Searching For Answers: The Murder of Robert Joyal, Part Two
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This is Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small-town USA. I'm your host, Kristen Seavey. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. This is part two of a two-part special on the murder of Robert Joyle. If you haven't listened to part one, I suggest going back and starting with that one first.

When 18-year-old Robert Joyle closed the door on his Ford Bronco, packed full of his belongings and groceries his mother bought him earlier in the day, a huge grin spread across his face, a grin his family knew well. This is what independence feels like. Full-on adult independence.

The afternoon of April 3rd, 1998 was a bittersweet one for the Doyle family. Full of complicated hope, maybe a dash of fear, but mostly confidence that the family was ultimately moving towards growing closer despite physically moving farther apart. When Rob drove away that day, confident about his future, nobody knew that his first night of freedom would actually be his last.

Around 4 a.m., a hard knock at the door woke up Faith Joyle and her husband, Robert. They were met with police officers who were there to give them the news that their son's very first night away from home had ended in a tragedy in the Denny's parking lot. I remember when my parents told, they said, you know, when I woke up, they said, hey, Mark, we need you to, we need to chat with you for a little bit. We need you to sit down.

And I just remember in the back of my head going, son of a gun, they're really going to do it. They're going to surprise me because they moved Rob out and all of this is going to be, they're going to try to like bribe me. And what they're going to do is they're going to tell me that the four of us are all going to Disney World. And I was trying to hold back a smile when they told me, like I was convinced that they

Something good was happening, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. And as the words came out of their mouth, that drop, that reality, that fall from, I just couldn't believe it.

It was a total 180 from what I was expecting. I was definitely in shock. It took me a while for it to set in. I mean, I cried, but it was almost more like, I think my body needs to cry. And I think that's what you do at this moment. But I still don't really understand what's going on.

And again, everything was sort of set up to be great. Like we were just about to cross the finish line into peace. And all of a sudden, it just, right before you cross the finish line, it's like the line disappears and you just fall off a cliff. That's what it felt like.

By the time he got to his new apartment, Rob and his friends had plans. They were going out to celebrate his newfound freedom. And if you were under 21, Metropolis Dance Club on Forest Avenue in Portland was the place to be. And that's where the trouble began. At Metropolis, Rob's friend Michael Atienza got into a verbal argument with another group of teens and young men. Some say the argument was over a girl.

I think there was a lot of, like, chest puffing up. Like, don't make me. Take one more step closer. I'll knock you out. Hey, I'll tell you something. And then Rob's girlfriend pulled him aside and said, dude, it is getting really hot in here. You need to get out of here. Like, this is starting to get out of control. And so what they did, what most teenagers did, is they'd go to Denny's. The place to go after the club was the 24-hour Denny's on Congress Street.

Teens would end up there, order fries and 10 waters, and hang out in the parking lot after the clubs were closed. The night of April 4th was no different. The rival group left Metropolis first, but the conflict was not over. When Rob and Michael and the rest of their group made it over to Denny's around 1 a.m., they found three cars of guys waiting for them in the parking lot.

When he got there, there were all these cars that were already there and more cars started to pull in.

this guy PT approached a vehicle my brother was in and his friend Mike went out like what's going on here man and they were having some sort of discussion and then somebody I don't know if they ever said who but sort of walked up from behind PT and just slugged Mike in the face dropped him Mike just hit the ground and everybody poured out of the van Mike's van so there was probably like six people in there including my brother and

They got out, but the other guys had trunks open and they had bats and metal pipes, knives. There was talk of a machete. These guys came to do some real harm. And my brother and his crew was going to get some denny's. And there was no match. They were completely outnumbered. After the fight between Michael and P.T. broke out, others joined in.

and Rob ended up fighting with a kid named Kevin Janesko. Rob and his friends, there were about six of them, got pulled apart, and they were all engaged in their own isolated fights in the parking lot.

The final fight, he had this guy, Kevin Janesko, pinned down on the ground, I think like sort of up against a car. And Rob was pummeling him. And Kevin somehow grabbed his jacket and pulled it up over his head like in a hockey match, trying to like sort of immobilize him. And I guess when that happened, somebody came up behind and stabbed Rob.

A knife, a 10-inch double-edged serrated knife, was plunged into Rob's back three times. Shortly after, somebody yelled, cops, and everyone dispersed faster than it started. Rob was left in a pool of blood. He didn't even make it to Maine Medical.

