WANTED: Monster in Fort Wayne, Indiana

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies, it's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now, wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi Crime Junkies, I am your host Ashley Flowers and I'm Britt and today I'm going to tell you about the story I feel personally closest to because I've been so heavily invested in it for so long. This Wednesday, April 4th, 2018 will mark the 30-year anniversary of the day eight-year-old April Tinsley was found assaulted and murdered in northeast Indiana. Although this is out of [01:00] of the organization and what they do. Their mission is to offer a safe haven for tipsters so that if something horrific like this happens in Indianapolis, someone could report right away and hopefully we won't have to go 30 years without answers. [01:14] If you want more information on how you can donate to the organization, you can go to crimetips.org. And if you're interested in volunteering your time or professional services from wherever you live, email crimestoppersvolunteer at gmail.com.

[01:44] Thank you. [02:00] Britt, you know I've been following this case for almost 10 years now and I've been heavily researching it for the past six months. I've even met with April's family and I get really worked up when I talk about this case because what was done to her is so violent and so awful that no person, much less an innocent 8-year-old girl, should have to go through that. But to me, what's worse is her. [02:26] No one seems to care. No one I talk to knows the name April Tinsley when I bring it up. It's one of probably the most horrific crimes that have ever happened in Indiana. And when I ask people what they think about her case, they have no idea what I'm talking about. Yeah, I remember when you brought this case to me again almost 10 years ago. [02:45] I had never heard of it. Yeah, it was funny. We actually had a listener whose name is April Tinsley. And she had written to us, and I asked her, you know, I have to ask, with your name, are you very obsessed with the April Tinsley case? And even she had no idea what I was talking about. And it just makes me sad when you look at a case like Delphi. We covered Killer on the High Bridge. That case has been on every national media. Everyone knows about it.

[03:15] April's case was in 1988. [03:18] I have to wonder if it was just because it was 1988, there wasn't all this social media, if people have forgotten, or it makes me fearful that if... [03:26] the killer of the Delphi girls, Abby and Libby, isn't caught if we're going to be having this conversation in 30 years about them. So I just get really upset that something so horrific happened, but the attention span is so short for people that we just forget about some little girl who's so important. So I'm going to tell you the story, and I am begging anyone who lives in the Midwest or wherever you live, literally think of people you know. At the time, they thought this guy was [03:56] then and he very well could be. And this is the thing is they have DNA in this case. They [04:02] this guy has done nothing else wrong. He could be a family man. He could be your next door neighbor. He could be the guy you're sitting next to at church. So as I'm telling the story, please rack your brain. Please think of what you know. And if there's anything even close, submit a tip at the end. In 1988, April was eight years old, and she lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana with her mom, dad, and little brother. [04:32] I'm sitting in Indianapolis and an hour and 45 minutes southeast of where you are, Brit, in South Bend. Yep, right in the middle. So on April 1st of 1988, it was actually Good Friday, and April wanted to play with her friends down the street. It was a chilly day and storm clouds were rolling in. So around 3.30, April tells her friends that she's going to go get her umbrella that she left at another friend's house. She was just three blocks away from her home at the time.

[05:01] So she leaves her friend's house, but she doesn't return. And the little girls obviously aren't concerned. They think maybe something happened. They think maybe she went home, but nothing alarming. And April's mom, Janet, doesn't even know anything's wrong at this point. And like I said, her friends don't either. But it doesn't take Janet long to realize that something has happened. Because just an hour after she last saw April, it was dinner time and April hadn't come home. So she goes around to check where she was, ask her friends, figure out. [05:31] a story about the umbrella and it's such a short distance from where she was you can literally see her friend's house if you walk to the side of april's so when she walks over to her friend's house and no one has seen her not the girl who had the umbrella not the girl that she was with she calls police and since that day janet has been living a walking nightmare immediately after april's abduction nearly 250 police officers and 50 residents started searching for any sign of her [06:01] that this was an abduction likely, that she didn't just walk off, it was a neighborhood where a lot of people knew each other. And what they learned right away when they came out is that there was a witness who described seeing April forced into a battered blue pickup truck sometime between three o'clock and four o'clock by a white man in his 30s with light brown hair. And they said that the ends of his hair were lighter than the roots, and he also had facial stubble. [06:29] So with this witness testimony, that's how they knew something bad has happened. She isn't just hiding. She isn't at a Friends we don't know about. We need to search the entire area. Why wouldn't the witness say something before she went missing? If you see a little girl getting forced into a truck, something's not right. I read in a couple of places that the witness was a young girl, so I can see if it was a young child, her not saying anything. Sometimes you don't know what you're witnessing. Right. But if that's the case, it also makes me think that maybe the age could be off.

