Indiana true crime – If there is something

Cass County teen rescued in Missouri less than six hours after reported missing

On the evening of June 16, 2024, an Indiana father contacted the Logansport Police Department to report his 14-year-old daughter missing after seeing her enter an unknown black SUV. Police later determined the vehicle to be a black Dodge Durango with unknown registration.

Investigators with the Cass County Sheriff’s Office were able to ping the girl’s cellphone and identified the suspect vehicle with Texas registration travelling westbound on U.S. 36 near Hannibal, Missouri.

Shortly before 2 a.m. on June 17, Cass County authorities contacted the Missouri State Highway Patrol with information on the missing teen.

Then an officer with the Shelbina Police Department notified state troopers when he spotted the black Dodge Durango with Texas plates passing slowly through Shelbina.

Meanwhile, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office traced the suspect vehicle as it traveled along Highway 36 through Clarence, Missouri around 2:11 a.m.

About six minutes later, state troopers spotted the SUV near the intersection of Highway 36 and Kellogg Avenue east of Macon. A traffic stop was initiated and troopers observed a girl in the backseat of the vehicle. The girl identified herself as the missing teen and was immediately removed from the vehicle.

The five suspects in the vehicle were all arrested and charged with second-degree kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child. The suspects were Marlon Aguilar, 44, from Honduras, Arturo Eustaquio, 41, from Mexico, Noe Guzman Hernandez, 24, from Mexico, Daniel Ruiz Lopez, 19, from Honduras, and Carlos Funez, 56, from Honduras.

According to court documents, the men were trafficking the young girl to California to a man she met on the internet.

Thanks to the urgent action of authorities in Indiana and Missouri, the young girl was rescued unharmed less than six hours after her father reported her missing.

Sources:

Pharos-Tribune, Logansport, Indiana

ABC 17, Columbia, Missouri

Fox 59, Indianapolis, Indiana

13 KRCG, Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri

Swift action by police led to rescue of missing Wells County girl

On Saturday, December 30, 2023, a mother contacted the Wells County Sheriff’s Department to report her 11-year-old daughter missing. Police responded and searched the area near her home in Zanesville, Indiana. Police were able to locate the daughter’s cell phone in an area away from her house where the daughter was not allowed to go. The mother told police she had recently discovered inappropriate messages on the daughter’s phone from two individuals, one of whom she knew was an adult male, but she didn’t know the man’s name because he used multiple social media accounts under different names.

Police filed the girl as a missing person and issued a statewide Silver Alert for the 11-year-old. Additionally, multiple police agencies were contacted to aid in the search. After interviewing witnesses, police learned a white van with out-of-state license plates had been spotted in the trailer park around the time the child went missing. Witnesses said they saw two men in the van and also saw the men walking a dog in the location where the girl’s phone was found.

From the girl’s cellphone, police discovered a phone number that had called the girl’s phone 28 times in the hour before she went missing. Police learned this phone number belonged to Zackary Delozier of Edgemont, South Dakota. Officers from the Indiana State Police then began to track Delozier’s phone.

Authorities knew the suspects were travelling in a white Dodge Caravan with South Dakota plates. Utilizing Flock security cameras, police identified the white van travelling across northern Indiana in the direction of Chicago. At 12:11 a.m. on December 31, Delozier’s van was spotted in Wisconsin and his cellphone was tracked across the state.

Indiana State Police notified the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office that a vehicle involved in an Indiana Silver Alert for the abduction of an 11-year-old female was parked at the Kwik Trip in Barneveld, Wisconsin. While sheriff’s deputies were enroute they learned the vehicle was on the move and travelling south on USH 151 in Dodgeville. Dodgeville Police were dispatched and initiated a traffic stop along USH 151, shutting down the southbound lanes for approximately 20 minutes.

Inside the van, police discovered the missing girl along with Delozier, 27, Sara Gaudino, 23, and Isaiah Schryvers, 24, all of Rapid City, South Dakota. The 11-year-old told police she did not know the suspects, and could not remember how she came to be in the vehicle with them. Officers also discovered a firearm in the vehicle.

