The Unsolved Murder of Joel Lovelien

Step into the chilling mystery of Joel Lovelien’s unsolved murder—a case that still haunts the town of Grand Forks, North Dakota. On Halloween weekend in 2007, Joel was enjoying a night out at the Broken Drum Bar when he was brutally attacked and left for dead in the parking lot. Despite a high-profile investigation and a controversial trial, questions about what really happened that night remain unanswered.

In this episode of We All Scream, host Lisa delves into the details of that fateful evening, examining the evidence, the suspects, and the trial that captivated the community. Was justice served, or does the real killer still walk free? Join us as we unravel the tangled web of this tragic case and search for the truth behind Joel Lovelien’s untimely death.

Sources:

• NBC News: Halloween Murder Mystery: Who Killed the Man in the Hockey Costume?
• Grand Forks Herald: Inside the Murder Trial of Travis Stay—The Case That Consumed Grand Forks
• Grand Forks Herald: Taxi Driver Tells Jurors of Ride with Travis Stay
• Ground News: 16 Years Ago Today—Joel Lovelien Was Slain. Here’s What Dakota Spotlight Found When Examining the Case

Whether you’re a true crime enthusiast or just curious about unsolved mysteries, this episode will captivate and intrigue you. Turn down the lights, settle in, and let’s explore the mystery together.

#TrueCrime #UnsolvedMystery #HalloweenMurder #GrandForks #WeAllScreamPodcast #JoelLovelien #MurderMystery

Transcript

Welcome to We All Scream, the podcast where we dive into the chilling true crime stories and the eerie unknown. I’m your host, Lisa, and  Before we get into today’s story, I just wanted to share something that’s been on my mind lately. You know, life has this funny way of being a lot like the mysteries we explore here—sometimes it throws us more questions than answers, and it can feel overwhelming or even frustrating. But I really believe that’s where the magic happens. Every challenge we face, every twist we didn’t see coming, is just another opportunity to learn something new—not just about the world around us, but about ourselves.

Think about it—how often do we get caught up trying to control every outcome, only to realize later that the universe had something else in store? Something better, maybe something we never even imagined. It’s like the answers come when we’re ready to receive them, not when we’re desperately searching for them. That’s why I always remind myself to stay open, to trust that even in the uncertainty, there’s purpose. There’s always something to learn, even in the most unexpected places.

Alright, today we’re exploring the tragic and unsolved murder of Joel Lovelien, a case that continues to haunt the town of Grand Forks, North Dakota. On a night meant for Halloween revelry, a life was brutally cut short, and the quest for justice has left more questions than answers. Stay with me as we walk through the events of that fateful night, the trial that followed, and the lingering doubts that still cloud this case.

Before we dive into the details of Joel Lovelien's case, let’s take a moment to set the scene by learning more about the city where this tragedy occurred—Grand Forks, North Dakota. Grand Forks is a city with a population of approximately 57,000 people, making it the third-largest city in the state. It’s located in the northeastern part of North Dakota, where the Red River and the Red Lake River converge—a location that gave the city its name.

Founded in 1870 by steamboat captain Alexander Griggs, Grand Forks quickly became a key trade and transportation hub, especially after the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1880. The city is home to the University of North Dakota, the state’s oldest and largest university, founded in 1883. The university plays a significant role in the city’s culture and economy, alongside the Grand Forks Air Force Base.

The people of Grand Forks are known for their resilience, having rebuilt their community after facing numerous challenges, including the devastating Red River flood of 1997. Despite these hardships, the city has retained a strong sense of community and pride in its history. Today, Grand Forks is a vibrant city known for its friendly atmosphere, rich cultural heritage, and a mix of historical and modern influences.

It’s against this backdrop that we examine the tragic events of October 27, 2007 a night when the lively, welcoming nature of this community was shattered by the brutal murder of Joel Lovelien.

Joel Lovelien was 38 years old and worked as a Technical Systems Analyst. He was divorced and had a teenage daughter with whom he was very close. Joel cherished his relationship with his daughter, and made sure to stay actively involved in her life. Joel lived in Grand Forks, where he was known as a kind-hearted and friendly individual.

In addition to being a loving father, Joel was also engaged to Heather Eastling, a grade school teacher. The couple had planned to marry on August 8, 2008 a date they chose because it symbolized infinity. Despite being together for less than a year, their friends and family knew they were perfect for each other.

On October 27, 2007, the Saturday before Halloween, Joel and Heather decided to visit the Broken Drum Bar, a popular local hangout. Joel dressed as a hockey player, proudly wearing the green jersey of his favorite team, the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux and Heather dressed up as a mechanic. The Broken Drum was buzzing with energy that night, packed with people in costumes, enjoying drinks and conversation.

Around 11:30 PM, Joel received a call on his cell phone and stepped outside the noisy bar to take it. A few minutes later, he returned to Heather and told her that he was going back outside to check on someone who had been left behind by a party bus that had recently arrived at the bar. That was the last time Heather saw Joel alive.

