Of all the unsolved murders in the area, this is the one I most wish police would solve. I think part of what bothers me about this case is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone fighting on Julia Testa’s behalf, rattle the police department’s cage or pounding the pavement themselves in an effort to find her killer.

No one even ran an obituary in the newspaper for her. I have no idea what she looked like, who her family is or what she did in life.

The case remains unsolved.

Police reopen ’02 death case / Initial investigation into woman’s probable homicide stalled
July 17, 2006

Springfield police have reopened their investigation into the 2002 death of a woman whose remains were found in her bed at a group home on MacArthur Boulevard.

Julia M. Testa, 39, was found Aug. 29, 2002, inside her room at 702 S. MacArthur Blvd. after a mental health worker went to check on her because she had missed several appointments.

While police investigated Testa’s death as a possible homicide after receiving autopsy results, the probe stalled for some reason.

Testa’s autopsy report shows she died of a stab-cutting wound on the front of her neck “and possibly additional blunt-force trauma.” The wound was to her larynx, not the veins or arteries of her neck, a detective testified at the coroner’s inquest Oct. 2, 2002.

However, evidence that typically would point to homicide was not present in Testa’s apartment.

The door to her top-floor apartment was locked from the inside with a double-cylinder deadbolt, and her key was found inside. Her pajama-clad body was in bed in a natural sleeping position with the covers up to her shoulders and a stuffed animal next to her.

Police found no murder weapon inside the third-floor apartment, which was in a group home for mentally ill people. Nothing was out of place inside the apartment, and her purse had not been rifled through. It did not appear that any type of struggle had taken place.

According to a transcript of the coroner’s inquest, Testa suffered from a bipolar condition and had a history of alcohol- and drug-related problems. Her mental health worker told police she had not seen Testa for at least three weeks.

The body was badly decomposed when it was found that summer afternoon, making it difficult to determine a precise time of death. She had no defensive wounds, and there was no sign that she had been sexually assaulted.

Detectives also could not determine a motive for Testa’s death.

“We are unable to determine that she had any problems with anyone, any suicidal tendencies or any problems with the apartment itself,” Sgt. Tim Young, a now-retired detective with the Springfield Police Department, testified at the inquest.

A member of the coroner’s jury asked Young if it was possible that the injury to Testa’s neck happened while she was out somewhere and she came home, went to bed and passed away.

“Yes, that is possible,” Young responded. “That type of injury to the larynx would not be an instantaneous death. There would not be a lot of blood. Usually people that inflict this type of injury do not discard the device that they used. She probably did not do this to herself.”

The coroner’s jury ruled Testa’s death a homicide, but its determinations do not legally require further investigation or criminal charges.

Police who returned to the apartment after the autopsy removed the carpet from Testa’s bedroom and the hallway to have it tested for blood trace evidence after they received the autopsy results. A police spokesman last week would not reveal the results of that testing or otherwise comment on specifics of the case, saying it is a pending investigation.

In January 2003, a police department spokesman responding to questions about why the department did not include Testa’s death in its murder statistics said police believed she died of natural causes.

“We’re currently treating this as a death investigation,” Ralph Caldwell, who now is assistant police chief, was quoted as saying. “We’re waiting for results from lab work and for follow-up investigations. We are not reporting this as a homicide at this time. We’re not hunting for anyone.”

Testa’s death was not included in the Springfield Police Department’s crime statistics at any point since 2002. However, that year’s stats will be amended this year to reflect that the death is being treated as a murder, Williamson said.

It is unclear what caused the apparent pause in the investigation, nor is it known why police recently chose to refocus on the case.

Lt. Doug Williamson, filling in as the department’s spokesman last week, said detectives have been assigned to the case.

“It’s being actively investigated. When officers and detectives went out after the autopsy, there were no signs that there was any foul play. After the autopsy it was determined that there was,” he said, noting that detectives and evidence technicians went to the house as soon as they determined Testa was an apparent murder victim.

“I do know that we are taking all the information that was collected and sent off and are refocusing on the investigation and it is being actively worked. Obviously, new cases that come in have the primary manpower resource.”