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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children and won't be suitable for all listeners.
Over the Memorial Day weekend in late March 2004, seven-year-old Emily Higgs left her bright pink bicycle outside her home in Graybull, Indiana. When she went to retrieve it, she noticed someone had left a Ziploc plastic bag in the bike's front basket. Inside the bag was an anonymous note written in pencil on lined yellow paper. It read, "Hi honey. I've been watching you.
"I am the same person that kidnapped and raped and killed April Tinsley. You are my next victim. If you don't report this to police or I don't see this in the paper tomorrow or on the local news, I will blow up your house, killing everyone but you. You will be mine." The plastic bag also contained a used condom. Emily took the items to her mother, Crystal.
While Crystal was unsettled, she was convinced it was a sick joke, possibly the handiwork of one of her teenage son's friends. The author's handwriting was messy and childlike. It was also riddled with grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors, with simple words like Will misspelled as W-E-L-L.
The name April Tinsley didn't ring any bells for Crystal Higgs, whose family had only been living in the area for a couple of years. But when she told a long-time community member about the disturbing message, they were visibly shaken. They told Crystal, you need to call the sheriff and have him come out. The End
Schools across Indiana closed early on April 1, 1988 on account of it being Good Friday, a Christian holiday that marks the start of the Easter break. April Tinsley, who had recently celebrated her eighth birthday and was in the first grade, left Fairfield Elementary at 11:30am. She returned to her family's home on West Williams Street in the city of Fort Wayne.
It had been a cold and dreary morning, so when a break in the weather arrived early that afternoon, April sought to make the most of it. She asked her mother, Janet, if she could go out and play with her friend, Nicole, who lived just a few blocks away on West Suttonfield Street. April had walked to and from Nicole's house many times before. Janet said yes, but told April to call home as soon as she got to Nicole's to confirm she'd arrived safely.
After lunch, Janet handed April an umbrella and sent her on her way. A short while later, the Tinsley's phone rang. It was April calling to check in as promised. Before hanging up, Janet reminded April to be home by 4pm to avoid the rain that had been forecast. "I got my umbrella," April playfully replied. When April failed to return home on time, Janet Tinsley called Nicole's house seeking an explanation.
She learned that April and Nicole had spent most of the afternoon playing with dolls and excitedly discussing all the chocolate they planned to collect over Easter. The girls then walked to a playground halfway between their homes where they met up with another friend. Nicole said they'd left the playground a little after 3pm to go to the third friend's house, which was close by. As the girls walked together, it began to drizzle.
Realising she had left her umbrella at Nicole's house, April decided to quickly go back there and get it. The others continued on to their destination, and when April didn't join them, Nicole assumed she'd decided to go home instead. When Nicole's mother told Janet Tinsley, "April never did come back here to get her umbrella," Janet felt the blood rush from her body. She was overcome with the feeling that something was very wrong.
Janet alerted her husband, Michael, and they immediately began walking the streets looking for April. She was a carefree child and they knew her to be a little silly, with her favourite game being hide and seek. They were also mindful that it was April Fool's Day. Maybe April was playing some kind of prank on them. Yet, as time wore on with no sign of April, Janet and Michael grew increasingly anxious.
At 6pm, Janet tearfully reported her daughter's disappearance to police. Officers arrived at the Tinsley home where April lived with her mother, father, and infant brother. For as long as Janet could remember, she had always wanted to be a mother. In her teens, she often told people that her first child was going to be a girl with blue eyes and curly blonde hair and her name would be April Marie.
Janet's dreams came true on March 18, 1980, when April was born. A cheerful child, April always had a smile on her face and loved to make others laugh. But she was also shy and typically stayed close to her mother. Her parents adored and doted on her. Losing her was devastating. The police were sympathetic towards the Tinsleys and took their concerns seriously.
They immediately started retracing April's last known movements, carrying a photo of her to aid in their search. They were also given a description of what April was wearing that day: a blue turtleneck sweater with a pink and red jacket over the top, a pair of light blue pants with three love hearts down one leg, and pink gym shoes. The area April had been walking covered only a few blocks, which she'd navigated many times before.
Houses were door-knocked and residents questioned. Every garage, alley, and abandoned building was checked. But April was nowhere to be found. The search radius expanded into the city's rural outskirts. Soon, many volunteers were assisting police in their search. As news of April's disappearance spread, a local resident came forward to report an incident they'd seen earlier that day.
At around the time April went missing, they saw a little girl walking along Hoagland Avenue, a long suburban street that led to April's home. As the little girl crossed the street, a shabby blue pickup truck pulled up alongside her. The witness glimpsed the man behind the wheel. He appeared nonchalant and the girl seemed equally unfazed. When the pickup drove off, the girl was gone.
The witness didn't see or hear a struggle, so they assumed the driver was the girl's father. They described what they remembered about the girl, specifically the light blue pants she'd been wearing that featured several distinctive love hearts trailing down one leg. Investigators were certain the witness had seen April Tinsley at the exact moment she was taken.