Shortly after Joel went outside, a woman ran into the bar, yelling for someone to call 911. Joel was found unconscious and severely injured in the parking lot. He had suffered blunt force trauma to the head, with several bones in his face shattered. Despite being rushed to the hospital, Joel was pronounced dead. He had choked on his own blood.

The Grand Forks Police Department immediately launched an investigation, but the chaotic scene made it difficult. There were over 80 people at the bar that night, many of whom were intoxicated, and witness statements were conflicting. A key piece of evidence was a yellow piece of fabric stained with blood, resembling a paw, found in the parking lot.

Witnesses remembered seeing a man at the bar wearing a yellow hooded sweatshirt that night, which matched the fabric found at the scene. Surveillance footage confirmed that this man had left the bar shortly before Joel went outside. Within two days, Travis Stay, a 23-year-old nursing student from Princeton, Minnesota, who was attending the University of North Dakota, came forward. Travis confirmed that he had been at the Broken Drum that night, dressed in a yellow hooded sweatshirt made to look like a lion costume.

Travis admitted he had gotten heavily intoxicated that night and had a tendency to black out when drinking excessively. He remembered walking into the Broken Drum parking lot and being punched by a man dressed as a hunter. After that, Travis said he blacked out completely. The next thing he remembered was arriving at his apartment in a taxi.

When interviewed, Travis had bruises on his face and cuts on his hands. The taxi driver confirmed picking him up about a mile away from the Broken Drum, noting that Travis had bloody, shaky hands and seemed disoriented. Travis insisted he hadn’t harmed anyone that night. However, when police asked for the yellow sweatshirt, Travis said he had thrown it away because it had blood on it. The police recovered the sweatshirt from the trash and also took the shoes and pants Travis had worn that night. He allowed them to search his apartment and provided a DNA sample.

The investigation revealed that while the blood on Travis’s shoes belonged to him, some of the blood on his sweatshirt matched Joel Lovelien. On December 8, 2007, Travis was arrested and charged with Joel’s murder.

The prosecution’s case against Travis was built on circumstantial evidence. They argued that Travis, intoxicated and enraged after being left behind by the party bus, attacked Joel in a fit of rage, resulting in Joel’s death. The blood on Travis’s clothes was a key piece of evidence. It was theorized that after an altercation in the parking lot, Travis had beaten Joel so severely that it led to his death. However, Travis maintained that he could not remember what had happened during the crucial hour in question.

A witness came forward claiming that as he was walking home from the Broken Drum, he noticed a man in a yellow sweatshirt following him. The man attempted to punch him but missed and fell to the ground. The witness went inside his house to grab a baseball bat for protection, but when he returned, the man in yellow was gone. Despite the seemingly clear connection, Travis claimed to have no recollection of this incident.

At Travis’s trial in December 2008, his defense team pointed out several critical flaws in the prosecution’s case. They noted that Joel was much larger than Travis Joel stood at 6’4” and weighed 240 pounds, while Travis was only 5’9” and 160 pounds. Could Travis have realistically overpowered a man of Joel’s size? Additionally, Joel had no defensive wounds, suggesting he never had the chance to fight back.

The defense also questioned the lack of direct evidence linking Travis to the crime. While Joel’s blood was found on Travis’s clothing, there was no trace of Travis’s blood on Joel. The defense admitted that Travis was likely in the parking lot when Joel was killed but argued that he wasn’t responsible for his death. Instead, they pointed to other potential suspects—members of the party bus dressed as a cowboy, a construction worker, a hunter, a clown, and a gangster rapper.

The defense highlighted the inconsistencies in the accounts given by these party bus members. Bryce Larson, who organized the party bus and was dressed as a cowboy, initially gave police a false name and birthdate. When he was finally questioned, he described seeing Joel in a green UND jersey talking to a man in a yellow sweatshirt the man believed to be Travis. Larson also confirmed that Travis had been punched by the hunter, James Wavra, who corroborated Travis’s story. Yet, Larson’s account of events shifted over time, raising questions about his credibility.

Another party bus member, John Deziel, dressed as a clown, was found by police at another bar after Joel’s murder. Deziel appeared to be crying, his hands shaking, and when questioned, he cryptically said, “I guess things got out of hand tonight.” He later claimed his tears were due to a flashback triggered by the news of Joel’s death, but his inconsistent behavior only added to the mystery.

Despite these questionable aspects, the prosecution remained focused on Travis. They theorized that after being left behind, Travis, in a drunken rage, attacked Joel. They argued that the blood on Travis’s clothing was the result of a violent confrontation. However, the defense presented an alternate scenario—that members of the party bus were responsible for Joel’s death. They called into question the thoroughness of the police investigation, particularly the failure to analyze the clothing or shoes of any party bus members other than Travis.

Surveillance footage further complicated the prosecution’s case. The footage showed Joel leaving the bar after speaking with Heather, followed by Deziel leaving three and a half minutes later. This created a window during which Joel, Travis, and the party bus suspects could have been outside together. The defense argued that this was enough time for the party bus members to commit the crime.