[06:59] really young, everyone seems old as hell to you. So maybe this guy wasn't 30. He could have been younger. Yes. But I also read in a book about unsolved child murders, there was a short blurb about April, and it said the witnesses were two women who saw a young girl being forced into the truck and crying. And if that's the case, there's no excuse for why they didn't report this sooner and didn't say anything until police started canvassing the area. Whoever the initial witness [07:29] to put together a sketch of who they think took April, and then they release it to the public. And, Britt, you have this sketch in front of you. Do you want to kind of describe it to our listeners? [07:40] Like your kind of typical late 20s, early 30s guy in the 80s. He's got longish hair. His eyes are kind of deep set, kind of thin lips. The sketch looks really grumpy, but it could be anybody. Yeah, kind of a long face. I mean, he does. He looks like anyone and everyone, every white guy in 1988. And I'm going to put this sketch on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com, so you guys can see it as well. [08:10] for this man, but they come up with nothing. And before police could even expand the search outside of Fort Wayne, April's body is found by a jogger around 3.30 the afternoon of April 4th. This jogger had discovered her laying in a ditch in Spencerville, Indiana, which is about 20 minutes northeast of Fort Wayne. Before they even did an autopsy, they knew that she might have been

[08:40] wearing when she disappeared, which were blue slacks with three hearts on the left leg, a turtleneck sweater, a red jacket, and purple shoes, I heard that her underwear was actually put on inside out. And so this gave them an indication at some point she had been undressed. When police did the autopsy, they found out that she in fact had been sexually assaulted, and her cause of death was suffocation. I can't find the exact time of death, but in an article [09:10] the autopsy as saying that she had been dead 24 to 48 hours. And in an interview with police years later, they make a comment on how she could have been held captive and tortured for up to three days. So I'm thinking their best guess is she was killed 24 hours before she was found, which would have been Easter Sunday. Reports also said that it appeared April had been killed at another location [09:41] So four hours at the earliest. That would mean like 1130 a.m.? Did the murderer just dump her on his lunch break? If that's a possibility, then he must be working close to the dump site or live near the dump site? Yeah, usually bodies are disposed of near places people are comfortable with where they know... [10:01] the area well they know when people won't be around so [10:05] I have to think that they narrowed it down to this four-hour window because before then...

[10:11] Someone had to have gone by and seen nothing, so they know that it was after 1130. But yeah, it's totally possible that this guy... [10:19] could have been on a lunch break, [10:21] Or maybe not, maybe he took the day off, like I have no idea, but he would have likely been living local or working local. They were able to get DNA from the crime scene, but in 1988, there wasn't much that they could do with it. But they at least knew to hold it and preserve it, and they didn't have anything here in Indiana where they could test it super well, but they did send it off for testing to get some kind of profile. [10:51] who reported to have seen a blue truck stopped early Sunday in the middle of the road where April was found. But even though the truck sounds like a match to the one seen at April's abduction site, this contradicts that coroner who was quoted in the paper as saying she was only in the ditch for four hours at most before she was discovered on Monday afternoon. [11:12] And at first, there's a lot of traction with this case that makes police and the community really hopeful. On April 11th of 1988, police announced that a 34-year-old man named Everett Dwayne Schull Jr. is sought for questioning in April's murder after a huge number of people called Crime Stoppers in Fort Wayne to report that the man's resemblance to the composite is astounding.

[11:42] that a blue pickup truck has been parked outside of his home several times so he would have had access to it but after interrogating him for eight hours they actually end up charging him on a different case he's charged with the molestation of an 11 year old girl and i'm pretty sure this was the guy's [12:00] girlfriend's daughter and this molestation had taken place in the October before in 1987. Police take blood and hair samples from him and they actually have four other suspects at the time which they don't name that they take samples from as well and all of these men are questioned their samples are taken and then they're sent off to a lab I believe in Maryland to get tested. Once these [12:30] about satanic rituals and satanic panic sets in, which happened a ton in the 80s and early 90s. But the police looked into it and eventually ended up ruling it out. Yeah, I feel like for the time, it was kind of the go-to excuse for something that was so horrific, you really couldn't explain it. Yeah, and I don't think the police ever really believed it, but there was so much going on in the community, I think they ruled it out just to put everyone's mind to ease. [12:55] But on May 24th, Everett is actually released from jail because he's acquitted of the unrelated molestation charges that happened in October. Police say he passed two polygraph examinations in questioning about April's death and he was never charged in her case. Skip to August 9th. Officials announced that all five men's hair and blood samples that were sent to the lab failed to exclude...

[13:22] or include them as suspects. [13:25] But they have the DNA. How can that not include or exclude them? I don't know. I have to think that maybe this is 1990 again. They did not have a full profile. So... [13:38] Maybe they could say, I can't say for sure it's not them. Like the probabilities are too low. It could be, but it's not a definite match, if that makes sense. Like there's not enough markers. Exactly. That they know of to compare and really make that differentiation. Exactly. That's kind of, if you remember what happened in the Delphi case, they had a person of interest and they couldn't include or exclude them. [14:00] And now I don't know why, because we have DNA has come so far, but it still drives me crazy. But after they have these five men that they kind of rule out, and I assume they're fully ruled out now because no one has ever come back to them. And in 2018, we have a full profile, but nothing happens. April's mom really felt like it had to have been someone they knew because April was a fighter and she wouldn't have gone off with anything. [14:28] It's not like she would just walk away with somebody that she didn't know. Is there a chance she could have been chloroformed? I think it's possible, but if we are to believe that the two adult witnesses saw her crying, I don't think that that's necessarily the case. And nobody said that she... [14:44] Adult or non-adult, nobody said that she looked unconscious when she was being taken away. Police did interviews of everyone in the area. They were bringing in every known sex offender, and they really believed, and still to this day, that this guy was a local. Kind of like Abby and Libby's case that we covered in the Killer on the High Bridge episode. They're pretty sure the guy is within a pretty close radius.

