$10,000 reward offered in case of slain mom

RALEIGH -- The family of Jennifer Kathleen Nielsen said Friday that their greatest priorities are finding the person responsible for her death and changing state laws that do not recognize fetal homicide.

Nielsen's friends and family, including her husband and two young sons, gathered in a downtown park to announce a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction for whoever is responsible for her death the early morning hours of June 14. Nielsen was eight months pregnant.

Boon Edam Tomsed Inc., a revolving-door manufacturer in Lillington that employs Nielsen's father and husband, put up the reward money, family members said.

"It would mean the world to us to know this person is off the street and won't cause this kind of tragedy to another family," Nielsen's father, Kevin Blaine, said.

The reward and other efforts, including a hot line and composite sketch of a person of interest, are yielding tips from the public, Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue said.

"The composite is the most likely path we have toward identifying that person," Sughrue said.

Jenna Nielsen, 22, expected to give birth July 8 to a son she and her husband Tim had already named Ethen. She was working as a newspaper carrier for USA Today when she was stabbed while dropping off papers at the AmeriKing Food Mart and Exxon station at Lake Wheeler Road and Centennial Boulevard, near the state Farmers Market.

A Raleigh patrol officer found Nielsen behind the convenience store shortly before 5 a.m. after a newspaper carrier for The News & Observer called 911 to report a Honda Civic parked in front of the store with its doors open and newspapers scattered on the ground. Police think Nielsen was attacked between 3 and 4 a.m. when the AmeriKing was closed.

USA Today published a full page ad Monday and smaller ads several times this week also offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the person responsible for Nielsen's death.

On the day investigators combed the area and nearby woods for evidence leading them to Nielsen's killer, a homeless man found a bloodied pocketknife less than a block away. The man, who is being treated at The Healing Place, a residential substance abuse center, told the staff about the knife, men's program director Chris Budnick said.

On Friday, Tim Nielsen held the couple's oldest son, Schyler, 3, as Kaiden, 11 months, wriggled and squealed in his step-grandmother's arms.

Tim Nielsen begged anyone with information about the case to come forward. "The tiniest bit of information has been known to break the greatest cases," he said. "That's what we need right now."

Blaine said the family believes two lives were snuffed out June 14: his daughter's and his unborn grandson's. He said the family hopes to find legislators willing to change the state laws on violence to unborn children.

North Carolina, unlike more than half the states in the nation, does not have a fetal homicide law. Prosecutors are restricted by a 1989 state Supreme Court ruling that says killing a fetus by harming the mother does not amount to murder. It is murder, the court ruled, only if the child survives the attack, then later dies of the injuries.

"There's no reason an unborn child should not be recognized in a homicide," Blaine said.

While the family occupies itself with finding Jenna's killer and trying to change state law, the pain of their loss is evident, especially in her sons.

"They will never hear her voice or vibrant laughter again," Blaine said. "Kaiden will never know his mother. They will never hear her lullabies or her cheers at sports events. They will never hear her exuberant praise at graduation. Never is a long time."

(News researcher Lamara Williams Hackett contributed to this report.)