The pickup driver was described as a white man in his 30s. He had wavy, sandy-coloured hair with darker roots and a few days' worth of beard growth. Seemingly, no one knew him. While crime wasn't unheard of in Fort Wayne, child abduction was. It had been over a decade since the last case of that nature.
The thought that a child could be snatched off the street in broad daylight led to local parents experiencing anxieties they'd never felt before. As night fell and April remained missing, police settled on a worst-case scenario. They put out an all-points bulletin for April, certain she had indeed been taken. The frantic search continued and the community remained vigilant, fearful the perpetrator would strike again.
Over that weekend, a dozen police officers worked a collective 200 hours on the investigation, but Easter passed with no breakthroughs. On the afternoon of Monday April 4, a male jogger was running along County Road 68 in Spencerville, a small, unincorporated rural community 20 miles northeast of Fort Wayne.
As he passed by remote farming fields and dense woodland, he spotted something in a rain-swollen drainage ditch 40 feet from the roadside. It was the body of April Tinsley. April had been suffocated and strangled to death. Although she was fully clothed in the outfit she'd had on when she went missing, it was clear she'd been redressed after being sexually assaulted. Her pants were on backwards and she was missing a shoe.
No foreign genetic matter was found on April's body, but testing of her underwear revealed traces of semen. In 1988, the role of DNA in criminal investigations was a relatively new and unknown concept. But by chance, in the days before April was murdered, Fort Wayne detectives had completed a workshop on DNA evidence.
It taught them how to correctly collect and store April's killer's DNA to ensure its integrity and longevity. DNA testing at the time required a large sample to obtain the subject's profile. The minuscule amount recovered from April's underwear, coupled with limitations in forensic technology, prevented authorities from gleaning March.
Still, they respected its significance as a means of positively confirming April's killer once they had him in custody. It would remain their one crucial piece of evidence, as a thorough search of the crime scene and its surroundings failed to uncover anything that immediately identified April's killer. Because no effort was made to conceal April's remains, detectives knew they were dealing with an attention seeker who wanted his crime to be discovered.
The killer seemed to have an inflated sense of confidence that he wouldn't be found. Yet, he wasn't entirely devoid of fear. April's missing shoe was eventually found around 1,000 feet west of her body on the other side of the road. Police suspected April's killer had dumped her in the ditch, then realized as he drove off that one of her shoes was still in his vehicle.
Scared of being seen if he returned to the dump site, he tossed the shoe out a window as he sped away. A medical examiner concluded that April had been killed one or two days prior to the discovery of her body. County Road 68 was not the kind of place someone from out of town would be aware of, have a reason to visit, or happen to come across. The killer must have been familiar with it and knew that his chances of being spotted there were slim.
This meant he was likely from Fort Wayne or one of its surrounding townships. No one sprang to mind as a suspect. The Tinsleys had no enemies and couldn't imagine who would want to harm their daughter. Known sex offenders who lived in the crime's vicinity were questioned by police, but were gradually ruled out as having any involvement.
When word reached detectives that there was an alleged sighting of a blue pickup truck near where April's body was found, they took notice. That was the same type of vehicle April's abductor had apparently been driving. Police examined thousands of blue pickup trucks across Indiana, but nothing of value was uncovered. A suspect sketch of the driver depicted a generic-looking white man, but Crimestoppers was inundated with calls from people who thought they knew him.
140 of these calls implicated a 34-year-old named Everett Shull Jr. Shull was a local gang member known as Moose. When shown a photographic lineup featuring Shull, the eyewitness from Hoagland Avenue identified him as April's abductor. Upon speaking with Shull's neighbor, detectives learnt that for several weeks there had been a blue pickup truck parked outside of Shull's home.
While Scholl didn't own such a vehicle, he had access to one through a friend. Scholl was also known to loiter around parks and make crude remarks about children. He had been accused of molesting an 11-year-old girl, though the case was ultimately dropped. Days before April Tinsley was taken, Scholl was allegedly overheard telling another person that he'd seen two girls playing and that he wanted to grab one of them.
The gang Everett Scholl Jr. belonged to had an interest in the occult, prompting rumours that April's murder was some type of ritualistic sacrifice. While this theory became a hot topic amongst gossiping locals, police concluded that it had no merit. Scholl denied knowing anything about April Tinsley. He passed several polygraph tests and when his DNA didn't match the sample from April's assailant, he was released.
DNA samples from four additional suspects were tested, only to be ruled out. Detectives continued to investigate the hundreds of tips that came in, from suspicious men seen around the neighbourhood to others who had recently changed their appearance. Whenever a new lead emerged, police dropped everything to pursue it. Each time, they reached a dead end.
In the immediate aftermath of April's murder, the community struggled to return to any sense of normalcy. Children now walked in groups and police patrolled streets near schools. 90 locals formed a group called April, which stood for Abduction Prevention Reconnaissance and Information League.