[15:14] And I think part of it is they think he was really comfortable with the area. He took her just blocks from her own home, knew that he wouldn't get caught, was comfortable enough. [15:25] put her in a place that was also near the same area and knew it and knew he wouldn't get caught putting her body there. I don't know if they have more than that, but that certainly leads me to believe that he's somebody who's familiar with the area. Additionally, he would have had to likely have somewhere that he could have held her for a couple of days between the time that he abducted her and the time he left her body in Spencerville. And this theory of police that everyone was kind of going off of just because he seemed familiar with the area [15:55] two years later when writing showed up on a barn not far from where April's body was found. And on the side of this barn, someone scrawled this message. [16:07] "I kill eight-year-old April Marie Tinsley. I will kill again. Ha ha." And this message, again, I'm going to put this on our website so you can see the picture of this barn. And it's the "I kill eight-year-old April Marie Tinsley. I will kill again" is on one side. And then the "ha ha" is very light. [16:27] on the right next to it. Yeah, I was looking for it and really had to focus to find it. The writing almost looks like childlike and I can't describe it any more than that. I mean, it looks really crude. Granted, you're not writing on a piece of paper. You're writing on the side of a barn door. Yeah, but even the fact that they use the word kill instead of killed, it does seem really childish. Yeah, even the sentence structure and it's the writing's messy. It's like some letters are really,

[16:57] The lines are crooked. There's three lines of text. They're not really lined up together. They wave, they shift back and forth. And it looks like it was done the first time with something really light and then traced over again to make it stand out. Yeah, it looks like a pencil was maybe used first, but we know at one point he goes over it with a crayon because crayons were found nearby at the barn. And police and FBI have all linked this note on the side of the barn to her [17:27] And I'm not sure how they're 100% sure it was him and not just like a hoax. [17:33] I guess there could be two ways. [17:37] Could it be that they maybe found DNA on the crayons that could have been matched to the sample that was found on April? Yeah, but that seems kind of unlikely because it was only two years later. This is 1990 when they were finding this writing on the barn. And I'd be surprised if they could pull touch DNA off of crayons back then. It's something that they might have been able to link years, years later, but they were sure in 1990 that this was their guy. My other theory is maybe they found a note with her body that they never told the public about. That's very possible. [18:07] rumor as well, only in very few places, so I don't know if this is true, that April was found missing one shoe. And in this rumor, they also say that above the area where the killer wrote ha-ha on the barn, you can't see. So we only have this one picture online of this message. And apparently above the ha-ha, there is another message that asks if the police ever found her other shoe.

[18:37] I don't know if it's linked, but they've never said if and or but they say it's 100 percent him done by the same person. So I think that they have something we don't know about, whether it's DNA, whether it's a note that was found with her body or an extra note that we haven't learned about. They have something to know, because from day one, they were saying this isn't a joke. [18:58] we know that this is the same guy. The police did canvass the area and they found a boy who said he saw someone in the area multiple times over the last couple of days and every time the guy was coming back the message was getting a little bit darker on the barn but this was really far away and he wasn't able to give any better description than they got from the witnesses at the abduction site. That means he'd have to go back to the barn multiple times. [19:23] That seems kind of risky. Yeah, I again, and this is why I think it builds into this profile that he's familiar with the area. I almost think he had to have been watching and waiting for police to come. He's not just going to go write this message and then leave and go out of town or he's not like a passer through. He knew that the first time he wrote it in pencil, if that's the case, that no one saw it. And so he comes back and writes it over and over and traces over and over until somebody sees it. [19:51] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For some, summer is their favorite season. Travel picks up, kids are out of school, and adventure is in the focus. For others, juggling it all can lead to overwhelm and counting down the minutes until the kids are back in school. And many worry that they're wasting the days of sunshine. Having someone with you to listen, to understand, to support can make all the difference. BetterHelp makes it easy to get started with quality, fully licensed therapists in the U.S. who follow a strict code of conduct. In fact, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform

[20:21] million people globally. Their therapist match commitment does the initial matching work so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences. And if you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time. It works. BetterHelp has an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash crimejunkie. That's better [20:52] After they get this writing on the barn and this message from the killer, it feels like they're so close. He's still here. He's taunting police. [21:01] But then nothing happens with April's case for 14 more years. Why did you say it like that, though? Like nothing happened with April's case specifically? Because something did happen shortly after this barn door incident, but police and FBI won't connect it to April. So I want to tell you all of April's story first, and then I will go back at the end and tell you this story. [21:25] strange thing that happened after this barn door incident that some people say is connected. So the investigation wasn't considered cold, but there were no arrests made, no DNA matches for 14 years. Then the creepiest thing ever happened. In the spring of 2004, 14 years after the barn notes,