Accounts from that evening described Rob's final moments. He staggered, grasping for air with blood in his mouth, and fell to the ground. He called out his girlfriend's name, but the medical examiner said that based on his wounds, he would have died instantly. One of the knife blows had severed part of his spine. But no matter what the story, the outcome is still the same. A teenager was murdered, and the killer had run away.

But who was that killer? So Kevin said that when he gets into fights, he blacks out. So he remembers everything up to the moment where he lifted the jacket over Rob's head and then blacked out and then remembers pushing Rob off of him.

But for some reason, he blacked out conveniently just at the moment when somebody stabbed him, which is crazy. But it's like that moment is what we can't get people to come forward about. Like, we can almost piece this together right up until Rob gets out of the car and really right up until he starts fighting this Kevin Janesko kid.

And then everybody blacked out. Like the entire parking lot, for some reason, everybody blinked at the same time. At Denny's that night, there were perhaps 100 people in the parking lot, depending on which source you believe, and as many as 30 involved in fights. Some were inside eating, some were in their own cars, and some were just hanging out in the parking lot.

Initial police investigation included interviews of about 60 people, and they were able to piece together some of the details of that evening, but things were murky. Portland Deputy Chief Mark Dion told the press, It's a classic case of he said, she said, multiplied by many factors. But the three cars that were waiting for Rob and his friends were identified, and their occupants were unmasked.

This rival group was no ordinary bunch of rowdy teens, but rather a group all involved with organized crime who were either affiliated with or full-fledged members of the Southeast Asian gang called the Tiny Rascals. But they kept this information from the press. An early article from the Monday paper following the incident includes this quote from the Deputy Chief Dionne.

Police had ruled out the possibility of gang involvement. And just two days later in the Portland press, Chief of Police Michael Chitwood said a few of them have gang ties, but police have no reason to believe that the crime is gang-related. I will tell you that when this first happened, we were so naive and

I don't mean that in a disrespectful way to like my parents and myself even. But when you go through something like this, unless you've like studied this stuff or gone through it yourself, you don't know what's happening. And the police would come into our living room and say this was gang activity. And then they would go on the TV and they would say Portland doesn't have a gang problem.

And at the end, we were the ones who were just sort of like left on an island by ourselves. And we realized how naive we were in that we trusted everybody. And that's what they want. You know, that's what the attorney general wants. They don't want bad publicity. They just want it to go away.

Investigation revealed that in the first car, a red Mustang, was 15-year-old Seha Srei, Sam Kim and his older brother Soon, as well as Tana Ork, a cousin of the Kim brothers who lived in Lowell, Massachusetts, one of the primary hubs for the gang. In the second car, a blue compact, was P.T., Kevin Janesko, and at least three other people.

And finally, a dark Toyota car with Massachusetts plates was driven by Voone Kim, another Kim brother, with three guys from Boston. This was the vehicle that had weapons in the trunk. Those guys were all connected. Seha had gone around telling people that he was trying to get into that gang. PT was hanging out with all those guys. We don't know if he was actually in the gang or if he was just kind of a

a lone ranger that hung out with them or something. The Kims are sort of a prominent family. I think in their neighborhood, everybody knew the Kim brothers and soon was the muscle. And Boone was more like the guy who wanted to have a fancy car and show off that he could make money. Like he has a Facebook thing where he just posts stacks of money.

Those guys were connected. And so all their friends from Lowell and maybe even Atlanta, Georgia happened to be there that night. They were hanging out with their gang and whether they were initiated, whether they were small time guys or whatever, in some capacity, they were a part of that.

Their defense was, hey, we're just lowly little high school guys. These guys were way bigger than we were, and they escalated it. The guy who killed Rob, he escalated it. He's from Lowell. He's a gang member. He's bad. We're not. We're just high school kids. And the more you dig into their family and these two brothers, you realize that's not the case. They're part of this gang.

And whether it was a TRG thing or a Voon Kim thing or whatever it was, they were there that night and it was, my brother was fighting them. The knife that killed Rob was left behind in the parking lot. Another knife was found on the side of the road near the parking lot, thrown from the window of PT's fleeing car.

Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood later told the press, This is not a kitchen knife that you use to butter your bread. This weapon and another knife confiscated at the scene were there for one reason, and one reason only, to hurt people.

Fingerprints were pulled from the knife that killed Rob, and though they would play a part in the future of this case, Portland police said that they couldn't definitively link them to anyone. That same night, P.T., along with Kevin Janesko, who fled the scene in P.T.'s blue compact, was taken into custody for questioning. Rob's blood was all over P.T.'s jacket. They were both released the following day.