Members ranged in age from 14 to 52, and their aims were to keep children safe, raise money for victims of crime, and educate young people on the importance of avoiding strangers. The group's president insisted that they weren't vigilantes, they were just ensuring another tragedy didn't occur. And it seemed like their efforts paid off. Two years passed without any further attacks.
In late May 1990, a teenage boy who lived on the northeastern rural outskirts of Fort Wayne noticed something peculiar going on. Someone had been lingering around his family's barn. The barn was just a few feet from a thoroughfare named Schwartz Road and backed onto a large, secluded field.
The teen had gone to the barn and noticed a handwritten message scrawled across the white, weather-beaten planks of its exterior doors, which faced the road. The message had been written in pencil, so it wasn't very clear. On several occasions over the following days, the teenager returned to the barn. With each visit, the writing on the door grew progressively darker and more legible.
It seemed the author was returning periodically to write over their message. At first, they used a white crayon which still wasn't visible enough to read. The next time, the message had been scribbled over with a black marker. Now, the writing was clear. "I kill April Marie Tisley," the message read. "I kill again." Unnerved, the teenager phoned the police.
It appeared as though the message was left by a child or someone with the mentality of one. Their handwriting, grammar and punctuation were poor. They'd also incorrectly spelled April's surname by forgetting the N and ended their message with the juvenile words, "Ha ha." It seemed anybody could have written it as a prank or to stir up a drama. But there was one aspect to the message that gave investigators pause.
Above the mocking laughter, the author had written, did you find the other shoe? Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. COVID-19 viruses like me change to fool your immune system and make you sick. But updated vaccines help protect you. Stay up to date on COVID-19 and flu vaccinations. Sponsored by Champions for Vaccine Education, Equity and Progress.
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Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. By this time, all of the detectives originally assigned to the Tinsley case had been taken off to focus on other work. While the case remained open and new tips were explored, the investigation had definitely stagnated.
April's killer had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth, leaving authorities to assume that he'd fled elsewhere, died, or was somehow incapacitated and prevented from being a threat. The barn message completely shattered this theory and left detectives rattled. The Schwartz Road barn was located roughly 10 miles from where April's body was discovered.
The fact that she was found without one of her shoes, which was discarded further down the road, was a detail investigators had kept close to their chest. They had never shared it with the media or the public and so it was never reported on or widely known. This meant that the barn message must have been written by April's killer. After two quiet years, he had returned with the intention to kill again.
A search of the barn and its surrounds came up dry, save for a few crayons strewn across the ground below the message. These were tested for fingerprints, but none were recovered. And the teenager who reported the message never saw the person who wrote it. Yet, it had given detectives greater insight into the perpetrator's psyche. His message was intended to mock, torment, and provoke them. In the words of one case detective:
"It was a slap in the face to all the investigators and to the Tinsley family and to April. It made me mad. It made us all very upset." It was clear to investigators that the killer relished in spreading fear and gaining notoriety. He avoided leaving any clues as to his identity and made sure he stayed out of sight. This was someone who spent a lot of time strategizing.
Even his terrible writing was deemed to be deliberate. Detectives surmised that the killer intentionally wrote poorly so they couldn't identify him and would instead think he was young or had a developmental delay. But his carefully plotted actions indicated otherwise. Investigators had no choice but to go public with a sample of the barn message to generate leads.
They knew that by doing so, they were playing right into the killer's hands by giving him the publicity he craved. But detectives were more concerned that if he wasn't caught, he could make good on his threat to kill again. The writing sample elicited a few tip-offs. They didn't lead anywhere.
A few weeks later on Wednesday June 13 1990, seven-year-old Sarah Bowker was enjoying the pool at her family's apartment complex at Stone Point Village in Fort Wayne. At around 3:30pm, after playing in the water with her stepsister, Sarah headed off alone to visit a friend who also lived in the complex. When Sarah didn't return home for dinner that night, her parents contacted the police.
It emerged that Sarah had never reached her friend's apartment, having seemingly vanished somewhere along the short and simple journey. The Bowker family were certain Sarah had been forcibly taken, as she had been afraid of strangers ever since the abduction and murder of April Tinsley two years earlier. If a car ever drove slowly towards her, Sarah would run to safety and say, "There's a kidnapper out there."
Sarah was only one year younger than April and bore a striking resemblance to her. Given the threat April's killer had scribbled on the barn three weeks earlier, police feared the worst. Multiple squads were called in to search for Sarah. When they failed to find any sign of her, a police dog was brought to the scene.
The dog picked up Sarah's scent and followed it south of her apartment complex towards Coldwater Road, leading police to a stuffed toy kitten. The toy belonged to Sarah. In a drainage ditch on the side of the road, searchers found Sarah's body. Sarah's clothing was in disarray and it was clear she had been sexually assaulted. Her cause of death was suffocation as a result of having her face shoved down in the mud.
