3 decades after Chandler mom goes missing, her husband is charged in her murder. Why now?

There's no body.

No significant new evidence.

The case has been cold for more years than Donna Mae Jokumsen lived.

But more than three decades after the young Chandler mom went missing, her husband faces a murder charge.

If the case goes to trial, it would be the oldest murder case presented to a jury in Arizona without a body, according to a former federal prosecutor.

It also could end decades of limbo for the couple's extended families and their two children, who ultimately had to wrestle with a horrible question.

Did my dad kill my mom?

Donna Mae Jokumsen was 22 in July 1987, when she called her father in Washington state to ask if she and her two sons could seek refuge at his home. She was tired of the violent fights with her husband, she told him.

He said yes. But she never drove to Washington from Chandler, where she had moved months earlier.

Her family didn't hear from her again, so a little more than a week after she called her father, they reported her as missing to police on July 11, 1987.

Family and police presume she has been dead all this time. But her body never has been found.

They believe Kevin Jokumsen, her husband, killed her.

Jokumsen, now 54, denies it. He told police his wife abandoned him and their children to start a new life.

Witnesses' accounts remained basically the same in repeated interviews by detectives in 1987, 1998 and again in 2016, when the case was revisited by two new Chandler detectives.

What has changed is the public's perception of domestic violence cases. What law enforcement initially may have dismissed as a lovers’ quarrel decades ago now demands increased scrutiny.

"In the past and probably in the mid-'80s, I’m sure there was a much different thought process when it came to domestic violence between husbands and wives or boyfriends and girlfriends," said Detective Seth Tyler, a Chandler police spokesman. "It’s treated in the law much different now than it probably was back then."

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In September, a Maricopa County grand jury indicted Kevin Jokumsen on a charge of second-degree murder, based on the efforts of the new Chandler detectives.

Police extradited Jokumsen from Washington to Arizona, where he is being held in a Maricopa County jail while awaiting trial.

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office offered little detail on why the case is being prosecuted now.

Spokeswoman Amanda Jacinto said, "Thirty years ago there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction."

She didn't detail why prosecutors believe a conviction is more likely now.

A message requesting to talk to Kevin Jokumsen's public defender, Casey Arellano, wasn't returned by the Maricopa County Public Defender's Office. Kevin Jokumsen also denied a request to be interviewed.

It may seem difficult for prosecutors to secure a guilty verdict in the case given the lack of a body, but it is not rare.

If the case goes to trial, it would be the oldest murder case without a body presented to a jury in Arizona, based on data compiled by Tad DiBiase, a former federal prosecutor, who tracks similar cases.

Since that July 1987 phone call, Chandler detectives have continued their search for clues leading to Jokumsen.

A 200-page report released by Chandler police in November includes statements from friends and family, tips received by the department and newspaper clippings.

It paints a picture of a young couple who had physically fought since their high-school years — a couple who, by all accounts, should not have stayed together.

Kevin Jokumsen's mother and aunt, the two family members who agreed to be interviewed by The Arizona Republic, described him as a smart child who had a sheltered childhood.

He grew up riding dirt bikes but quit after his father died of a heart attack at a race just as Kevin arrived at the finish line, they said.

Kevin and Donna met while in high school in Enumclaw, Washington, southeast of Seattle.

Even then, friends and family tried to break up the couple.

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Kevin's older sister later told police that Donna being with her brother was like "gas on a fire." Fights between the two would sometimes escalate into physical violence, she told investigators. She recalled her horror as the two came to blows during a softball game.

His mother and Donna's sisters and parents all told police stories of abuse involving the two. Details, predictably, varied from family member to family member.

In a July 2016 interview with police, Donna's younger sister Deborah Howard said she was 13 when she witnessed violence between the couple. She was supposed to go to a concert with Donna and get the tickets from Kevin, the report said.

The couple was not together at the time. Kevin's mother told police the argument started because Kevin said he was taking another girl to the concert, but she didn't remember other details.