The other cars with the Kim brothers, Seha Sre, the men from Boston, and Tana Ork, fled the scene and hid in one of the brothers' apartments. Seha and the Boston group left before police got there to question them the next morning. When the police arrived and spoke with Tana and the brothers, they lied and said that they weren't even at Denny's that night.

It was later confirmed that Soon Kim ditched a blood-covered jacket in the backyard of the apartment. A combination of fear, loyalty, pressure from parents not to get involved, and not wanting to be a snitch kept tongues tied with information of who stabbed Rob.

The diverse group of teens hanging out in the parking lot were mostly from surrounding towns like Buxton, Gorham, Portland, and South Portland, and attended a variety of schools in the area. A plea was made with parents of teenagers in the greater Portland area to encourage their kids to come forward with anything they know so police can pinpoint the killer.

Police Chief Chitwood, with more than 50 people interviewed, said that not one of them would come out and say what they knew.

Surely somebody saw something. He later told the press, I think there is a cold, deliberate, hero-type adulation for somebody who would be involved in a criminal act like this. These kids really get off on the fact that they think this is good and they shouldn't get involved. I put my brother on a pedestal, and I'll be the first to tell you that. But

But I also have to reconcile the fact that Rob put himself in some bad situations. And there is a scenario in my head where I can see Rob coming to Maine and using that same thing he did on Cape Cod. Hey, I'm from the city and I could sell pot. And I've fought with some of the toughest MFers you've ever known and blah, blah, blah, blah. And people go, wow, he's from Texas. Oh my gosh.

And I can see him doing that to the wrong crowd and then saying, let's humble this person. That wouldn't surprise me if that's kind of how it happened. The one thing I do know is that these guys, and if you look into their criminal past, they are no stranger to armed robbery and assault with a weapon. And these guys...

were into some pretty heavy stuff. And my brother's group may have even, you know, have given off the impression that they were, but were not anywhere near that. And Rob found himself in a situation where he was way in over his head. Within two days of Rob's murder, a suspect started to emerge.

On April 6th, 15-year-old Nicole Glover came to the Portland police station with her parents to talk with them about a phone call she received about 13 hours after Rob's death. Nicole said that she was talking to 15-year-old Sehas Ray, whom she considered a friend, and during their conversation, he started talking about the melee at Denny's the night before.

Seha was with the group of Tiny Rascals members that night and fled the scene with the other guys from Boston. She said that he confessed to her over the phone that he'd stabbed Rob after somebody used racial slurs against him and his friends. Seha initially told police that he wasn't even at Denny's that night.

Another witness, one of Seha's friends, came forward and said that Seha asked him to be his alibi to back up the lie he told police. Additionally, Tana Ork became an important witness for the Portland Police Department.

Although Tana's initial statement to police was that he also wasn't at Denny's, after he returned home to Lowell, Massachusetts, he was picked up for an unrelated crime and divulged to Lowell PD that he knew more about the crime than he initially said.

Portland police teamed up with a detective specializing in gangs in Lowell and set out to interview Tana. Portland police detective Scott Pelletier traveled to Lowell, and they learned that the night of the murder, 18-year-old Tana was in Portland, visiting his cousins, the Kim brothers, for a birthday celebration. He was out with them the whole night, ended up at Denny's with them, saw Rob fighting with Kevin,

and then saw Seha come up, knife in hand, and stab Rob in the back. This was the information the police needed to move forward. Between Tana's eyewitness testimony and Nicole's account of Seha's phone call confession, police were confident that Seha Srey was the killer, and on Thursday, May 7th, 1998, one month after Rob's death, Seha Srey was charged with murder.

Seha was born in Cambodia, the youngest son in a large family. He grew up without a father. When he was just an infant, his father, who was a soldier, was killed. He and his family were refugees, and they were given asylum in the US. In 1989, when he was just 6 years old, his mom, two of his brothers, and two of his sisters settled in Portland and lived together in government-subsidized apartments.

His life for the following 10 years straddled two worlds: a Khmer-speaking immigrant family from war-torn Cambodia and a first-world, 90% white, English-speaking Portland, Maine enrolled in the public school system. According to the documentary Rascal Love,

Cambodian refugees living in Pomona, California were being targeted by Latino gang violence, and so they banded together to form the Tiny Rascal Gang. This gang was ethnically dominated by Cambodians and other Southeast Asian immigrants, and it spread throughout the U.S. to other hubs where Cambodians had settled, including Lowell, Massachusetts, Seattle, Washington, and even Little Portland, Maine.