This appeared to have been done in an effort to keep her quiet. It had taken 16 hours to find Sarah and in the hour before discovery, the area had been pelted with heavy rain. If there had been any foreign hairs, fibers or DNA on or around her body, they'd washed away by now. Witness accounts weren't any more helpful. There were reports of an elderly man near the pool where Sarah had been prior to her disappearance.
An elderly man was also seen emerging from the weeds near where her body was ultimately found. Neither of these men were identified and descriptions of them were too limited to zero in on anyone in particular. Sarah Bowker's murder bore obvious similarities to that of April Tinsley.
Investigators fronting the Tinsley case took on the file, considering the possibility that they were dealing with a serial child killer, one who took pleasure in taunting them. Just like in the Tinsley case, appeals for information failed to generate any significant leads. The Bowker and Tinsley cases languished together for two years, until police received a much-needed breakthrough.
To Sarah Bowker, Ron Hensley was grandpa, even though they weren't related. Hensley was the grandfather of a close family friend, and Sarah often encountered him at various events such as sleepovers, dinners, and on vacation. Hensley was such a presence in Sarah's life that he brought her presents in the form of toys and clothes and encouraged her to, quote, "...just call me grandpa."
Hensley had fought in World War II and his neck was badly injured when a shell landed in his machine gun nest. He suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. Whenever he heard anything akin to gunfire, explosive blasts, or air raid sirens, he would cry and shake. For a time, Hensley was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit for depression and suicidal thoughts. Outside of this trauma, he maintained a charismatic and jovial facade.
But he was also known as someone who made women uncomfortable by being overly touchy. He was asked to stop attending church because of the way he interacted with young girls. In December 1992, Hensley left Fort Wayne after a woman accused him of molesting her daughter. He relocated to South Carolina where he lived amongst friends and family until December 1994 when he died of lung problems at age 75.
After Ron Hensley's death, those who knew him began sorting out his affairs. His belongings were rifled through and a shoebox was discovered. It was full of small notepads covered in Hensley's handwriting. His expansive written works turned out to be detailed accounts of crimes he had committed against countless juveniles. One tiny notebook detailed the murder of Sarah Bowker.
It featured details that only her killer could have known. The notebooks were surrendered to police and given to the detectives overseeing the Bowker case. They compared Hensley's writings to the facts of the crime and had no doubt. It was clear he had done it. Ron Hensley was publicly named as Sarah Bowker's killer. There would be no justice as he had died 14 months prior.
Investigators nevertheless officially closed the Bowker case file. However, April Tinsley's remained open. While police weren't confirming any connections between the cases, the public couldn't help but wonder. Ron Hensley had lived about three miles from the Tinsley home at the time of April's murder.
According to Hensley's son and a woman who had lived with Hensley for several years, he donated money to help fund both girls' funerals. He also allegedly carried pictures of the two girls in a keychain and visited their graves often. Janet Tinsley didn't believe Ron Hensley, a stranger to her family, was responsible for her daughter's murder. Detectives working the case shared her scepticism and kept looking into it.
But as time wore on without any further actions or words from April's killer, speculation ran rife. For those willing to believe in Ron Hensley's guilt, it seemed awfully suspicious that April's communicative killer had fallen completely silent after Hensley died. Over a decade later in May 2004, seven-year-old Emily Higgs found a plastic bag in the basket of her pink bicycle.
It contained a used condom and a letter claiming to be from April Tinsley's killer, threatening that Emily would be his next victim. The Higgs family lived in Grebel, a small town 16 miles north of Fort Wayne. They weren't around in 1988 when April was murdered, but after learning of the case, they contacted authorities.
The police were immediately struck by the similarities between the letter Emily received and the writing "April's Killer" scribbled on the Schwartz Road barn 14 years earlier. Not only was the handwriting the same, but they featured the same misspellings, poor grammar, and punctuation errors. Worse still, Emily Higgs wasn't the only local girl who'd received a troubling letter that week.
Two other girls aged five and nine found disturbing handwritten letters on lined yellow paper. One was placed in a basket used as a flower pot, the other had been taped to the girl's bicycle. Each began with the greeting "Hi Honey" and featured death rats in the same mistake-riddled handwriting.
In one, April's name was spelled A-P-R-O-I-L, and in another, the first D in kidnapped was missing. They all also contained the words "haha". The three girls were given what the author referred to in his letters as a present: a used condom.
The biological material these contained was tested and was found to be a 100% match to the semen sample collected from April Tinsley's underwear 16 years earlier. There was no doubt Ron Hensley could not have been responsible for April's murder. The killer was still alive and had resurfaced again. His DNA was run through state and national police databases to no result.
Just as investigators were examining the letters, a fourth was sent. It was found in a letterbox outside the home of a young girl and was the most personal note of all. It detailed the horrible assault the author intended to commit against his victim. This letter didn't include a condom. Instead, its present was a Polaroid photograph which depicted the naked lower torso of a white man as he lay on a bed masturbating.
