Jasmine Pace, 22, was killed and stuffed into a suitcase by “predatory sociopath” Jason Chen – but she managed to send her mother a clue about her murder
It was a few days before Thanksgiving 2022 when Jasmine Pace sent a surprising text to her mum, Catrina Bean. Jasmine, 22, told her that she was going to stay with a friend for the rest of the week. Catrina thought it was odd as they’d planned to spend the holiday together as a family.
But after the death of a loved one, she assumed her daughter, known as Jazzy, needed some time away. Jasmine was a student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and also worked in the office at her family’s construction business. She lived with her mum, and adored her four cats, but while she was outgoing and the first to help her friends, she was also a private person.
Jasmine had been dating Jason Chen, a fellow student at the university, for a few months, after meeting on a dating app, but she hadn’t introduced him to her family yet. When Jasmine’s great-grandmother died on 22 November, the family were devastated.
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Catrina didn’t know that grieving Jasmine had gone to Chen’s apartment later that evening. Then Jasmine sent her mum the text saying she’d be staying at her friend’s. It was the Tuesday before the Thanksgiving weekend, and they usually spent it together.
In the early hours of the next morning, Catrina got a text from Jasmine’s phone. It was a pin drop of her location, but at the time, Catrina didn’t notice the message. A few days later, on 26 November, a photo appeared on Jasmine’s Facebook page captioned, “Enjoying Thanksgiving with my baby!!” Her family were instantly suspicious.
The picture was Jasmine taking a selfie in a revealing outfit and was nothing that she would have posted publicly. The caption wasn’t the way she spoke –but more disturbingly, a distinctive tattoo on her right shoulder was missing, which meant that the photo was several years old.
Friends and family reached out to Jasmine. A few received messages back saying that she wanted to be left alone. Catrina was convinced something was terribly wrong.
That night, using a tracking app, Catrina found her daughter’s abandoned car. The driver’s seat had been adjusted – Jasmine was only 5ft 2in and whoever had driven it last was taller. Then Catrina noticed the pin drop location that Jasmine had sent her in the early hours of 23 November, and she asked herself why her daughter would do that – had she been asking for help?
Catrina and Jasmine’s father Travis went to the location, which turned out to be Jason Chen’s apartment, but no one was home.
In desperation, they broke in. They found some of Jasmine’s belongings and Catrina then reported her daughter missing. Officers questioned Chen’s neighbours, and one recalled that at around 2am on 23 November they had heard a disturbance and screams coming from Chen’s home.
His flat was searched and blood was found on the lounge floor, bedroom carpet and bathroom wall. There was evidence that someone had tried to clean up and broken glass indicated a violent altercation.
There was CCTV from the apartment complex that showed Chen leaving the building with a mask on and black fabric wrapped around his hand.
A search for Jasmine began, with the whole community getting involved. Loved ones questioned the messages that had been sent from Jasmine’s phone. Had someone been pretending to be her? Had they uploaded the photo to Facebook?
Police focused their attention on Chen and, on 30 November, he was arrested at his parents’ home, two hours from Chattanooga. He had lacerations on his right hand, and there were some notes in the house that seemingly documented his interactions with Jasmine and even made derogatory remarks about her past. Some noted the last time they spoke and saw each other – both false.
It looked as though he was reminding himself of his made-up timeline. Using data from Chen’s phone, investigators went to a location off a road near the Tennessee River just outside Chattanooga. On 1 December, they found a suitcase – with Jasmine’s body inside.
She’d been wrapped in bin bags and her arms and legs were handcuffed – left arm to left leg and right arm to right leg. She’d been stabbed 60 times. The attack was so violent that the tip of the knife was still in her body.
Chen was charged with murder and abuse of a corpse. Police believed he had killed Jasmine in the early hours of 23 November– when the neighbour had heard screams.
CCTV footage was found of Chen buying cleaning products, and later pulling a heavy suitcase down the street to Jasmine’s car. At the trial earlier this year, prosecutors said that on 22 November, Jasmine had spoken to Chen for over an hour on the phone then she had gone to his apartment, possibly seeking comfort after the loss of her great-grandmother.
The court heard that Chen had attacked Jasmine and stabbed her to death, as she lay in a foetal position on the ground. All 60 stab wounds were focussed on one side of her body. The messages from Jasmine’s phone, about staying with a friend and wanting to be left alone, had been sent by Chen after she was dead.
The wound on his hand was consistent with a knife, and his fingerprints were on the bin bags that Jasmine’s body was wrapped in.
The court was showed the suitcase, the blood-stained carpet and the tip from the knife that was found embedded in Jasmine. Just hours after Jasmine was killed, and over the next few days, Chen had gone on dating app Tinder and talked to other women
He also sent a text to Jasmine, knowing she was dead, that read, “Hey, are we still good for dinner tonight?” The defence didn’t deny that Chen had killed Jasmine – but they said it was self-defence. Chen claimed that Jasmine had got angry after seeing that he’d messaged other women and attacked him with a broken bottle.
But why had Jasmine sent a location pin to her mum at 2.18am if she was in the middle of attacking Chen? The pin had been sent around the time the neighbour heard a woman scream. If Chen had been defending himself, why inflict 60 wounds on a woman he physically towered over? He could have stopped at any moment, but didn’t.
Experts argued over whether Jasmine’s limbs had been shackled to restrain her before she was stabbed, or afterwards to make her fit in the suitcase. It couldn’t be determined. But Chen was found guilty. At the sentencing, Jasmine’s older sister Gabrielle said, “She never gave up on people, and she never gave up on herself. She always made time for family and friends.”
Jasmine’s cousin Jacqueline White dropped 60 stones into a jar to represent the number of times Jasmine was stabbed and called Chen a “subhuman villain” and “predatory sociopath”. Chen was sentenced to life without the chance of parole. He has since requested a new trial.