Seha was drawn to TRG. His mother and siblings encouraged him to steer clear of the violent gang, but he found himself on the fringes of gang activity and got into trouble. At just 13 or 14 years old, he was caught and sentenced to probation for theft.

He was reportedly not a full-fledged member of the gang, having refused to endure the initiation ceremony, a brutal beatdown by fellow gang members. And as his involvement with the gang increased, his academic performance declined. In May of 1998, Seha was 15 years old and was ending his first year as a freshman at Deering High School in Portland.

In the mid-90s, Portland recognized that they had a growing problem with organized crime, and in January of 1997, a year before Rob's death, they decided to do something about it. They created the Task Force on Gang Prevention and asked them to investigate the problem and provide a report to the city council.

Over the following year, a joint effort including members of the school system, various police departments, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Corrections, and the District and U.S. Attorney's Offices concluded that Portland had six active gangs and roughly 200 young adults that were either active members or associated with the gangs, and one of the most notable ones was the Tiny Rascal Gang.

The report, which coincidentally was presented to the city council just days after Rob's death, said the TRG was involved with street violence, burglaries, and low-level drug trafficking. Seha had violated the conditions of his probation for his previous theft conviction, was arrested on April 10th, and had been held in jail for the month leading up to the murder indictment.

On April 17th, four weeks before he was officially charged, Portland Police Chief Chitwood told the press that Ceja was responsible and said that it was the district attorney's office that had asked for additional corroborating evidence before they would bring on charges.

Given that the police department and the district attorney are on the same team, it's odd to see a quote like this in the newspaper. I can only speculate, but I imagine that either the police were under a great deal of pressure to charge the murder, or they were extremely confident in their case and wanted to turn the public's attention to the DA's office.

Ceja was arraigned on May 8th and pled not guilty. He qualified financially for a public defender and was assigned defense attorney Edwin Ned Chester.

One of the first questions that would face the main justice system was whether to try Seha as a juvenile or as an adult. Ultimately, a judge made that decision after a series of hearings, and in February of 1999, nine months after Seha's indictment, he decided that Seha would be tried as an adult. The

The decision was conveyed in a 16-page written opinion, where he acknowledged that although Ceja might benefit from treatment in the juvenile system and might be a productive member of society, he concluded that allowing the case to remain in the juvenile system would diminish the gravity of the offense.

The maximum penalty in a juvenile case would be incarceration until he was 21 years old. The maximum penalty for murder in Maine? Life in prison. During this time, Seha was being held in the Cumberland County Jail without bail. Sometime leading up to August of 1999, Seha's legal team changed. He was now being represented by prominent private criminal defense attorney Daniel Lilly.

Lily filed a motion to ask the judge to release Seha on bail, and during these bail hearings, the defense team started to poke holes in the prosecution's case. The first thing they went after was Nicole's testimony that Seha had confessed to the murder to her in a phone call.

Lily presented contradictory testimony from a high school teacher at Nicole's school, who said that he had overheard Nicole saying that she knew Seha didn't stab Joyal. Lily also further challenged Nicole's account by pointing out that in her own interview with police, she asked the detective if he knew who had killed Joyal, an odd question considering that she had heard the confession of the murderer herself.

Next, Lilly presented an alternate killer theory based on a first-hand witness account. One of Rob's friends, Michael Petty, a young man who was in the parking lot that night, said that he saw Kevin Janesko holding something and striking Rob's back with a downward motion. And although he didn't see the blade of the knife itself, he believed it was Kevin who had stabbed Rob.

The prosecution had dismissed Michael's testimony as not credible when key details didn't match up. He said Rob's jacket was down when he was stabbed, but it was actually up over his head. Although it was reasonable to believe that Janesko was the killer considering he was one of the last people to be in contact with Rob as they were fighting, how did he come into possession of the knife as he was wrestling and scrapping with Rob?

Next, the defense turned its attention to the fingerprint on the knife. The prosecution's expert witness testified that the print on the murder weapon was poor quality and couldn't be used to identify or rule out Seha. The defense hired their own fingerprint expert, who examined the print on the murder weapon, and he testified that not only was the print usable, it belonged to a man named Marcerd L., another person in the parking lot that night.

a revelation that stunned the prosecution. Perhaps the most damning of all are the circumstances and initial testimony of key prosecution witness Tana Ork. Initially, Tana was interviewed by Lowell, Massachusetts police, and he told them that he saw the stabbing and that the perpetrator was someone else entirely, a 14-year-old Vietnamese boy from Boston.