A bedspread with a unique green-paisley type pattern was visible in the image, but little else. Investigators checked local hotels and lodgings, but none had the bedding from the photo. This led police to assume the picture was taken inside the man's own home.
Investigators were again at a crossroads. If they'd published the letters to request the public's help, then they'd be giving the killer what he wanted: more fear and notoriety. As far as the police were aware, the killer had failed to act on his previous threat made on the barn in 1990, but that didn't necessarily mean he was sitting idly by. This time, he could be ready to strike.
After all, he had seemingly chosen new victims. By giving in and granting him infamy, would they embolden him to act? Detectives sat on the letters for two years. During that time, the killer didn't appear to strike again. In 2006, at yet another standstill, police released samples from the killer's letters as well as cropped images of his bedspread, hoping to kickstart a manhunt.
These updates led to a wave of fear washing over Fort Wayne. Not only was April Tinsley's killer still out there, but he'd been actively stalking local girls, honing in on his next victim. When Gareth Evans, not his real name, saw the notes being circulated by the media, he couldn't help but wonder…
Back in 1988, Gareth's father David, also not his real name, had driven a blue pickup truck and lived within blocks of Hoagland Avenue. Curiously, in the days after April's murder, he had spray-painted his truck a different colour. Since then, he had become a registered sex offender for crimes against children. He often greeted women and girls by saying "Hi honey" and was prone to saying "Ha ha".
He also took lewd photos of himself with a Polaroid camera. Gareth contacted police to implicate his father David in the murder of April Tinsley. During questioning, David denied knowing April personally but recalled that his daughter used to play with her. Although he admitted to having owned a blue pickup truck, David said he'd sold it to a neighbour shortly before April's murder and the neighbour was responsible for painting it.
When asked to provide the neighbours' details, David only gave a first name. He said he didn't know the last. David claimed that he'd been working on Friday April 1 1988, the day April was abducted. His confident assertion immediately stood out to investigators. How could David immediately remember what he was doing 16 years earlier on a specific day?
They spoke to his employer and discovered David had not worked on April 1. He also wasn't working on Monday April 4, the day April's body was found. Investigators obtained a search warrant for David's home where they discovered a notepad with lined yellow paper and a Polaroid camera. Investigators were certain they had finally found their man. All they needed was David's DNA to confirm it.
They collected a sample from David. To their shock, it wasn't a match for April's killer. With that, they were back at square one. The publicity about the killer's recent activities had failed to generate the leads investigators were hoping for. Detectives who had been working the case for years were starting to suffer. They struggled to sleep and became obsessed by the desire for justice.
April's case was always at the forefront of their minds. Three kept a picture of the eight-year-old on them at all times, while another had her photo on his desk at home. Whenever they weren't working on regular duties, they pulled out the Tinsley case file. It was maddening. They felt they had what they needed to catch the guy. He had even willingly provided them with significant evidence. They just couldn't link it to anyone.
Many detectives ultimately left the unit or retired without closure. But the case was never given up on. There always remained hope that a breakthrough would eventually materialise, even as the years started to once again wear on without any further action from April Tinsley's killer. By 2009, believing the case was highly solvable, the Federal Bureau of Investigation officially stepped in.
Their behavioural analysis unit created a comprehensive profile of the suspect, whom they believed was now waged in his 40s or 50s. They referred to him as a preferential child sex offender. This meant he had a long-term and persistent sexual desire for children, specifically little girls, and that interest would not go away. He could be married, but the vast majority of preferential child sex offenders were not.
If he was married, his partner might be aware of his interest in girls, but in denial about the extent of his interest or his willingness to act on it. Although the killer was probably socially awkward, he would endeavour to build relationships that gave him access to girls. Or he might seek out employment or volunteer activities that provided proximity to them.
He was drawn to places where children gathered, such as playgrounds, swimming pools, and parks. Quote, "Wherever he goes, if a little girl is nearby, his eyes will follow her." The FBI profile warned, "This offender has demonstrated that he has strong ties to northeast Fort Wayne and to Allen County. This is where he likely lives, works, and/or shops.
You may be sitting beside him in the pew at church, working beside him on the production line, or standing next to him in line at the grocery store. Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content.
That same year of 2009, a deck of cards was distributed to prisons across the United States. Each card highlighted a cold case, with April Tinsley appearing on the Seven of Hearts. It was hoped that an inmate somewhere might hold key information about the crime, but no leads were generated. Meanwhile, the case was covered on a segment of the weekly television program America's Most Wanted.
While this exposure attracted more tips than any other story on the show that night, it didn't relaunch the investigation. The show re-examined the case again three years later, at which point they revealed a piece of information that the police had kept secret from the public. Found a few feet from April Tinsley's body was a bag from the department store Sears.