[21:55] Fort Wayne area. Several were on the bikes of little girls that were left in the front yard, and some were in the mailbox where a little girl lived. All of these notes were on lined yellow paper, and here's an example of what one of them said. Hi, honey. I've been watching you. I am the same person that kidnapped and raped and killed [22:21] April Tinsley, you are my next victim. If you don't report this to police and I don't see this on the paper tomorrow or on the local news 07, I will blow up you. So I'm looking at a picture of the note right now and it's super creepy and it looks really similar to the writing on the barn. There's a lot of misspellings. It's really childish writing. Yeah, we have a full copy of this note [22:51] over the map like honey is spelt with two o's yeah even april's name is spelt wrong which is he spells it in this note a-p-r-o-i-l april which is interesting because when he wrote her name on the barn he spelt it correctly then it seems really intentional though like he's [23:10] trying to make his handwriting look like not his, and maybe misspelling things to throw off police too. But I don't think he does a good job, because like I said, he misspells April. [23:20] When he already spelled it correctly on the barn, I don't get what the point is. I mean, unless his whole point is just to throw them off and to confuse us, because we are confused 30 years later, so maybe it worked. But in all of the notes, he starts the greeting as always, hi, honey. And in all of the notes, there's always a part where he says, I've been watching you. And there's some clips we have from the other notes.

[23:50] and murder April Tinsley, you are next, ha ha. And again, in this note, he spells April A-P-R-A-L, so totally different again. We have the same ha ha that was found on the barn. [24:03] And there's one more note that we get a clip of, but not the whole thing. And it's the very bottom. You can tell it's the end of the note. It says, house, period, killing everyone but you. You will be mine. And then he double underlines it. [24:19] And there's something really strange at the bottom of this that like no one talks about. And I don't know if it just doesn't matter. And I'm reading too much into it. But it almost looks like someone who's going to sign the bottom of a letter. And then they're like, oh, crap, I don't want to put my name on this. Because it looks like an M and then the beginning of an A. If you look at the A's in the rest of his notes, it looks exactly like the top of an A. And it's just that. It's just an M and then a little hum. And I have no idea what that means. [24:49] letters. Again, I don't know if he was starting to sign a signature and realize he wasn't supposed to. And my husband weighed in on this a little bit because I was obviously showing him this and thought it was super strange. It was something that in the six months I hadn't picked up. And as I was putting this together, I was like, why? What is this M? What does it mean? And he thought something else was interesting. He said the double underline thing is something that accountants do. If you're doing like an income statement or a balance sheet on all of the main forms, you use

[25:19] it and keep like racking it up. But at the very bottom to show that it's the end and it's final, you do two lines. That is something I would have never thought of. That's really interesting, though. I have no idea. Like I would have never, ever seen that. I wonder FBI have, but I don't know if police ever thought that. But it takes someone like my husband's obviously in finance. And so when he saw that, that was the first thing that he saw. Yeah, definitely. Did the notes stop after this one? You know, I don't know. They didn't say most of them were found like [25:49] and they didn't say in which the order that they were found. [25:53] I will say, though, when they're online, this one always comes last. So it's possible. And that's something that I hadn't thought about either. Was this him saying like, OK, now I'm done for 2004. Super weird. [26:05] But take all of this with a grain of salt, because the FBI profile done on this guy, which I'll read in full later, says that he is low to mid-low income, which wouldn't fit with an accountant or someone in finance. Could the person who wrote the letters be different from the person who wrote the note on the barn? Maybe this guy is just some copycat who had nothing to do with April. [26:35] fun of and poking a family that's in pain and just doing this as a hoax? Or is it worse to think that it is the person who is still living among you 16 years later and still watching these little girls? But we know it's not a hoax because with all of these letters, we're not going to be

[26:54] They were all placed inside like plastic baggies. And with every single one, he also included something else, either a Polaroid picture or a used condom. Why? I think it's partly shock value. This guy gets off on the idea of knowing these little girls would come in contact with this picture or these condoms. [27:24] and B, proving that it isn't a hoax, because I'm sure that's what he thought everyone would think, and he wanted to prove that it was really him. And they used the DNA from these used condoms to match it to the crime scene and prove that whoever was leaving these notes was the same guy who killed April 16 years ago and the same guy who wrote that message on the barn 14 years ago. And by this time in 2004, they were able to get a much better profile from April's crime scene, [27:54] We'll be right back. [27:54] Were these notes found in the morning, in the middle of the day, at night? When was all this happening? Because if he's dropping these off in the middle of the day, that's pretty ballsy. Yeah, so they weren't mailed. They were for sure obviously dropped off because only one of them was found in a mailbox and the rest were on these little girls' bicycles. Some people reported seeing a forest green truck during the day with tinted windows. So I think that's something that police continue to look at and the public needs to be very aware of.

[28:24] had access to a blue pickup truck in 88, but then owned or had access to a forest green pickup truck in 2004. And yeah, he had to have been super confident. And this is, again, something that points to them saying he is from this area. He is a local. He feels like he can just drive through these neighborhoods, drop something off on a little girl's bike, and no one's even going to notice. He doesn't look out of place. He knows when he can do it and not get caught. And they [28:54] would be able to watch the reaction of these girls when they found this. You mentioned that in some of the notes there were condoms, but others had a Polaroid picture. Of what? So the pictures were usually of the killer's body. He would take snapshots of himself from the waist down, and in one of the pictures, he was actually on a bed masturbating, and the pictures showed his penis and his legs. And again, we know he's an average-sized white guy. He has hairy legs. The only [29:24] knew they gleaned from this about him specifically was that he was circumcised but even though his body didn't really give anything away there was something really distinctive in the picture in the background on the bed that he was laying on was a very unique bedspread or quilt and brit you have a picture pulled up of this bedspread right yes okay do you want to describe it to people who are listening i know the quality isn't great it's from a polarid picture but it's pretty