Lowell P.D. notified Portland P.D., and when they came down to conduct their own interview, Tana changed his story and fingered Seha instead, becoming the prosecution's star witness.

The prosecution did not reveal this information surrounding the initial interview to the defense during discovery, and it wasn't until one week before the trial that this information was divulged, and in an incredibly unorthodox move,

Ceja's attorney put the district attorney Fernand Larochelle himself on the stand to answer questions about why this exculpatory evidence was not provided to the defense in a more timely fashion. The move evidently worked because on December 1st, 1999, after 19 months behind bars, the

The judge decided that not only would he grant Seha bail, but that he would be released on his own recognizance. In other words, his bail was zero dollars. Moreover, the judge said that he might disallow testimony from Tana Ork during the trial because of the procedural blunder by the prosecution.

Two other names that came up in the legal process were Ross Choon and Soon Kim, one of the Kim brothers there that night. Ross and Soon were charged with home invasion in Portland, burglarizing an apartment and threatening the people inside. They were two of a group of four men who burst into a Portland party in March of 1999, ordered 16 people on the ground, threatened them with guns and a machete.

and took off with thousands of dollars worth of cash, jewelry, and other valuables. Both of them said they knew the identity of Joyal's killer, and both of them insisted on reduction of their charges in exchange for information. The state said that they were not willing to reduce the charges against the men, and the preliminary interviews with the men yielded no further pertinent information.

Lilly said that the reason the state was unwilling to negotiate with these men was that they would further undermine the state's case by identifying an alternate suspect. Soon and Voon Kim were both called to testify in court, and both refused to testify, citing Fifth Amendment protection against making self-incriminating statements.

The defense made a convincing claim that the lies and stories circling the case were all made to cover up the identities of the real killer, likely a full-fledged member of the tiny rascal gang.

Seha was not an official member and one of the only people in their group that was under 18 who was there that night, and Lily said that he was being set up to take the fall for a crime he didn't commit. The case continued to float in legal limbo when the state filed for an extension, which was granted, as they continued to try and gather additional evidence.

In the meantime, it was in the middle of the school semester, and Seha was looking to return to public high school. A very unusual situation had arisen. Nance Monaghan, a private investigator hired by Seha's attorney, had gotten legal guardianship over Seha. She said that the reason for the move was to enable him to have distance from other kids at Deering High School that were witnesses in his pending criminal case.

She was a resident of Cape Elizabeth, and she filed paperwork to enroll Seha at Cape Elizabeth High School. The plan was for Seha to stay with her five days a week and to return to his family in Portland on the weekend. The principal initially accepted Seha, but after a firestorm of angry calls from parents countering that his presence at school would constitute a major distraction…

The principal reversed his decision and instead made arrangements for Seha to have a private tutor. This saga continued, first to the superintendent of the school district, then to a county judge, and ultimately it landed at the feet of the school board and they decided in a unanimous 7-0 decision to disallow Seha's enrollment. Their hearing was conducted in secret, so we'll never know the full context and rationale of their decisions.

but I think the unanimous decision speaks to the absolute confidence of the board that they reached the right decision. I suspect that the confidential records relating to SEHA that were available to the board, but not to the public, made the decision for them.

Meanwhile, the criminal case against Ceja continued. The judge decided that Tana Ork's testimony would be allowed, a boon for the prosecution. But additional doubt clouded the case when Ross Choon testified that although he wouldn't identify the killer, he said Portland police had the wrong guy.

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2000, nearly two years after he was indicted, the charges against Seha Srey were dropped. The state, in essence, admitted that they had failed to meet the standard of guilt required for a successful conviction. Beyond a reasonable doubt, Seha was free. The prosecution had dismissed the case against Seha, but the police stood firm.

They believed Seha was responsible, and though they acknowledged that they might not have the evidence necessary for a conviction, they reserved the right to come after him again in the future, should the information arise. I feel like there was information, obviously, that Seha had.

was there and was involved. And then they said, how do we connect it? How do we make it work? And in the meantime, they ignored all these other different leads that people were throwing at them. Detective Ryback, who's the lead detective, told my mom, what's going to happen is Seha's going to go to trial, and then we're going to put these guys on the witness stand. Once they're up there and they put their hands on the Bible, they're going to tell the truth. And my mom said, well,

You mean like these gang members and criminals? They're not going to tell the truth. And he said, yeah, you don't understand. As soon as they're up there and they put their hand on the Bible, it's like they flip a switch. Guys who are, you know, making stories up to try to get plea deals, who are fighting people, who are doing armed burglary. If you put a Bible in front of them, they'll just melt.

