volunteer and come forth and give their peace or
have some information that would help us out. You know,
we need the help of the public. Considering the circumstances
here were hands tied behind our backs. You know, we're
a little stumped here.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
With so little evidence, it's been hard to determine why
joy Sap was killed, or even exactly when there's only
speculation and theories. One theory investigators have is that Joyce
was hit by a stray bullet fired at random.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
It was suggested that at stray bullet that struck the
side of the house it came from along the highway
in order for that trajectory to make its way down.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
House. It's a couple of blocks about half a mile
from the expressway, the one they started building back in
the nineteen fifties. How far a bullet travels depends on
a lot of things. Its size, the wind, the altitude,
the angle the gun is fired at. But given the
right conditions, they can sometimes travel thousands and thousands of feet,
even a couple of miles.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Firearms are not poised, you know, I know they're Fourth
of July in New Year's Eve. We get reports of
that all the time, people firing their guns in the air,
and you know, those bullets need to come down, and unfortunately,
sometimes they strike people and someone might lose a loved one,
as in this case.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And as far as why Joyce was killed.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
There is no motive here. It was just an unfortunate
circumstance that took place here.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
As I record this, Joyce SAP's case is still cold.
The person who took her life is still out there.
It's a who done it with no suspects and no
credible leads, and the fact that there are still no
answers is distressing to Joyce's family.
Speaker 7 (26:59):
I don't know the details of it. I just know
it's still a cold case, and I don't know how
that happened why, I don't understand, and my daughter is
still troubled in a mess because of it. I went
(27:20):
to the dedication they had for Joyce at our little school,
and I took the grandkids with me, and all the
beautiful sentiments from the parents and the church, and the
little church was just pat with people. And then of
course we went to the funeral that was closed. We
never got to see her, my grandkids, and we never
(27:44):
got a chance to say goodbye in that regard. We
just attended this service, but it was awful. It continues
to be that air of not knowing, why, how, who,
what was the reason. It's just a cloud of uncertainty,
(28:04):
a cloud of not knowing.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Klet's grief is still so profound she can't even bring
herself to go back to that block on Northwest sixty
fourth Street anymore.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
I never went down there to the house. I just couldn't.
I just I couldn't. Right now, I won't really pass
by the house that that street no to this day,
I won't do it. And my church is right over
from it. But it's just too painful, too painful.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Finding out why Joyce died and who killed her won't
take away that pain, but it might help her family
move forward.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
But to have that not knowing always there on the
shelf of a loved one that has gone on.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
It's so so difficult.
Speaker 7 (28:57):
If there's anybody, I'm pleading, begging if you or someone
you know know.
Speaker 6 (29:06):
Anything about this case.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
Joyce Frience Us SAP, please come forward. Please, I'm begging you,
please shed some light on the darkness.
Speaker 6 (29:21):
As it's a petted and peeded our family for so long.
Please help us.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
We can only heal with truth, and we're asking whoever's
out there.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
That can help us move forward to please do so.
She deserves that, her family deserves that.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Please look within your own family for mercy. If something
was to occur like it occurred with me and my sister,
I'm asking them to come forward, could assist me and
I want no one else to go through this.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
If you have information to share on any cold case,
please call or send in a tip with your local
crime stoppers or law enforcement department in Miami. That number
is three zero five four seven to one tips. That's
three zero five four seven one eight four seven seven.
You can also visit crime Stoppers three oh five dot
com and select give a tip. Cold Case Files Miami
(30:39):
as a production of Iheart'smichael Duda podcast network and School
of Humans. I'm your host, Endrique Santos. This show is
written and researched by Marissa Brown. Our lead producer is
Josh thing He. Delis Peres is our senior producer. Sound
design and mix by Josh Thain, fact checking by Savannah Hugley.
Our production manager is The Church. Executive producers include me
(31:03):
Imbrique Santos, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley from
School of Humans. For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Host
Enrique Santos
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