Where's Jamie
Could Missing New Jersey Native Jamie Diane Seymour Have Been the Victim of the Long Island Serial Killer?
By Shawn R. Dagle
Near a desolate stretch of woods in the Pine Barrens of Manorville a woman walking her dog made an unspeakable discovery.
On a plastic sheet were the mutilated torso of a young woman. Her head and hands were missing and there was no identification left with her body.
All police had to identify the unknown woman was a tattoo on her back left almost unrecognizable by repeated cuts with a sharp object.
Pressing the young woman’s skin together investigators believed they could make out lettering on the tattoo that read “Pete’s Angels” (it was later determined to read “Remy’s Angel).
Police circulated a picture of the young woman’s tattoo that was recognized by an alert detective in Washington D.C. as belonging to the subject of a missing person’s report in that city named Jessica Taylor.
Suffolk County Police were able to determine that Jessica was last seen near the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan where she was working as a prostitute on July 21, of 2003 – five days before her partial remains were discovered in Manorville.
For the first time since beginning his bloody crime spree – at least seven years earlier – one of the Long Island Serial Killer’s victims had been identified.
Spooked by the identification of his victim – despite his every effort to conceal her identity – the Long Island Killer would not strike again for another four years. Or would he?
Almost exactly two years to the day after Jessica Taylor disappeared near the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan another young woman also went missing from the same spot.
That young woman - 21-year-old New Jersey native Jamie Diane Seymour - was never seen again.
Could Jamie Diane Seymour have fallen victim to the Long Island Serial Killer?
Since Jamie’s disappearance in July of 2005 there have been conflicting reports of where the missing 21-year-old was headed when she last spoke with her father that day.
According to New Jersey State police Jamie told her father over the telephone on July 22 she was headed to the Port Authority in Jersey.
Press reports on the other hand have indicated that Jamie was on route to the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan - making her disappearance of keen interest to those who follow the Long Island Serial Killer case.
Which however is true?
Recently I got an opportunity to speak with Jamie’s older sister Kristine – who shed new light on her sister’s disappearance and – for the first time – provided new, never before revealed details, regarding her sister’s final hours before vanishing.
According to Kristine it was not Jamie’s father that was the last to speak with her sister the day of her disappearance but rather her mother Joyce.
And not only does Kristine say Jamie was on route to the Port Authority in Manhattan that day but that she had actually made it there when she called her mother.
“They never reported the last person [Jamie] talked to was my mother. I don't remember the date it was July 2005 and my mom was staying with me waiting in Florida – waiting to close on her house,” Kristine recalled when I spoke with her in January.
While speaking with her mom that day Jamie told her mother she had borrowed someone’s phone at the Port Authority to call her.
“I was there. My mother said Jamie asked her if she could come live with her in Florida. My mom said, ‘Of course Jamie’. She then said, ‘Okay momma, I'm coming home.’ That was the last time anyone ever heard from her,” recalled Kristine.
Since Jamie was in New York when she called her mother, Kristine assumes the Port Authority Jamie referred to was the Port Authority in Manhattan.
According to Kristine Jamie spent a lot of time prior to her disappearance in New York City.
“The house she grew up in was sold in 2005 and my mother moved to Florida and her father moved to Brick, New Jersey. Jamie was going to New York a lot but was still based at their home before it was sold. She did not move with either of them, she just went out on her own with no address,” Kristine explained.
Growing up Jamie was the youngest of seven children. Her mother Joyce was originally from Jersey City and had previously been married – to Kristine’s father – before marrying Jamie’s father Thomas.
According to Kristine, Joyce and Thomas had a “very volatile marriage” when Jamie was growing up in Jackson Township. That did little however to dim Jamie’s sense of humor.
“Jamie was very outgoing, the clown – very funny and very popular. She was the youngest girl. She did good in school, average student. She was not into sports [and] was very family oriented,” Kristine recalled.
In 2002 Jamie graduated from Jackson Memorial High School. Before long she began to hang around with the wrong crowd and get into trouble.
In October of 2002 it appears Jamie may have been arrested for simple assault in the Borough of Island Heights according to court records. She pled guilty.
Seven months later it appears Jamie may have also been arrested for giving police in Lawrenceville, Georgia a false name or information.
According to Kristine after high school Jamie bounced around a bit but never lost touch with her family.
“Jamie went all over – to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, New York all the time. She was arrested once in either Georgia or one of the Carolinas, but still kept in touch all the time,” she recalled.
By 2004 Jamie was back up north. On June 26 of that year – on Norwood Avenue in Asbury Park, New Jersey – it appears Jamie may have been arrested while driving in a blue four door Mitsubishi after the vehicle was pulled over by police and she was found in possession of crack cocaine and a hypodermic needle. According to court records she never pled in that case.