This is not the Wicked Witch of the West, and if you spray water on her, she's going to melt. Like, these guys just think this was a big joke, and they're not wrong. Mark doesn't know if Seha murdered his brother. He's not out for blood, but for truth and for justice.

I didn't want Seha to have to go to prison for something he didn't do. There's this part of me, and I remember telling the private detectives this to the defense, like, if there was a way, like, my thought was like, wow, if I was able to prove somehow that Seha didn't do it, somebody else did, and they were brought to justice or whatever, not only would my parents get closure, but Seha's mom and dad would be able to go to sleep at night knowing their son didn't do that.

As Mark mentioned earlier, the people who were there that night didn't exactly stay out of trouble in the years following Rob's murder. Just a few months after Seha's charges were dismissed in the summer of 2000, Seha got into some trouble in Portland. He faced assault charges stemming from an encounter in a Dunkin' Donuts with a Portland man.

In November of 2001, while he was out on bail and hadn't yet faced trial for his previous assault charges, Seha got into some new trouble. A woman reported to the police that after she turned Seha and his friends away from her Halloween party, they became so angry that they returned later that evening, broke the door, windows, and lights, threatened her, and assaulted another guest with a weed whacker, a

Again, he was arrested and charged. Later that month, while out on bail, police pulled him over for a traffic infraction, according to Chief Chitwood, almost running over a pedestrian, and found a loaded .22 caliber revolver under the driver's seat, for which he had no permit. It was a violation of his parole conditions, too. Furthermore, his driver's license was suspended.

For these crimes, two assault charges, burglary, failing to yield to a pedestrian, misdemeanor weapons charges, and parole violations, Seha was sentenced to five years and six months, with all but 24 months suspended, meaning that he would serve only a year and a half.

His biggest concern, though, was that he would be deported back to Cambodia. He ultimately served two years, was released in 2003, and was not deported. But four years later, in October of 2007, 25-year-old Seha's criminal behavior came to an end.

After a dispute over a $7,500 drug debt at a party, Seha was shot in the head and killed after he shot at the other party and tried to flee the scene. Whatever secrets Seha Asrey was holding onto went with him to his grave. With Seha's death, interest in the case plummeted.

Zeha was charged with the crime, and for many people, his indictment was proof enough that he was responsible for Rob's death. After all, most criminal charges result in either guilty pleas or guilty verdicts.

Both the police and the public likely believe that with Seha's death went away any chance for truth or justice. Rod started as like the headline. And then within a few months, he was like the backup story. And then he got, you know, delegated to like just the six o'clock news or the 11 o'clock news. And you read this and it's just, yeah, it's daunting how much there is.

And at the same time, it's like nothing in there. Despite people thinking this case is solved, nobody has ever been convicted of murdering Robert Joyle. As of this recording, Rob's case isn't even listed on the most current Portland Police Department cold case homicide list.

The only regurgitated blurb on the Portland police Facebook page is from three years ago, on the 20th anniversary of his death. There haven't been any shares about his case since. So then we started looking around and realized that, like, Rob wasn't on the unsolved lists. He wasn't on the state's list. He wasn't on Portland's list. And so we started to fight to, like, get

Get them on there. And we made some headway and we finally got it. And was it a month ago? Somebody from the cold case group that I'm on reached out and said, hey, why did they take Rob's name off the list? And I said, I have no idea. I'm going to look into it.

She was like, yeah, I just noticed it. So I called them. I left a message. I reached out through Facebook. I emailed. I did all these things. I didn't hear anything for a while. And then one day I got a call from the lieutenant, Lieutenant Martin. And he said, hey, yeah, I wanted to

talk to you about what happened about the name being taken off. I said, like, I just figured it was a mistake. Like, oops, we deleted him by accident. I am so sorry. I'm going to put him on right away. And just so his tone of voice and the way he was setting up was like,

He was going to remind me why it was not there. So he goes on to tell me that it's because of the new designation that Rob's case is under. And I said, what's that? And he goes, well, it's what the attorney general told you. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And he's like, well, you had a meeting with my detectives and the attorney general recently, and they told you that because of the

certainty in which the police department feels the case is solved but the guy the case fell apart and the guy is now dead they said even though that's the case and even though the case got dismissed we feel like there's enough evidence pointing to say ah that we can say that the case is relatively resolved in the new designation we call this cleared exceptionally and that

And that means it's legally unsolved, but we know what happened. And therefore, there's no we don't have to put it on our records. And he even said it's it's a reporting thing. And I said, yeah, I know that's a reporting thing for you. But that's also like could be the difference between me getting answers about who murdered my big brother. And he was like, OK, it's like, wow, it's really weird that we're not on the same page. And he was like, look, you had that meeting. I don't know what to tell you.

