Who Killed Jamie Stickle? New Details On The Unsolved Murder Of The Pittsburgh Bartender Who Burned Alive In Her Jeep
Jamie Stickle was murdered in 2002.
Instagram She was a popular Pittsburgh bartender whose 2002 murder remains unsolved. Who killed Jamie Stickle?
In 2002, Jamie Stickle was found murdered in Pittsburgh. Despite the sheer number of evidences found about her murder, the details of her tragic death remain a mystery to investigators.
Let’s look at what we know about Jamie Stickle’s death.
1. She went to several bars in downtown Pittsburgh before she was murdered.
The Pittsburgh Tribune created an exhaustive timeline of Jamie Stickle’s steps in the hours leading up to her murder. According to them, Stickle and a few of her friends patronized a series of bars on Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh.
The police chief, at the time, told the outlet that he knew how Jamie Stickle died (her Jeep caught fire, burning her alive inside of it), but not why.
“We’ve looked at every potential suspect, anybody that could have had a reason to harm her,” Pittsburgh police Assistant Chief William Mullen said. “We’ve interviewed 30 or 40 people, traced her whereabouts that night and consulted with experts. But we can’t find anyone or anything that can explain what caused the Jeep to catch fire.”
2. Despite the evidence, Jamie Stickle’s death is still not officially classified as a homicide.
One of the things that make the Jamie Stickle case so troubling to those who knew her is the fact that despite all the evidence suggesting there was, at least, a bit of foul play, Stickle’s death has not yet officially been ruled a homicide.
According to the Pittsburgh City-Paper, back in 2005, Jamie Stickle’s mother Marge Walls pleaded with police to treat her daughter’s case as the homicide that it was. Stickle, who was a bartender at a popular gay bar and a well-known activist within her community, was found in her burning vehicle next to her isolated apartment on February 8, 2002.
“Police reports noted money, lipstick and mace scattered near her car, as well as a trail of blood from her locked apartment door to the driver's side of her car. According to the autopsy reports and a Polaroid of the scene, she was sitting, and breathing, in her car when she died,” reported the paper.
3. Her unsolved murder remains a source of anguish for her family members.
In 2012, Marge Walls told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that she felt “frustrated” that she couldn’t get justice for her daughter.
"There's just so many questions," Marge told the outlet. "It's just like every day that goes by just makes it worse."
What’s worse, the coroner said that they had “dropped” the case, and weren’t sure when they would pick it back up. Additionally, they didn’t seem to have any leads — and neither were they looking for them.
"Once you rule a death undetermined, it tends to stay that way forever unless something new comes up," medical examiner Karl Williams told the outlet. "The best possible thing would be to turn up some new evidence."
4. Recently, the city of Pittsburgh gave Jamie Stickle a commemorative “day” in her honor, but her death still haunts investigators.
On April 29, 2019, the local CBS station in Pittsburgh announced that the city of Pittsburgh would hold a “Jamie Stickle Day” in her memory. They also sat down with the senior investigator of the case, who said that her death still “haunts” him.
“I’ve thought about it many, many times. My only hope is that she was unconscious and died before she could wake up and feel the pain,” former investigator Joe Meyers — who now works at Carnegie Mellon University — said to the outlet.
Anyone with any information on the death of Jamie Stickle is invited to call the Pittsburgh police. A reward may be available for those who provide information leading to an arrest and conviction.
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, and photographer whose work has appeared in People, Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and more. She is also the author of The Uprising series. Find her online at www.bernadettegiacomazzo.com and www.longlivetheuprising.com.