[29:54] blue. And if you aren't sure what Paisley is, it's kind of a teardrop shape that's bent into a comma-ish, but there's usually a lot of colors and patterns that go on. It's very typical when you think of like 70s clothing, very groovy, if you will. Yeah, and there's something kind of like floral looking about Paisley, but it has a lot going on. So it's this blue-green, and police search all of the [30:24] they didn't find anything. Like, nothing came up in every Fort Wayne motel, hotel. They could not find this bedspread. So, does that mean that they think that it's [30:33] in someone's home? You know, I'm not sure. I mean, I think that's the assumption. I'm not sure how far they canvassed outside of Fort Wayne, but what they keep believing at this point is that it is. It's in someone's home or at least a place with a bed that they had access to that isn't a motel hotel. But they put this bedspread all over the news asking if anyone recognized it. And this is [31:03] people yet and it hasn't reached everyone because someone has to have seen that bedspread and like either someone made it someone bought it someone manufactured it but no one has been able to find it and it drives me absolutely insane wait you said this was in 2004 right yeah so it's kind of weird that he's using a polaroid at all right it is and this is a clue that police looked heavily into in 2004 a lot of people had those point and shoot digital cameras i mean i had one yeah we had

[31:33] We have so many selfies. So police tried to find out who would have owned or had access to a Polaroid locally. And they even went so far as to try and track down the makers of the film that they used and was printed on these pictures. But it didn't lead anywhere. As far as I could find, they didn't track down anything significant that would lead them to a specific person. And it makes sense for someone like this killer to own it. A lot of pedophiles are known to use Polaroids because there's no tracking it. It's self-developing. [32:03] You don't have to take it in somewhere. It's really kind of hidden. Yeah, it's like a pedophile's best dream. I mean, like you said, you don't have to take in your film to get developed. There's no way to track the actual camera itself back to you. You don't have to register a Polaroid. And so many times when they find people who are pedophiles and who are keeping collections of children, it's so often on Polaroid film. [32:27] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [32:46] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. [32:56] Well, another few years go by where nothing pans out. April deserves justice, but it's also at this point a safety issue for the community. This guy is basically saying, I'm this close to your children and you can't catch me.

[33:26] This includes personnel from the Behavioral Analysis Unit who profile offenders, personalities, traits, and motives, along with agents and analysts from the Crimes Against Children Unit, coordinators from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, and representatives from the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, which is VICAP. [33:56] suggested by their name, CARD usually responds to urgent non-family abductions, but they also work on cold cases like April's if they think there's enough evidence to break the case. So that just shows you police are like, you guys have [34:10] ample evidence something is bound to break in this so the team joins forces with the police and they say that with all the evidence they have there's a really strong chance that they are going to find this guy and they even release a profile of who they think their killer is they're [34:24] And before they release this, they release a statement, which I'm going to have Brit read. The statement is. [34:29] The one significant advantage that we as criminal behaviorists have in looking at this case is the sheer volume of offender behavior we have to consider. This behavior has been demonstrated over the course of six years. [34:42] years. And [redacted address] more than they usually have to go off of. Yeah, and we already know 100% that he's a Caucasian and would have been in his 40s to 50s in 2009. So that has to help narrow it down even more. Right. And I'm going to read you their profile in full and then we can discuss after. In their profile, they started by saying what we know about April Tinsley's killer.

[35:12] term and persistent sexual desire for children. In this case, the offender has demonstrated a specific sexual interest in little girls who have not yet reached puberty. In other words, he's attracted to hairless, undeveloped girls. This interest will not go away. Girls between the ages of 5 and 10 would greatly appeal to him. This does not mean he cannot interact sexually with adults or even older children, but his overwhelming sexual fantasies and desires focus [35:42] He may be married. However, the vast majority of preferential child sex offenders are not. If he has a long-term intimate adult partner, that partner will have an idea that this individual has sexual interest in little girls, but may be in denial regarding the extent of that interest or his ability to act on it. This offender may establish relationships that give him access to little girls. [36:12] he'll seek employment or volunteer activities that give him proximity to little girls. [36:16] He will be drawn to places where children congregate. [36:20] playgrounds, swimming pools, parks, etc. Wherever he goes, if a little girl is nearby, his eyes will follow her. He may go out of his way to interact with her. In an unguarded moment, he may even make a casual sexual reference about a little girl, which, if overheard, would strike someone as very inappropriate, such as,

[36:43] She's a sexy little thing, isn't she? [36:45] Most of us do not associate adult attention towards a child with sexual attraction. People noticing his interest in little girls may simply interpret it as someone who just, quote, "loves kids." This offender prefers the company of children to the company of adults, and he may be socially awkward or inappropriate when interacting with adults. A preferential child sex offender tends to collect things that serve to support his fantasies and are consistent with his sexual preferences. [37:15] In this case, since our offender's preference is for little girls, he may collect images of little girls, perhaps clothed, candid pictures, or even child pornography, and probably both. He may take these pictures himself, or he may find them through other sources. He may also collect other items that are arousing to him and remind him of little girls that he wants. [37:45] that little girls find appealing. [37:47] The public tends to think that once a person kidnaps, rapes, and kills, he will always kidnap, rape, and kill. In reality, a preferential child sex offender can engage in a lot of different behaviors that satisfy his sexual needs, but do not rise to the level of the prior offense. The offender may substitute nuisance sex offenses like peeping, indecent exposure, and leaving obscene notes or sexual items for a child to find.