Inside was an adult toy made of wood that worked manually via a hand crank. Detectives withheld this discovery, believing it to be incriminating information that would help them identify April's killer. But they were desperate and decided to publicise the obscure object now in the hopes someone might recognise it. Show host John Walsh held up a photo of April and told viewers, "'Look at this picture. Just look at this girl.'
Now think about this: somebody kidnapped her, raped her, and murdered her. There's no telling how many other children this killer may have taken from this world. This guy is a monster. He's a coward. He's out there. More than likely he's in this area. Somebody's got to have the courage to come forward and say, "I can't look at this face and not do the right thing by leaving a tip."
But the breakthrough detectives were desperate for didn't arrive. In 2015, the Fort Wayne community rallied together to create a memorial park in April's honor called April's Garden. Over the years that followed, events were periodically held at the park to revive awareness about the case. April's mother, Janet, was often in attendance, haunted by the lack of answers. During one event, she told the crowd,
I never thought it would go this long." Investigators revealed that at this stage they were still receiving roughly 5-7 tips about the case each week, but the leads gradually fizzled out, with one FBI agent remarking: "Nothing's breaking. There's nothing new." The media routinely ran stories about the crime, making it the highest profile unsolved case in Indiana.
By the late 2010s, more than 700 suspects had had their DNA tested. This was a massive undertaking, with police required to prove probable cause for every individual who refused to provide a sample willingly. Hopes were often raised, only for a seemingly likely suspect to be ruled out by DNA. Investigators couldn't help but wonder if the killer had passed away and they were literally chasing a ghost.
When asked if they would ever know for sure who killed April Tinsley, a detective replied: "Eventually, I believe so. We'll get to the bottom of it." By now, the killer's original DNA sample from the crime scene in 1988 had been used up and the rest degraded.
But because he had provided more samples in the used condoms he sent in 2004, there was more than enough DNA in pristine condition for investigators to work with as forensic technology evolved. Fort Wayne detectives sent the samples from April Tinsley's killer to DNA technology company Parabon NanoLabs, who specialised in using genetic genealogy to investigate cold cases.
Through the use of DNA phenotyping, which predicts a person's appearance based on their DNA, they were able to ascertain several of the killer's observable traits. These included his eye, hair, and skin colour, and even how many freckles he'd have on his face. The results were not absolute, but established the highest probability of his specific characteristics.
It enabled the creation of two digital composite sketches that were as accurate as possible, one of what the suspect would have looked like in 1988 and the other aged to demonstrate his current appearance. Both depicted a fair-skinned man with brown hair and hazel or green coloured eyes. Both matched the original 1988 sketch of the man driving the blue pickup truck that was seen approaching April.
Still, he remained unrecognizable to the Tinsleys and the greater Fort Wayne community. It appeared investigators had reached yet another dead end. Then, as covered in episode 53 of Case File, the trajectory of decades-long cold cases drastically altered in 2018 when the Golden State Killer was finally apprehended after 44 years.
The breakthrough came via a public genealogy website called GEDmatch. GEDmatch customers voluntarily submitted saliva swabs in exchange for an ancestry report based on their genetic profile. They could then connect with family members and distant relatives via online databases.
Similarly, investigators fronting the Golden State Killer case uploaded his DNA to the same databases with the intention of identifying him through his familial lineage. And it worked. This new investigative tool was a game changer for law enforcement. It opened a new line of inquiry for many old cold cases, including the unsolved murder of April Tinsley.
Two weeks after the major breakthrough in the Golden State Killer case, detectives had Parabon Nanolabs upload April's killer's DNA on thejetmatch.com. The work was overseen by C.C. Moore, the head of Parabon Nanolabs' genetic genealogy unit.
In her television series, The Genetic Detective, Cece explained that at the start of an investigation she performed a personal assessment as to how likely it was that genetic genealogy would lead to the suspect's identity. She ranked the difficulty between 1, being extremely promising, and 5, being pretty much impossible. For Cece, the Tinsley case ranked 4+.
Within eight hours, the website had found the man's relatives, which were mostly third cousins and beyond. Cece determined two of the relatives were siblings, and they formed the starting point. She scoured public records of obituaries, marriage licenses, and birth announcements to fill in the blanks and facilitate a family tree. The top of the family tree was filled in first, which encompassed the subject's ancestors from the 1800s.
The tree expanded from there, moving forward in time and identifying each descendant along the way. At one point, Cece reached a couple that had had 11 children. Not only did she have to identify them, but all of their descendants to see if the suspect was among them. It was a long and painstaking process, but Cece was determined and wasn't going to give up.
Eventually, she uncovered a couple who had three sons by 1961. At that point, they moved from their home in Florida to Fort Wayne, Indiana. By 2004, when April Tinsley's killer left the threatening letters, one of their sons had passed away. C.C. Moore zeroed in on the two surviving sons.