When Bryce Larson took the stand, he admitted he initially lied and didn’t tell the whole story to police but eventually admitted that he had an encounter with Joel Lovelien. Larson said he wanted to teach Travis a lesson for attacking James Wavra and enlisted the help of two friends from the party bus, Mitchell Dollin, who was dressed as a gangster rapper, and John Deziel, who was dressed as a construction worker. When the trio approached Travis, Joel appeared by his side to defend him. According to Larson, they had a brief conversation that eventually turned friendly, with Dollin and Joel joking about the rivalry between their favorite hockey teams. Larson then told Joel, “He’s your problem now,” before the group got back on the party bus and drove away.

The defense produced a piece of evidence that poked a major hole in this story. Surveillance footage from inside the Broken Drum showed Joel exiting for the last time after speaking with Heather, but then featured Deziel, dressed like a clown, leaving the bar three and a half minutes later. It was established that Deziel had left the scene on the party bus, so it was still there the entire time he was in the bar, creating a window of at least three and a half minutes maybe more when Joel, Travis, and the suspects from the party bus could have been outside alone together in the parking lot.

The defense criticized investigators for not analyzing the clothing or shoes of any of the suspects from the party bus besides Travis. One of the detectives admitted on the stand that the investigation had been operating under the mistaken assumption that the party bus had left the scene before Joel was killed. If they had known about Bryce Larson’s mention of a guy in a green hockey jersey during his initial encounter with police, they might have done things differently.

The prosecution downplayed the involvement of the individuals on the party bus, stressing that there was no physical evidence linking them to Joel’s death. No blood was found on the bus, and none of the other witnesses recalled seeing blood on anyone else or any indication that a violent altercation had taken place. As far as the prosecution was concerned, all the physical evidence pointed toward Travis Stay.

They also called in Steve Rusaka to testify about Travis's unprovoked attack on him after leaving the bar that night. However, the defense found a way to use his testimony to their advantage. Rusaka and James Wavra both claimed that Travis had tried to punch them but was so drunk that he missed and only wound up stumbling and falling to the ground. If Travis was this incompetent at fighting, how would he have been capable of beating a much larger man like Joel Lovelien to death? In the end, the defense did a very effective job of generating reasonable doubt.

The jury was instructed that if they didn’t find Travis guilty of murder, they must also consider manslaughter. After deliberating for six hours, the jury found Travis not guilty on all counts. They stated that the prosecution’s inconsistent timeline of events influenced their decision to acquit Travis, and they couldn’t rule out the suspects from the party bus as being the real perpetrators.

Travis eventually went on to become a law clerk for one of his defense attorneys. While he has continually maintained that he did not kill Joel, he still claims to have no memory of the exact events which occurred that night. However, the prosecution and the police remain convinced that Travis was guilty of the crime. The individuals from the party bus were not considered suspects, and the investigation was pretty much over. Indeed, ever since the trial, no other leads have been pursued, and some of the evidence from the case has been destroyed. Most of Joel’s loved ones continue to believe that the right man was put on trial but got away with it. Since no one has been convicted of this crime, the murder of Joel Lovelien remains unsolved.

As far as investigators are concerned, they got the right man the first time around and put him on trial. But since the jury decided not to convict him, there’s nothing else they can do. Of course, double jeopardy means that Travis Stay cannot be charged with the same crime twice. Now, as you know, being acquitted at trial does not necessarily mean a defendant is innocent. But regardless of how you feel about this case, you have to acknowledge that the jury made the right call here, because it’s clear that Travis was not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

His defense team did a very effective job at presenting an alternate scenario where other suspects could have been responsible. They poked enough holes in the prosecution’s timeline to hammer home the idea that the individuals from the party bus would have had the opportunity to kill Joel. One of the jurors did an interview after the trial and clarified that this wasn’t a case where they believed Travis was guilty but thought the state hadn’t proven its case. The vast majority flat-out believed that Travis was innocent, and while one juror kind of thought Travis might have done it, they still voted for an acquittal because there was reasonable doubt.

All the physical evidence seems to point to Travis, and I’m sure it must have seemed awfully convenient that his alibi was, “I was so blackout drunk I don’t remember what happened.” At the very least, it seems obvious that he was present at the scene when Joel was killed, and that if he was able to provide a coherent account of what happened during that one hour period of time he supposedly blacked out, this case might have been solved a long time ago.

The unsolved murder of Joel Lovelien leaves us with a chilling reminder that justice isn't always served, even when a case goes to trial. The doubts, the inconsistencies, and the unanswered questions continue to haunt Joel's family, friends, and the community of Grand Forks. If you have any information about this case or if this episode has sparked any questions or thoughts, I urge you to reach out to the Grand Forks Police Department. Sometimes, even the smallest detail can help bring closure to a case like this.

Thank you for joining me. Your support helps this podcast continue to grow. So please don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Your support helps this podcast continue to grow. So please don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Until next time, stay curious, stay cautious, and as always, trust no one.