[38:17] box or on a front door, the resident may think it was intended for an adult female in the home, rather than a little girl who lives there. Oftentimes, these incidents are not reported because the significance of the offense is not recognized by the citizens at the time. If the preferential child sex offender has a criminal history, it's more likely to involve sex offenses against children. [38:39] After 2004, there have been no known activity by this offender, but we've seen gaps in years in his activity before, as in the 1990s, and this could be explained a number of ways. [38:51] One, he could be institutionalized, hospital or prison. [38:55] Two, he could have ongoing access to a victim that satisfies his desire for a child partner through a relationship with an adult caretaker. [39:05] Three, he could have relocated, or four, he could be deceased since June of 2004. [39:11] The primary value of describing this offender is to appeal for the public's help in identifying him. This offender has demonstrated that he has strong ties to northeast Fort Wayne and Allen County. This is where he likely lives, works, and or shops. You may be standing next to him in line at the grocery store, sitting beside him in the pew at church, or working beside him on the production line. We've said that the offender is currently in his 40s or 50s. [39:41] fit the characteristics described above, but is a few years older or younger, please do not hesitate to report this information. Wow, that's a lot of information in the profile. Yeah, I feel like they at least feel they have a really good idea of the kind of person this guy is. But to boil it all down, here is what we're looking for. He is a white male who's circumcised. His current age is likely

[40:11] or Allen County. He frequents places where children like to be and focuses specifically on little girls. They think he has a low to mid-low income, [40:21] owned or borrowed a Polaroid camera in 2004... [40:25] He has hair on his lower legs, and in 2004, he possibly owned or borrowed a forest green pickup truck, having... [40:32] a matching camper shell with dark tinted windows. Not mentioned in the profile, but from other stuff I've read online, FBI also say this guy might have a disorder called dysgraphia. According to the Learning Disabilities Association of America, a person with dysgraphia may have problems including illegible handwriting, inconsistent spacing, poor spatial planning on paper, poor spelling, [41:02] well as thinking and writing at the same time. I read like way more than I ever need to on Dysgraphia and the one thing that stood out was that a person with this disorder will spell words incorrectly in and in many different ways. So if he actually does have this it would explain why he would spell April's name differently and wrong in all these different places. So it could be that he wasn't faking the handwriting or the misspellings at all. You'd think that this would be something [41:32] I've never known anyone personally to have this disorder, so you would think it would stand out. And I tried to look up statistics on this specific learning disability to see how many people could be affected, but it's still super unknown and super new. - But this guy could be low income with a learning disability.

[41:50] Or he could be really smart with a great job like an accountant and be clever enough to fake dumb. Yeah, you know, my gut, I tend to lean towards the second option. But with so many law enforcement professionals saying otherwise, I would tell everyone to believe them. They have more information than has been released to us. [42:20] just faking his handwriting. But again, that wasn't included in his profile, so it might be something that they are unsure about, and he very well still could be faking this handwriting and misspellings. [42:31] In the same year that they brought the FBI in and they did this profile, America's Most Wanted airs a special on April's case. And I freaking love John Walsh. He was my, a lot of people attribute their love for true crime to unsolved mysteries. But 100%, I started with true crime because of America's Most Wanted. Oh my God. Every Saturday night, John Walsh is my date. I, every episode, every single episode. So they featured her story. [43:01] April's case that night, nearly 50 tips were called in, and most of them from the Fort Wayne area providing information relating to the killer's distinctive notes, that bedspread, and the picture that the killer had taken. And they even gave the names of some potential suspects. But that was in 2009, and three years went by, and none of those leads or suspects panned out into anything tangible.

[43:31] while taping the episode police revealed that at one point in time they had over 513 suspects not persons of interest full suspects and as of 2009 they had narrowed it down to 81 and i'm not sure where the list stands today but obviously they still do not have their guy it's so crazy that we've never heard any names though in all of your research did you ever come across anyone [44:01] Everett? No, I thought this was weird too. I came across other names, but only in online forums and never from police. In the 30 years that they were investigating this case, I haven't been able to find any news article that mentions a name other than Everett's. And they don't mention a person of interest. They don't mention a suspect, just that they have a [44:21] suspects. [44:22] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [44:41] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. [44:52] When they're on America's Most Wanted for the follow-up, they open up about another huge clue found at the scene of the crime that they had never released before. And the police always do this. What we get in the media is never all of it. Most of the time, they will hold back specific things so that if and when someone comes forward, they can verify that this is actually their guy. And they do this to protect the trial.