Howard said she didn’t catch the start of the argument, either, but she saw Kevin punch or slap her sister. And as Donna tried to flee, Howard said he grabbed Donna and clamped her into a chokehold. Her sister suffered a black eye, Howard recalled in the report.

Donna changed the details of what happened to downplay the incident when answering police questions, her sister told investigators.

In another early episode of violence, accounts differ over an incident involving a firearm thrown in a ditch. Kevin told police Donna threw his rifle in the ditch and he made her retrieve it. His mother, according to a police report, backed that version.

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But Donna's mother, Mary Jane Leitzen, told police Kevin attempted to drown Donna in the ditch after her daughter told Kevin she was pregnant.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Kevin joined the National Guard and left for boot camp. His mother had hoped his departure would have ended the relationship, she said in an interview. But while he was away, Donna told his mother she was pregnant and when Kevin returned, he went back to Donna.

“That relationship was not healthy. If I could have hog-tied him and got him away from her, I would have done it," Kevin's mother, Jeanne Jokumsen, said. "But this is the end result, and we’ve all paid a price.”

On July 4, 1984, Donna gave birth to their first son, Robert. The couple married a year later and had their second child, John, in January 1986.

Her sisters described Donna to investigators as a "fun-loving person" who was a dedicated mother to her two boys. She was tall — 5-foot-11 — and 180 pounds.

At Christmas 1986, Donna told her family she was moving to Arizona with Kevin. As Howard recalled in 2016, Donna said she and Kevin wanted to get away from family so they could work on their relationship.

Howard told police she feared at the time it would be the last time she would see her sister.

Karl Jokumsen, Kevin's brother, told Chandler police in a 2016 interview that his brother meant to go to Arizona by himself to get away from Donna.

The day Kevin was packing his car to drive to Chandler, Karl told police, Donna showed up, much to the Jokumsen family's surprise. He said at the time Kevin and Donna had planned to get divorced.

Kevin had visited Arizona before. He had a grandmother living in Mesa or Scottsdale, his family told police.

The two lived on West Gary Drive, near Alma School and Ray roads.

If the couple still had marital issues after the move, Donna didn't immediately let her family in Washington know.

In letters and phone calls, she told them she was doing OK, working at a restaurant and going to school to be a bank teller.

She said Kevin had applied for a job as a firefighter with the Chandler Fire Department. In the past, he had aspired to be a police officer and had taken a few law enforcement courses.

Yet when she went missing, the few friends she had made in Arizona told police a different story: one that included Donna getting black eyes and bruises and living in fear of her husband.

Among the last people to see Donna alive were sisters Jackie Oxford and Myra Sandoval. Donna attended bank teller school with Oxford, who then introduced Donna to her sister.

During a 2016 interview with police, Sandoval told detectives Donna spent part of the Fourth of July weekend with Sandoval's family, and they had gone to a river in Donna's blue Chevrolet Chevelle.

By the time they returned to Sandoval's home, the car was dirty, she said.

Soon after her disappearance, police in 1987 asked Kevin why, if Donna had left it behind, the Chevelle was cleaned out and washed. Kevin told them he didn't know.

The report doesn't explicitly say it, but officers at the time inferred Kevin may have used the car to get rid of Donna's body and used the knowledge he had gained from a forensics class to get rid of evidence.

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According to a written statement that Sandoval provided to police on July 15, 1987, Donna had planned to leave Kevin with the boys for part of the Fourth of July weekend. Then on Sunday, July 5, Donna drove the Chevelle to her house to pack clothes for the boys and her. She was going to spend the night at Oxford's house before she left for Washington, Sandoval wrote.

Oxford, who has since passed away, said in her 1987 statement that on July 5 she had a barbecue and Donna had been at Oxford's house most of the day. Donna told Oxford she was going to pick up her sons from her house and return to the barbecue.