And I was really mad and I contacted my mom and I talked to her and she was like, hell no, did I have a conversation? No way. And I talked to my dad that night. We all were like, none of us talked to them. None of us had this meeting. And so my mom then called and the same way she told my dad, oh, hell no, I'm not changing my name to Myers. I'm Joel. She told that lieutenant, you're putting his damn name on there and I want answers.

So about a week later or so, I got a voicemail and he had actually just contacted my mom prior to that. And he said, it looks like there was a clerical mistake. I mixed up your brother's case with or somebody mixed up your brother's case with these cases that had been discussed. And we just assumed Rob was there. So the person and he just passed all the buck off on like the web people. He's like, so they were advised to take Rob off the list.

And it was an error that went up shortly after that. And when I talked to the guy, the lieutenant, he had no idea about the case. And he said so. He said, look, I got two boxes of information files that I've never looked at. So I don't know the ins and outs. But I can tell you that the detectives who were on the case originally are pretty confident that it was Ceja.

Around the 20th anniversary, Mark knew that he needed to step up and try to make a difference in his brother's case. Time continued to pass, and no progress was being made. If the family didn't step up and fight, who would?

He started petitioning media outlets to cover his brother's story, hoping to see Rob's name in the headlines again and reignite interest in the case, in hopes that maybe enough time had passed for people to be ready to talk. The only way I'm going to get anything moving here is if I keep talking about it. Because if I don't, then everybody thinks that the case got solved and that we were told that Rob's case is, you know, whatever, and we've all moved on. But that's not true.

Mark has a simple request for those of you who live in Portland or Gorham. Print out one copy of Rob's flyer and put it up, maybe in your neighborhood cafe or at your grocery store or gym. You can also connect with the Maine Cold Case Alliance on Facebook. Mark is on the board and the group is pushing to change laws for families of cold case victims in Maine. Mark also created a Facebook page and group for Rob's case.

You can find the PDF flyer and links to the Facebook groups on the episode page on MurderSheTold.com. The next step to advance the investigation is to re-interview known witnesses and to take seriously those new witnesses that have emerged. And to the people who were there that night, Mark has another request.

Let's say you were there that night. You were a Westbrook student or a Gorman student. You had nothing to do with any of this drama. You saw it. You went home. Your parents said, you do not get involved in this. If you were there, you either tell what you know or you keep your mouth shut. But it's 20 freaking years later. And I would hope that if I saw something like that when I was 18 years old,

And 20 years later, I was putting my kids to bed and I was standing in the doorway, getting ready to shut the light off and just looking at them. Not one person from that parking lot 20 years later has a conscience that says, man, I get it now. I'm a dad. I'm a mom. I can't believe I saw that and I didn't do anything.

I'm going to say something. And to be fair, a couple individuals have done that. I know a woman went to them and said, I was hanging out that night and I was at Denny's and I was on the other side of the car. All these fights broke out. So we started to back up. And when they yelled 5-0, I saw Luis Sanchez look down at his shirt and he was covered in blood and had a look on his face. And then he ran and got into a car and they drove off. I look around the other side of the car and there's somebody lying on the ground.

So Luis was standing there. So we at least know that. Their response is, look, we talked to him 20 years ago and he said he went in and got French fries and had nothing to do with it. And we're like, okay, yeah, if I killed somebody or did something, I might lie about it too. Maybe you should go investigate it. Go listen to this girl. Go talk to her. Let me give you the names of 10 other people that I know were there that night and that I know you didn't talk to.

I can't put this down because it is so unreasonable to me to think that not one person saw what happened. The family would also like to have access to the case files, either directly or through a private investigator. Their requests to see the files themselves have been rebuffed, with the standard line of, this case remains an active investigation and we don't share information about active cases.

But other families in Maine have gotten their wish and have been granted access to case files. Mark would love to sit down and review the full interviews and evidence that police have gathered, but they won't allow it.