[45:22] They want to be able to point to specific things and say only this person could have known X, Y, and Z. If they release everything they have, every crackpot is going to come out of the woodwork and confess to these cases. They have no way to weed out who actually knows stuff, who doesn't, and then they really don't have a case when they go to trial. [45:49] was that near her body was a plastic Sears shopping bag, and inside the bag was a plastic Sears shopping bag. [45:55] was a sex toy. It was a large penis-shaped object with a metal crank at the bottom, and it's called a Benoit squirmy manual crank, and I can't even find these online anymore. Investigators said the object is unique in design, and it could be recognized by a former intimate partner of April's Killer. Okay. [46:17] There's a picture we have of this sex toy and it's so disturbing. I mean, anything that happens to a young girl, knowing that she was kept for possibly days and assaulted and then murdered, I mean, it's horrible. But to see that he not only assaulted her, but what he may have used on her, it makes me sick to my stomach. [46:47] imagining what happened to their daughter, it makes it makes me so angry that this guy is still out there. And I have I have a picture and I, you know, I might get some flack for posting it online. I'm not posting it for shock value or anything like that. But I think it's important. The police thought it was important enough to show on America's Most Wanted because it is. I've never seen

[47:17] you [47:18] It's so specific that if someone were to have ever found this in someone's home or if someone were to have ever suggested they use it on a partner, it's something that you would have to remember. [47:31] So I'm only posting it for the same reason that police showed it on America's Most Wanted. If someone recognizes it, I think this is the key to the case. If you and you know, you think someone is a nice person, you can't come to grips with them being a bad person. But to see something like this. [47:47] you would have to give someone up or at least suggest to police, hey, check out this guy. Even after they released this new clue, nothing new surfaces. [47:57] But there was another big reveal in 2016. Parabon Snapshot is a company that takes DNA and they do like a DNA phenotyping. So they look at all the genetic markers and they can come to an educated guess on what this person might look like. And they take the DNA from April's crime scene and they are able to determine likely characteristics that, [48:22] based on this guy's genetics. And what it predicts, it usually can do ancestry, eye color, hair color, skin color, freckling, and face shape. Along with their predictions, they also give a degree of confidence because not all of our appearance is based on genetics. It can be influenced by the environment as well. So it's not a hundred percent thing, but they put the DNA into this system and they released two photographs. One of them is what they thought the guy would

[48:52] And then they do like an aged progression of what he would look like in 2016. And Britt, do you want to like give a snapshot of what you're seeing? Because I know you're looking at these pictures with me. [49:04] Again, your everyday normal guy. Longish face, maybe kind of prominent nose, thin lips, pretty heavy brow. [49:15] brown hair [49:16] green eyes, brown eyes? Yeah, they say hazel eyes. But again, it could be anybody. It's the guy you see at the grocery store. Yep. And that's what they said is, you know, they get his ancestry that he is... [49:28] likely European, he has hazel eyes, he has brown hair, he's likely to have some freckles. [49:34] It's hard looking at this and trying to compare it to that black and white sketch that was done back in 1988. I think if they were to furrow this guy's brow, make his hair a little bit longer, and even his face a little bit longer, it would be very similar. But it's hard to see this guy and not see a ton of people that we know. And over 400 DNA samples have been submitted over the years, and nothing has been matched. This guy is still out there. [50:04] into any serious trouble because his DNA hasn't been collected. There has been in the last year or two a new law where if you're convicted in Indiana, [50:13] of a felony your dna has to be taken so [50:16] They done sweeps. [50:18] of the jails and people who are in prison and convicted of felonies and he's not in prison. He could be dead or he could still be out there.

[50:26] And again, this snapshot was released in 2016, and there's been no movement on the case since then. Her case is cold. Like I said, the 30-year anniversary is coming up on April 4th, the day she was found. And her family still has no answers. Police have no leads. [50:47] And they're looking for any new information that people can provide. We can't end the episode yet, though. You still have to tell me what happened after the barn riding that the police said was unrelated. [50:57] Oh, right, right, right. So... [50:58] Three weeks after that message was left on the barn in June of 1990, another girl, seven-year-old Sarah Boker, who was also a first grader like April but at different schools, disappeared from her Fort Wayne apartment complex. And it's worth noting that she was last seen at 3.30 and April was last seen around the same time when she went missing. [51:28] her half-sister said I'm gonna go visit another friend at the complex just like April was gonna go to another friend's house but she never made it there Sarah's parents said that she had been afraid of strangers since April's abduction in 1988 and and they expressed doubt that she would ever have gone with a stranger voluntarily kind of like April's mom was saying there's no way she wouldn't put up a crazy fight and Sarah's body was found the next day in a nearby ditch and like April

[51:58] Sarah had been sexually assaulted and suffocated. But for unknown reasons, the FBI, after analyzing the case, said that they didn't believe that the same perpetrator was responsible. But the coroner who examined both the bodies, who was Dr. Philip O'Shaughnessy, publicly stated that he believed it was the same killer. In 1995, police officially closed Sarah's case and said they had enough evidence to prove [52:28] in 1994 was their killer. He was an elderly man who was a former neighbor and knew Sarah, but he also knew April. And Hensley came to investigators' attention in May of 1992, two years after Sarah's murder, when a relative came to police with suspicions that the man might have been involved in Sarah's death. [52:49] But here's the thing. I mean, FBI swears up and down. It's not the same person. Fort Wayne police have closed Sarah's case. But I keep going back to Dr. Philip O'Shaughnessy, who said, I think the same person killed both of them. There's too much similarity between the two cases. If they have enough evidence to say that Roy Hensley killed Sarah, then I believe Roy Hensley killed April Tinsley also. The problem with this is Roy Hensley was long gone and buried when the [53:19] So we know for sure that Roy probably didn't kill April unless, I mean, it would be crazy. Someone would have to be like a relative of his and like have old DNA. But I mean, nothing makes sense. It's totally bananas to think that Roy would have done it, right? Yeah, it seems really far-fetched. I agree. They're different people now. And the only thing I don't know is the more I'm talking to police about different cases