"She never showed up or never called," Oxford wrote. "And I haven't seen or heard from her since."

Kevin provided a statement to police on July 11. He said he was home with the boys when Donna arrived at the house about 5 p.m.

She asked him for money because she wanted to take a summer vacation with the boys in Washington, he wrote. Kevin gave her $500 so she could rent a U-Haul van to take some of the boys' stuff, he wrote.

According to him, Donna said she was going to say goodbye to her friends and return later that night to talk about when she would leave. But when he woke up the next morning, her car was washed and parked in front of the house and he never saw or heard from her again, he wrote.

Police doubted his story.

"We figure there's some type of foul play here someplace because of the way she disappeared," Chandler police Lt. Bobby Harris said in an East Valley Tribune article on July 18, 1987. "She left with nothing, except maybe some money and the clothes on her back."

During an interview with detectives in a Chandler police station, Kevin wept when they told him they suspected Donna was murdered.

"He began sobbing and said that nothing has happened to her because she is too strong for anything to have happened to her," according to a police report dated July 24, 1987. "He kept crying and uttering statements like, 'Please God, don't anything happen to her; and 'She'll let someone know where she is.'"

Kevin returned to Washington in September 1987. His mother had been caring for their sons in Washington since shortly after Donna's disappearance.

He took them back and they lived with their father for a time until, subsequently, Jeanne Jokumsen received custody of her two grandsons.

Her first husband had died. Adopting the boys ended her second marriage because her husband didn't accept the children, she said. She took them in regardless.

In 2016, John told detectives they were too young to remember anything from the time they lived in Chandler.

John told one of the investigators he couldn't remember his mother but believed something bad happened to her. He didn't specify what, but he believed his father was to blame. He told the detective he has never spoken to his father or brother about what had happened to Donna.

Robert, 33, and John, 32, didn't return messages seeking comment.

Leads continued to surface through the years.

Ellie Higgins, a Chandler police criminal investigations assistant, typed a tip that she received in August 1993 involving two people, not including Jokumsen.

Higgins wrote that an unidentified woman told her that a couple had bragged about killing a young mother and burying her body in north Phoenix.

"(They) killed a 22-year-old lady from Chandler about 5 years ago," Higgins wrote. "Her body is buried near 7th St. and Happy Valley Road. The lady was approximately 22 years of age, married and had 2 children. Her family was from Washington. Apparently, he has been bragging about this for several months and says he can never be caught because he knows the ropes."

A Chandler detective didn't respond to a question if they followed up on this tip.

In October 2013, the Chandler police found a King County Sheriff's Office report from Washington state that provided a lead.

In February 1999, a sheriff's office in Washington state had investigated an auto burglary case that involved Kevin Jokumsen and Troy Berens, a childhood friend of Kevin's.

The burglary case was unfounded. But in the course of the investigation, Berens told Deputy Robert Burrows that he believed Kevin had something to do with Donna's disappearance.

"Berens said that on many occasions, (Kevin) Jokumsen had made remarks about the heat in the deserts in Arizona would make a human body dissolve and that there is no way that a person who is buried there would ever be found," Burrows wrote in his report. "Berens said that he has a feeling that (Kevin) Jokumsen is involved in his wife's disappearance."

When the case was revisited in 2016, Chandler police learned that Berens had died eight years earlier.

Tripp Hart, a Washington lawyer, had been hired by Donna to represent her in what would have been her divorce from Kevin.

In a phone interview with The Republic, he said people have a lower tolerance now for controlling behavior that may have been tolerated in the 1980s.

In 2016 when two detectives flew to Washington to again interview people connected to the Jokumsen case, Hart told the Chandler officers that Donna had told him about instances when her husband choked her until she passed out.

He told them his client never went through with the divorce proceedings and he later learned she had moved to Arizona.

"If the same scenario presented itself today, hopefully there would have been a different outcome," Hart said.