59-year-old John Miller lived alone at a trailer park in the small town of Crabill, 16 miles northeast of Fort Wayne. Miller was a loner who'd lived in the same trailer since he was 19. He kept to himself and never said hello to anyone. He never had a girlfriend, and during his few fleeting encounters with neighbors, his expression was mean and his comments were laced with profanities.
At a fiberglass factory where Miller had once worked, he was known for his bad hygiene, lack of friendships, and his short temper. In fact, he had been fired for punching and breaking the time clock. At home, Miller's neighbor had seen him throw his lawnmower in a fit. Miller's family believed his anger stemmed from being bullied during his youth. It impacted him so drastically that he ended up in a reform school.
His family also suspected he was sexually abused. After losing his factory job, Miller began working at a Walmart a 30 minute drive away in the city of Kendallville where he was rostered on the overnight shift stacking the electronics department. His colleagues, who nicknamed him "John John", knew little about him. He walked around the store hunched over, seething with rage and hardly speaking.
Once, Miller was overheard beating on equipment because it wasn't working right. Whenever other staff or customers asked him for help, he'd complain about it. The only time people saw Miller outdoors was at a softball field down the street where he would watch children play. He was relatively unknown to police except for two separate incidents in 2002 and 2003 when he was reported for exhibiting lewd behaviour towards women and girls.
On Sunday July 15 2018, two detectives overseeing the April Tinsley homicide investigation stood outside a faded yellow trailer at lot number 4 at the Graybull Mobile Home Park. It was a short distance from where April Tinsley's body was discovered and the barn where an ominous message from her killer was found. It was also the home of John Miller.
The genetic genealogists had traced Miller through his lineage and concluded that either he, or his brother, was April's killer. For the past two weeks, police had covertly observed the Miller brothers at their respective homes. They rarely saw John Miller when he was home, except for when he dragged his rubbish bin out to the curb.
Indiana law allowed police to legally take that rubbish for evidence, as long as they had the probable cause to do so. Which they did. Officers approached the bin on foot, being as quiet as they could so Miller wouldn't be alerted to their presence. They dug through his rubbish and found a used condom. In the search for DNA evidence, this was considered a jackpot.
The condom's contents were compared to the samples from April Tinsley's killer. After 30 years, they finally found a match. This resulted in a jubilant celebration, not only for detectives, but all the analysts and experts who had assisted in the case. Miller returned home after a brief outing to a grocery store to discover two detectives waiting for him.
Upon seeing him up close, the detectives fully appreciated the accuracy of the composite sketch by Parabon NanoLabs. They introduced themselves and suggested Miller take his groceries inside, but he said no. The detectives then requested Miller's assistance with something they were working on and asked him to accompany them to Fort Wayne for questioning. He agreed.
In the 20-minute car ride, Miller seemed to enjoy chatting about his interest in crossword puzzles and spoke of how much he liked Live PD, a television show where analysts examined the workings of US police. Miller said he never missed an episode. Once they reached the station, Miller was ushered into an interview room and read his rights. He was then told: "We want to talk to you a little bit about a case that we've been working on for a while.
"Somebody brought your name up into this and we wanted to see what you had to say about that. Do you have any idea what we need to talk to you about?" After a moment of silence, Miller responded, "I think probably the Tinsley case." The detectives were stunned but maintained a calm and collected front. They hadn't once mentioned or alluded to April Tinsley while Miller was in their company.
Him volunteering her name of his own volition was massive. One of the detectives asked, "What made you say the Tinsley case?" Miller thought for a moment before replying, "DNA." The detectives asked him to take them back to 1988. Miller drank some water before saying, "I can't." Sensing he wanted to speak further, the detectives encouraged him, "John, it's time to get this out.
You've had to have known that this day was coming. With that, Miller started talking and the floodgates opened. On the afternoon of Friday April 1 1988, Miller was in Fort Wayne looking for a child to abduct. It was a desire he'd felt for a while. He was trawling the streets in his car when he saw April Tinsley walking alone down Hoagland Avenue. Miller had never met or seen April prior to this encounter.
There was no one else around, so he drove a little further down the road and waited outside his vehicle as she approached. Wielding a sharp letter opener, he then confronted April, who said: "Don't hurt me. I'll do whatever you say." He ordered her to get in his car. Unfortunately, the witness who happened upon the abduction as it was unfolding had made a mistake.
They thought Miller had been in a blue pickup truck, when in fact he drove a blue Mercury Lynx, which was a sedan. Miller drove April straight to his trailer in Grebel, where he sexually assaulted her. During his police interview, Miller was asked why he couldn't have just released April somewhere after the attack. Miller casually replied, I thought about it. I was afraid she'd tell. The detective pressed on, saying,
"But April didn't even know you." Miller didn't reply and just silently stared blankly ahead, his mouth agape. Miller had choked April to death to prevent her from speaking out about the assault. The process took 10 minutes. He molested her once more, then drove to County Road 68 in the early hours of the morning and left April's body in the ditch.