The murder itself was not the only crime committed that night. There were assaults with a deadly weapon. There were people who conspired to commit a cover-up. There were those who were hindering apprehension and rampant obstruction of justice. But other than Seha, not one person was charged with a single crime in connection with Rob's death. I also think it's really, really bizarre that you can have that many people

in a brutal, deadly assault that just all walked away without getting in trouble. Like, even if PT didn't kill Rob, he clearly was like really involved. He was at a fight. He, you know, he participated in this. Why didn't Kevin Ginesco, who was the one who was fighting Rob, why didn't he go to jail? Like nobody got in trouble, which I just thought was really odd. And maybe...

Maybe I watched too much Law & Order or something, but it just seems like the fact that everybody walked away scot-free except for Rob does not sit well with me. Other than Seha, the only other people to face consequences were the managers of Denny's. Rob's mother, Faith, filed a lawsuit against them for not providing adequate security.

In the months following the murder, in the summer of 1998, Rob's dad ran into Kevin Janesko in the South Portland Main Mall. Kevin told him that he didn't see who stabbed Rob, but that he knew it wasn't Seha. Kevin also left him with these chilling words, "'Nobody will ever find out who did it, because nobody will ever tell.'"

We didn't ask for any of this. Rob was taken from us. And all we asked is for people to participate in trying to find the truth. Instead, people told their kids not to go to the police. People told their kids not to be friends with our family. People convinced themselves the case was solved.

Everybody swept it under the rug. And I have more pain in my life, and you have a killer who is on the loose. So it's not just us. It's everybody. This is not a joyal problem. This is a community problem. Because I'm sure the people whose kids were there that night, the parents of the kids that were there that night, were probably mortified to think that they could have been the one who was killed.

It's now been 23 years since 11-year-old Mark said goodbye to his big brother on the afternoon of April 3rd, watching him drive away and expecting to help him unpack the next day. 23 years since Faith and Robert have hugged their son. 23 years since Rob's laugh filled up a room.

I can't help but think back to Mark's childhood story about Rob's last-minute change of plans to play basketball in the driveway with his little brother, building up his confidence and making him feel loved. He protected him, believed in him, and comforted him. Today, 30 years later, the roles are reversed, and I can't help but admire the strength and tenacity that Mark has shown in his fight for justice for Rob.

Rob's troubled life as a youth is not unique. There are millions of kids just like Rob who struggle to find their way. Perhaps if we become more tolerant of our differences, we might find that we have more in common than you might think.

I just want my mom to be able to go to sleep at night and not feel that guilt. I want my dad to just be able to focus on his woodworking because that makes him happy instead of having to relive every decision he made as a parent. I myself, I'm sick of just like looking out the window and just having this uneasiness of that this puzzle isn't complete. There's just these missing pieces of

and I'm OCD. I need to complete things and this is such a big thing to be incomplete and I

I don't know. I just, it's worth it. And maybe it's unhealthy at times, you know, to focus on something in the past. But my priority is Rob. My priority is my family. And I know if something ever happened to me, Rob would have gone door to door. And sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not doing enough. And that was like retorting.

For 20 years, I felt that way and was like, wow, I'm not as capable as Rob was because Rob would have confronted this.

But the truth is, Rob was loyal. To a fault, but Rob was loyal. And my way of honoring him, because I don't have him here anymore, sure, is to tell happy memories of him and make sure people know that. But I also want Rob to know that, you know, I got him. That he's got my back and I've got his. And I know he's not here and I haven't talked to him in a long time, but...

That is one thing I know for certain about Rob is that he would have done anything for me. So I got to do something.

If you have any information about the murder of Robert Joyle or know somebody who might, I urge you to come forward and talk. Contact the Portland Police at 207-893-2810 or submit an anonymous tip at the link in the show notes. If you're more comfortable talking to somebody like me, please don't be afraid to reach out to me at MurderSheTold.com. I am more than happy to talk with you and be a liaison for anonymous information.

I want to thank you so much for listening. I am so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. My sources for this episode include the Portland Press-Herald, the Bangor Daily News, the Morning Sentinel, News Center Maine,

and centralmaine.com. A very special thanks to Mark and Faith for sharing their memories and trusting me with Rob's story. All links for sources and images for this episode can be found on murdershetold.com, linked in the show notes. Special thanks to Byron Willis for his research and writing support. If you loved this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.

It's one of the best ways to support an indie podcast. If you are a friend or a family member of the victim, you're more than welcome to reach out to me at MurderSheToldPod at gmail.com. If you have a story that needs to be told or would like to suggest one, I would love to hear from you. My only hope is that I've honored your stories in keeping the names of your family and friends alive. I'm Kristen Seavey, and this is Murder She Told. Thank you for listening.