[53:49] than I thought I did. And to me, you either had DNA or you didn't have DNA. But what I'm finding is there's all these different rules about number of markers and whether or not you can, we could have DNA and have markers to compare to, but not necessarily in the national database. And I have no idea what they have on April. They have enough to compare people to, but is it enough to know [54:19] Do they have enough? I would think that they do this far into the game in 2018, but I don't know for sure. And so that's the only question mark. But I don't think Roy did it. But that doesn't mean necessarily that the cases aren't connected. It just means that the person they said killed Sarah probably wasn't Roy, if they're connected. Does that make sense? I think it does. I just think it's super weird that, you know, before April was abducted and murdered, they hadn't had a case of a child abduction in over 10 years. [54:49] So for two girls about the exact same age in the same grade to go missing in such a similar way and then both be found in a ditch, sexually assaulted and suffocated within two years of each other. It seems like more of a coincidence, don't you think? It seems so unlikely for it to happen in a community like this. [55:09] in such similar ways to not be connected, but I come back to it. [55:14] I don't think they are. Yeah. And police don't think they are either. So they've said over and over, even April's family, when I met with her mom, she trusts police and says that they are not connected.

[55:24] So I have to again believe they have something that we don't. So maybe this guy that was Roy, and Sarah's family fully believes Roy killed her, if he maybe saw what happened to April and that planted a seed in him and then he acted out. But there's definitely something they have, whether it's at the crime scenes or DNA or something that proves that they're not connected. But it was for a while a red herring that was planted in the middle of this case back then that may have actually confused things. [55:51] So there is a memorial happening this coming week. [55:55] week for anyone local who wants to come out and show support for April's family. It's going to be held at April's Garden, which is a little memorial that's actually in the neighborhood where she lived. It's going to be held at 5 p.m. on April 4th, and they're going to do a balloon release. If it rains that day, they're going to push it to the 5th at the same time, and we'll post information on the location and times on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And I also [56:25] Everyone going on Facebook and following April's Facebook page. If you search April Marie Tinsley, T-I-N-S-L-E-Y, show your support for the family. Let them know that there are people out there 30 years later that still care about their daughter, that are still looking for this horrible guy that did this to her.

[56:55] you [56:56] It's not enough. And it's so upsetting that you can count 1,600 people that still care what's going on. And it's her parents that run the page. They do everything themselves. So go on, show your support, share their stuff. And I encourage you, take what we learned today. [57:15] That profile, if you are local or even if you're not, we don't know where this guy is today. He could be anywhere. Look at the pictures. Look at the handwriting. Take in consideration the profile. And if there's anyone you know. [57:29] who even remotely fits this profile, submit a tip. And I know people think like it sounds crazy, like how would someone listening know who this guy is? But I have to tell you, Brit, that like as I was living in this for the last six months, and I was staring at that DNA composite, [57:45] day in and day out, I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew that guy, that I had seen that guy. And at first I tried to write it off as he looks like every guy. I mean, we said it in the episode, but one day I was sitting at my desk and it just hit me that I grew up near this guy and I submitted a tip and it could be nothing. I know. So, and you know, this guy too, the picture looks exactly like, [58:15] strange. It's not just that it looks like him. So around the time that this [58:20] picture with like the DNA composite was released, he drastically changed his appearance. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

[58:29] That's, oh my gosh, full body chills. I know. And that letter where we talked about the end, where it was signed with that M, part of his name starts with an M, which again could be nothing. But there was stuff in his home too that we can talk about offline, but there was stuff in his home that made me uncomfortable. And I don't know where he was. We weren't even born when this happened. But this is exactly what I'm saying. [58:59] and to try and write it off and to say that it's normal. But let the police decide if there's even a smidgen of a chance. This guy, there's a reason he's gone 30 years without being caught is because somebody out there is seeing this information and saying there's no way it could be this guy. So if you have a tip, as small or as big as it is, I encourage you to submit this. And you can do that by contacting the Fort Wayne Police Department by calling 1260-4255. [59:27] 427-1404. Or you can email... [59:32] AprilInfo.com [59:34] at ci.ft-wayne.in.us. And if you want to give a tip anonymously, you can do that through the Fort Wayne Crime Stoppers at 260-436-STOP. Thank you all for listening to this episode. This was a

[1:00:04] anniversary coming up. Share this episode with your friends. Get this information out there. The only way April's going to have justice and her family's going to find some kind of closure is if this guy is caught. And the only way he's going to get caught is by more people hearing about this, caring about this, and caring about April. If you want to see any of the stuff that we talked about today, you can go to our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us [1:00:34] week with a new crime crime junkie is written and hosted by me all of our sound production and editing comes from brit praywatt and all of our music including our theme comes from justin daniel crime junkie is an audio chuck production so what do you think chuck do you approve [1:00:55] *Mario* [1:01:00] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [1:01:19] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. [1:01:22] I think you'll love it too. [1:01:24] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.