The next day, Sunday, he realized that one of April's shoes was in his car. He drove past where he'd left her body and tossed the shoe out the window as he sped away. April wouldn't be discovered until the Monday, three days after she was taken. From then on, Miller kept a low profile. He remained living in the same trailer park, but stayed a very private person.
He did the same thing day in, day out. Went to work during the quiet midnight shift and returned straight home. Occasionally he'd go out for breakfast at the local inn where he was in the presence of many people including Grebel's town council president. Yet he offered little else to others aside from a grunt when they said hello. No one in the community came close to knowing or suspecting him at all.
In the years after killing April, Miller thought about abducting another child. He scrawled the confession on the barn in 1990 and deposited threatening letters in his local area during 2004. He loitered in neighborhoods and parking lots, waiting to cross paths with another lone girl. But the opportunity never arose. Miller was questioned in relation to other unsolved missing or murdered children cases.
He maintained he had no involvement in any, and his DNA didn't match evidence obtained from other crime scenes. After Miller's confession to the murder of April Tinsley, he was immediately taken into custody and work began in preparation for his trial. It was a laborious process. Over the years, the many investigators who worked on the case had produced boxes and boxes of information.
The first month alone was spent scanning old VHS and cassette tapes to update them for digital storage. Speaking of the chance encounter April had with her killer, a case detective remarked: "It's scary to think there are people in our society capable of doing this. Had she been five minutes earlier or five minutes later, we probably wouldn't be here today."
His arrest was a huge relief to the residents of Fort Wayne, who had felt haunted by April Tinsley's killer for decades. One FBI agent praised the dedication of the case detectives, stating,
This investigation illustrates the dogged determination of the investigators who never wavered, never gave up, and kept moving forward for the last 30 years. In the lead up to his trial, John Miller began walking unsteadily and started using a wheelchair. He appeared too feeble to handle court proceedings.
Detectives were dubious, however, pointing out that no matter how frail his physical condition, Miller was mentally sound. He knew right from wrong and was fully aware of what he'd done. In the end, Miller opted to forgo a trial and accepted a plea deal instead. Detectives believed he'd realised the strength of the DNA evidence was impossible to argue against.
During Miller's sentencing, Janet Tinsley purposefully sat at the front of the public gallery so her daughter's killer could see her. She wanted him to see what he had destroyed. When Janet spoke, she described the tremendous impact that April's abduction and murder, and the ensuing decades of uncertainty, had made on her family.
She spoke of the health problems they all faced due to stress and turmoil, and how April's brother and cousins grew up sheltered and overprotected. They all developed trust issues, especially towards men. Whenever Janet went out, she found herself wondering every time she passed a man, "Are you him?" Looking directly at Miller, she said, "I'll never forgive and never forget what you took from us."
For pleading guilty to criminal confinement, child molestation, and felony murder, John Miller was sentenced to 80 years in prison with no chance for appeal. The deal enabled him to avoid the death penalty. Miller is due for release in July 2058, six days after his 99th birthday. For Emily Higgs, one of the children who received a threatening letter from Miller in 2004, the terror never abated.
Miller lived close to her the entire time. Emily had sledded down a hill and played in a park near his home. She visited the softball fields he was known to loiter at. Her mother Crystal was grateful the torment was over. It was like, "This is over with. This is over with," she said. Finally.
The detectives who solved the Tinsley case received an award from the National Association of Police Organisations, which paid tribute to law enforcement officers who went above and beyond the call of duty. While investigators were glad the case was finally closed, they were puzzled by the fact that no one had ever named John Miller as a suspect.
He fit the description of April's killer in every way possible - his appearance, age, location, history, behaviour and personality. Detectives were stunned that no one recognised his highly unusual handwriting or the unique bedspread he'd taken lewd Polaroids against in 2004. It was ultimately settled on that this must have been due to his extremely reclusive lifestyle.
April Tinsley's murder was the fifth case solved using genetic genealogy, but certainly not the last. In the words of one county prosecutor: "Today, we're at a point where if you're a criminal and you've left your DNA at the scene, you may as well turn yourself in now." The previous decades had been torture for the Tinsley family.
Whenever they believed an end was in sight, their hopes were dashed and they were left with the agonising realisation that the case might never be solved. After 30 years, they finally had the answers they needed. Though for Janet Tinsley, true resolution would only arrive after John Miller's death. Now she finds peace by spending hours in the public garden planted on behalf of her daughter.
On Sunday July 15 2018, the television series "On the Case with Paula Zahn" aired an episode on April Tinsley's then unsolved murder. Janet Tinsley featured in the program, unaware that the case was about to be solved. That same day, John Miller was confronted outside his home by detectives who'd concretely linked him to April's murder.
When journalist Paula Zahn asked Janet what she missed most about April, Janet answered, I miss her growing up. What would she look like? Act like? Would she be married? It would have been nice to see that. But my memory of her is when she was just a little girl. That's when it ends.