When Jamie’s parents divorced and then sold their house in 2005 Jamie’s mother Joyce moved to Florida and her father to a home in Brick, New Jersey. Jamie went out on her own. It was shortly before her disappearance and Kristine suspects that Jamie was living somewhere in New York but isn’t certain.
“My mother received a phone call from a hospital in New York that my sister was sick. She was doing drugs and hanging with bad crowds. She never went more than a few days to a week without calling my mom,” said Kristine.
While Jamie’s family didn’t know the people she was hanging around with after high school it was clear they were bad news.
“I went to visit once and she had some guy there but my mother didn't even know who he was. She snuck him in. I found a whole stack of credit cards in different people's names and confronted my sister on this, she cursed me out and grabbed the cards and took off with the guy,” recalled Kristine.
Jamie didn’t have a boyfriend at the time she disappeared and she wasn’t working according to Kristine.
After the final phone call to her mother – when two weeks passed and no one heard from Jamie – the family became worried. On August 8 her father reported her missing to police.
According to Kristine it was completely unlike Jamie to go off the grid for that long a period of time without reaching out to someone in the family.
“She never went a week tops without talking to one of her sisters and especially my mom,” said Kristine.
Police initially didn’t appear to take much interest in Jamie’s disappearance according to her sister.
“I don't think they took it very seriously. She wasn't even put in NAMUS until 2012. I spoke to the detective assigned the case and asked him to put her in NAMUS. He was not the original detective and seemed genuinely concerned. He told me of a ‘potters field’ type cemetery in New York that he keeps checking and wasn't familiar with NAMUS but said he would look into it and he did,” Kristine explained.
Investigators were able obtain what could have potentially been one key piece of evidence however according to Jamie’s sister.
“The phone number she called from was given to the detective investigating the case. According to them there was no lead from that number’s owner they checked out,” Kristine said.
Investigators have also obtained and have on file DNA from Jamie’s mother, one of her sisters and her father according to Kristine.
It doesn’t appear however that there have been many other leads in Jamie’s case.
Given the amount of time that has passed Kristine fears the worst. “I truly believe something really bad happened to her, because there has never been a body. There is no doubt in my mind she is dead,” Kristine. said
Jamie’s mother however always held out hope that one day Jamie would be found alive.
“My mother said Jamie had also told her she had to go away for a while. My mother had many theories. Witness protection program was one, sex slave was another. My poor mother would never give up hope that Jamie was still alive and went to her grave never having resolution,” said Kristine.
Jamie’s disappearance was also hard on her sisters and siblings as well. “My sister named her son Jamie and it [is] probably hardest on her next to my mother,” she said.
Kristine created a Facebook Page “Help Find Jamie Diane Seymour” to bring attention to her sister’s disappearance. It also served as a place where her sister Joy (who took Jamie’s disappearance the hardest) and their mother before she passed could search for answers according to Kristine.
Unfortunately new information generated from the Facebook page has been scarce. “None really, one or two suggestions of Jane Does but not my sister,” Kristine explained.
At the time Jamie vanished from the area of the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan she was five feet, six inches tall and weighed 115 to 135 pounds. She had brown hair, hazel eyes and pierced ears. She also had a goiter from a thyroid disorder and often wore a gold necklace with a nameplate that read “Jamie” according to Kristine.
While police have never indicated any connection between Jamie’s disappearance and the Long Island Serial Killer it does share some interesting similarities that are worth considering.
Like almost all of the Long Island Serial Killer’s victims Jamie was young and petite. She also went missing in July – as did Jessica Taylor, Maureen Brainard Barnes, and Melissa Barthelemy.
In fact Jamie went missing almost exactly two years to the day after Jessica Taylor disappeared at the same location – the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.
Jessica was last seen on July 21 of 2003. Jamie was last heard from by her father on July 22, of 2005 (she subsequently called her mother but the exact date is not clear).
New Jersey also could potentially connect the Long Island Serial Killer’s two known victims around this time – Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack – with Jamie.
In 2000 Mack was last seen in the area of Port Republic, New Jersey and as previously reported in an earlier newsletter, Jessica was arrested for prostitution in Atlantic City just prior to her disappearance in New York. Jamie of course was from New Jersey.
Whether Jamie’s disappearance is in fact connected to the Long Island Serial Killer or not Jamie’s family deserves answers regarding what happened to their loved one.
Even all these years later Kristine still hopes for some form of resolution. “I wish there was closure for my sisters,” Kristine explained.
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Brick Township Police Department at (732) 262-1100.
-July 24 2022
Sources:
charleyproject.com
nj.com “Have You Seen Them” S.P. Sullivan May 24, 2019
lps.state.nj.us New Jersey State Police
NAMUS
Tribute Archive Obituary Joyce Diane Seymour
Asbury Park Press “Police Blotter” July 28, 2004
portal.njcourts.gov Municipal Court Cases New Jersey
gwinnetcountysherrif.com
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