Court filings show Arellano, Kevin Jokumsen's attorney, challenged the grand jury proceedings in which Jokumsen was indicted.

Arellano said Deputy County Attorney Robert Shutts, who is currently prosecuting the case, declined to prosecute it in 1998.

Jacinto, the county attorney's spokeswoman, said Shutts declined to be interviewed, citing attorneys' ethical rules.

A motion filed by Arellano in February asks a judge to order the case back to a grand jury because Shutts hadn't allowed the lead police detective to answer a question about what was different in the case now, years later.

This, the motion says, led to an uninformed grand jury.

Arellano attached to the motion a transcript from the grand jury proceedings, which typically are not public record. That transcript shows that a juror did ask Chandler detective Cassandra Ynclan, who investigated the case and served as the lone witness in the proceedings, if she believed the domestic violence relationship turned deadly.

She declined to answer because grand jurors are supposed to decide if charges should be filed based on the evidence and not on the opinions of an investigator, the transcript shows.

Still, Shutts offered the juror an answer, according to the transcript.

"A history of domestic violence between two people is something that both grand jurors and petit jurors can consider when they're making decisions about things of this nature," he told the juror.

The judge ruled against Arellano's motion in March.

Donna's case isn't the first no-body arrest for Chandler police, and several no-body murder cases have been prosecuted in the state in recent decades.

In June 2010, Chandler police arrested Rick Valentini, whom a jury later convicted of second-degree murder. Valentini was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing Jamie Laiaddee, 32, his live-in girlfriend, whose body was never found.

Between 1990 and Jan. 1, at least 18 no-body murder cases have been prosecuted and presented to a jury in Arizona, according to data collected by DiBiase, the former federal prosecutor who has tracked no-body cases taken to trial nationwide.

Donna's story could be the oldest no-body case presented to a jury, from the time she was first reported missing up until police arrested her husband.

The notion that a case can't be tried without a body is a myth, DiBiase said. Such an idea was based more on a "common-sense understanding than any legal barrier," he said.

Still, DiBiase said, only the strongest no-body cases are prosecuted.

Of the 18 Arizona cases since 1990, prosecutors have gotten convictions in 15, DiBiase said. Two other guilty convictions were were overturned on appeal. In the 18th case, a jury found the defendant not guilty.

"What’s been surprising about Arizona is that they have a lot of cases, but there’s not one factor that makes it easier to try the case there than anywhere else," DiBiase said.

In cases that have been cold for decades, prosecutors rely more on friend and family accounts than forensics, DiBiase said.

SEE ALSO: More coverage of metro Phoenix cold cases

Kevin's aunt, Gloria Knutson, who now lives in Phoenix, said Kevin and Donna Jokumsen were "lethal together" but believes her nephew is innocent. She admits she doesn't know where Donna is and can't explain why she's been missing.

The couple, she said, was "not a good match together."

“In my heart, I don’t believe he could do it. But I also know sometimes people get pushed to the point to doing something imaginable," she said. “I agree that Kevin is the likeliest and easiest suspect and God’s the only one who knows the answer to that question.”

But his mother has her doubts.

“I do not know what happened," Jeanne Jokumsen said. "But I’m not fool enough to believe that something didn’t get out of control between the two of them."

Dianna Allen, one of Donna's younger sisters, said Donna's family members didn't want to be interviewed for this story because they feared the legal case could be ruined.

“It’s been 30 years," she said, "and we’re not going to mess this case up."

From 1994 to 2011, the rate of violent acts against women by their spouses or intimate partners declined 72 percent, according to a 2013 federal report.

Some domestic violence victims advocates attribute the decline to stricter laws, social services to both abusers and abused, and the Violence Against Women Act, a federal law approved in 1994

Still, advocates say violence against women is still prevalent. The 2013 report says that in 2010, 39 percent of homicides of women were committed by an intimate partner. That was an increase from 1993, when 30 percent of such crimes were committed by an intimate partner.

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