WEB EXCLUSIVE: Chandler segment to air on 'Dateline NBC' Friday

Thu, May 22, 2008    to del.icio.us

Posted at 8:55 a.m.

More than five months after four men were sentenced to life terms without parole for murdering their daughter, James and Glenna Chandler are prepared for the national debut of their daughter's story on "Dateline NBC" Friday night.

Hosted by correspondent Victoria Corderi, the one-hour segment will air during the second hour of a two-hour "Dateline," which begins 9 p.m. Friday on NBC.

"We're going to watch it as much as we can, but it will be difficult," Glenna Chandler said. "We got through the trial — I don't think there will be anything (on "Dateline") we couldn't get through."

The Chandlers said they were interviewed for the segment after the December 2007 sentencing in Ottawa County 20th Circuit Court. Four men — Anthony Williams, 56, of Boscobel, Wis.; Freddie Parker, 50, of Charleston, W.Va.; Arthur Paiva, 57, of Muskegon; and James Nelson, 60, of Rand, W.Va. — received life sentences.

"Dateline" National Producer Jack Cloherty said the segment is part of a two-hour show focusing on two cold cases — one hour on a cold case in Minnesota and the second hour dedicated to Chandler. He added that the segment is a murder mystery, focusing on who killed Chandler and why the case went unsolved for more than 25 years.

"We focus on the conspiracy of silence — if you will — that surrounded the murder, and how the Michigan State Police and Holland Police were able to solve the case," Cloherty said. "It's a very difficult and upsetting case."

Janet Chandler, 22 at the time of her death, was abducted from her job at the Blue Mill Inn in Holland on Jan. 31, 1979, and was taken to a party in Holland Township where she was murdered.

Police say the Hope College student was taken to a house where a group of security guards working at a strike at the former Chemetron plant gang-raped her, then strangled her with a belt. Her body was dumped at a turn-around on I-196 in Van Buren County near Covert.

The crime went unsolved for 25 years, but that changed after a Hope College documentary class under the direction of Grand Haven resident David Schock debuted "Who Killed Janet Chandler?" in January 2004.

After the documentary's debut, Holland police announced a cold case team had been put together with the Michigan State Police that would be devoted to cracking the Chandler murder case.

Schock, who filmed the Chandler courtroom proceedings for "Dateline," said he thinks Friday's segment will be a "truthful relation of the story."

Read more on this story in the today's Tribune.