9/9/13 - Itâs been ten years to the day since a Fowlerville gas station clerk was brutally murdered while working the overnight shift and her father says she is not forgotten. 21-year-old Jessica Fear was found dead inside of the Sunoco station on Grand Avenue near the I-96 interchange in the early morning hours of September 9th, 2003. Leonard James Westervelt was sentenced to 28 to 70 years in prison after pleading guilty to 2nd degree murder. Jessicaâs father Stephen Fear tells WHMI there were no surveillance cameras working the night of Jessicaâs murder, which went unsolved for more than two years before Westervelt was arrested after a relative told police he had admitted to the murder. Westervlet stated that he got into an argument with Fear before stabbing her more than a dozen times in the back and chest and then fleeing the station. Fear says Westervelt had an infatuation with his daughter from when she worked at a restaurant in Howell and then found out she was working at the gas station. He says he only has Westerveltâs side of the story to go by, which was that Jessica threatened to call his girlfriend unless he stopped harassing her. Fear feels if there would have been two people working that night, then Westervlet would have hesitated and she might be alive today. Fear says he frequently sees store clerks working alone and wants a change in laws to prevent another father from going through what he's had to endure. He says Jessica's daughter, who just turned 15, is doing well and an âAâ student. (JK)
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