Conspiracy of silence

Victoria Corderi Correspondent • Profile

HOLLAND, MICH. - For almost three decades, Jim and Glenna Chandler have lived with the overwhelming grief of losing their daughter.

"You'd have thought after all this time you'd be able to talk about it, as you can tell, it's still hard," Jim Chandler told Dateline.

And they have had to live with the bitterness of knowing someone had gotten away with it.

Back in 1979, Janet Chandler was a 22-year-old music student at Hope College, in Holland, Mich. She was working nights as a desk clerk at a local motel.

Jim Chandler: We tried to get her not to take that. Even then, a night clerk job at a motel wasn't the safest place to be.

Her parents' worst fears about that motel job were realized in the early morning hours of Jan. 31.

(1979 news report)

"It was just after 2 o'clock Wednesday morning when the Blue Mill Inn was robbed of about $500 and hotel clerk Janet Chandler was missing from the office..."

The Chandlers were frantic. Jim Chandler and his son, Dennis, searched for Janet all night.

Dennis Chandler: I just got in my jeep and drove to Holland and started driving all the back roads. My dad did the same thing.

Victoria Corderi, Dateline NBC: Were feeling panicked?

Dennis Chandler: Yes. Scared.

A day later, a snow plow driver turned into a highway crossover south of Holland and spotted something buried in the snow. It was the naked and battered body of a woman, thrown away like road-side trash.

(news report)

"It wasn't until noon that the Hope College music student's parents were brought down to South Haven to identify the body as that of Janet Chandler."

Jim Chandler: You're just numb … You just can't believe that something like that could happen, you know.

Janet's funeral took place in the same church where she had sung in the choir.

Jim Chandler: In fact, she sang at her own funeral.

Janet's recording of 'My Jesus' was played at the service.

The Chandlers say after that day, they never listened to Janet's recordings again -- that it was too painful.

The brutal murder stunned the quiet, lakeside town of Holland. The police launched an intensive investigation, at one point focusing on some local men who had done some bar room bragging about being involved. But to the Chandler's surprise, no arrests ever were made.

Jim Chandler: I didn't expect it to go on and on. I figured they'd have it solved years ago.

The Chandlers have always believed someone from the motel must have seen something -- or heard -- something the night Janet was abducted. Not just the killer, but maybe others, too, were keeping a terrible secret. And police investigators were convinced someone was holding something back.

But no witnesses came forward. No one talked.

And Janet Chandler was all but forgotten.

But in 2003, the Chandlers discovered someone who did remember Janet. They were approached by Professor David Schock and his students at Hope College -- the same Christian school Janet had attended. They wanted to make a documentary about the unsolved case, marking the 25th anniversary of Janet's death.

Professor Schock: Not to solve the case, but to tell the story about this case.

At the time, no one could have imagined the far-ranging impact that documentary would have. In fact, in the beginning, some of the students thought the project wasn't such a great idea.

Sarah Hartman, student: I was frightened to begin with. Something totally out of reality it felt like.

Victoria Corderi: This was someone your age...

Sarah Hartman: Who lived the life that we led for two years as Hope College students.

But when they met with the Chandlers and saw their pain, the students said they wanted to help.

Victoria Corderi: What was it about that meeting that turned it around?

Jon Johnson, student: Seeing them bring out a trunk they hadn't brought out in 25 years, with all the letters and the pictures of her. At that point you kind of become... I want to do it for them.

It was easy to see why the students were so taken with the Chandlers. When we met them, they told us about Janet.

Victoria Corderi: Is she frozen in your mind as a little girl, or how she was when she was 22?

Jim Chandler: As a little girl, I guess.

Glenna Chandler: She was easygoing and happy-go-lucky. And she lived a sheltered lifestyle. We are Christians, and she was brought up in the church. And all her friends were friends from church … Every time her girlfriend would get married, we'd go to the wedding. It was hard.

Victoria Corderi: So you would imagine your own daughter, this what she should have been doing. Getting married, having children?

Glenna Chandler: Right.

Jim Chandler: I don't think there's a day that went by -- hardly an hour …

Victoria Corderi: That you didn't think about her?

Jim Chandler: Yes.

The students did their own interview with the Chandlers for their documentary.

Glenna Chandler: A parent never expects their children to go before them. You learn to live with it. That's about all you can do. One day at a time.

And they met Dennis, Janet's younger brother.

Dennis Chandler: Well, she definitely knew where she was heading. She believed in God...

The students said the experience left them a bit shaken, but even more committed to finding out what happened -- and who might be keeping silent about Janet's murder.

Kyle Shepard, student: That happened a whole lifetime ago. And then it just really puts a lot of things into perspective for you. She didn't get to live her life.

And so they began to document Janet's life and death, by first going back to Jan. 31, 1979: the night of Janet's murder.

Just after 2 a.m., police received a call from the motel where Janet worked, the Blue Mill Inn.

(911 call)

"I have reason to believe that there might be a robbery in progress down in the office or the lobby."

Holland police detective Jim Fairbanks had raced to the scene.

Det. Fairbanks: It had been a robbery. We could determine that. And it was also very clear that the clerk was missing.

Of course, that missing clerk was Janet Chandler.

Fairbanks said Chandler's jacket was still on the chair, and her Salem cigarette still smoldered in the ashtray.

Video   1979 news report Watch a news report from the time when Janet’s Chandler’s body was discovered. Dateline NBC

Fairbanks: We immediately began the investigation, fearing the worst.

Fairbanks interviewed the man who had called 911, Robert Lynch., but Lynch said he had seen nothing.

The motel was full of guests that night, but Fairbanks said he could not find a single eyewitness. The students wondered: how could no one have seen or heard the abduction ?

Amy Schlosser, student: How did they get her into the car? How was she taken without anyone hearing her scream or put up a fight? Did she know this person? So then we began to question: were there two people involved? Were there multiple people involved?

The students say perhaps their toughest assignment was visiting that desolate highway turn-off where Janet's body had been dumped in the snow, and seeing the crime scene photos. Those photos showed Janet had been strangled with some kind of rope, wire or belt.

Student: It made it a lot more real.

And the more the students learned about the crime, the more questions they had. When had Janet been killed? Was it just hours after the robbery, or was it closer to 24 hours later, when her body was found? And if she'd been alive for 24 hours, what happened to her after the abduction?

Victoria Corderi: Were you sitting around, discussing the theories?

Sarah Hartman: We became investigators. We went from college students, everyday classes, to investigators.

But 25 years after the murder, could a group of students begin to untangle the mystery that the police could not solve? Could they find out who killed Janet Chandler?

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