Police called the girl’s mother and asked if she knew the suspects. She said she did not, but believed one or more of them had been messaging her daughter. She also said she believed the suspects had taken her daughter against her will. The three suspects were taken into custody and charged with kidnapping of a minor, a Level 5 felony.

While it is not known what the suspects intended to do with the victim, the sexually explicit nature of Delozier’s messages to the minor indicate a very bad outcome was narrowly avoided. Because of the urgent action and close coordination of multiple law enforcement agencies, the search and rescue of the missing 11-year-old girl took less than seven hours from the time the initial report was called in.

Sources:

WPTA 21 Alive News Fort Wayne

WANE 15 Fort Wayne

WFFT Fox 55 Fort Wayne

WMTV 15 News Madison

Iowa County Sheriff’s Office

New information in Hailey Buzbee murder investigation

Investigators for the FBI and the Hocking County Sheriff spent Monday searching a rental property on Walnut Dowler Road in Hocking County, Ohio. Forensic evidence was recovered leading investigators to believe a crime was committed there.

According to Hocking County Sheriff Lanny North, “They found some forensic evidence which they feel might be linked to a crime scene, to a death. Until it is examined by the lab, they can’t be exactly sure what it is.”

Columbus Police believe the murder of Hailey Buzbee occurred at the rental property in Hocking County.

On Sunday, Tyler Thomas led FBI and local investigators to a location where Hailey Buzbee’s remains were discovered. The body of Hailey Buzbee was buried near a trailhead in Wayne National Forest in Perry County, Ohio.

After an autopsy by the Licking County Coroner’s Office, a report was sent to the Perry County Coroner. Perry County officials have not said when the report will be released.

The Hocking County Sheriff’s timeline shows Hailey Buzbee was reported missing on January 6 and Tyler Thomas was identified as a suspect in her disappearance. On January 16, Buzbee was tracked to Columbus. Columbus Police questioned Thomas who admitted he picked her up in Fishers, Indiana, but dropped her off in western Ohio. Police determined he lied about dropping Buzbee off. On January 20, Thomas was tracked to a rental in Hocking County. The Hocking County Sheriff and the FBI searched the Hocking County rental. On Sunday, Thomas led investigators to Buzbee’s remains. On Monday, the Hocking County rental was searched again and more evidence was discovered.

Authorities say Tyler Thomas and Haley Buzbee stayed at his Victorian Village home on Hunter Avenue in Columbus before later spending time at the short term rental in Logan, Ohio.

While aspects of the timeline are becoming clearer, specific dates and locations are still very much a mystery. It appears investigators zeroed in on Tyler Thomas almost immediately. According to Fox 59, during the Sunday press conference, Chief Ed Gebhart said Fishers Police encountered Thomas within days of Hailey Buzbee being missing. Investigators have stated that they believe Buzbee died within days after her disappearance. When was this initial encounter with Thomas in relation to him taking Buzbee from the Hunter Avenue location to Logan, Ohio?

Another big question looms over this tragedy. Regardless of whether the 39-year-old Tyler Thomas dropped Hailey Buzbee off in western Ohio, why isn’t an older man transporting a missing minor across state lines grounds for an extended round of questioning in the Columbus Police Department interrogation room? In nearly all these cases where a minor goes missing in the company of someone they met online, the missing minor is considered to be in danger. Why was it weeks before that became the case here?

Hopefully we’ll get those answers soon.

Sources:

Columbus Dispatch

WRTV Indianapolis

ABC 6 Columbus

10WBNS Columbus

Fox 59 Indianapolis

Body of missing Indiana teen found in Ohio

The Indianapolis Star is reporting the body of missing Indiana teenager, Hailey Buzbee, has been located in Perry County, Ohio. The 17-year-old Fishers, Indiana resident and Hamilton Southeastern High School student was last seen by her parents on January 5.

Tyler Thomas, a 39-year-old Columbus, Ohio, person of interest in her death, is being held in the Franklin County, Ohio, jail on charges of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor. Reports say Thomas was released into the custody of the FBI on February 1 and led authorities to Buzbee’s body.

Investigators believe Thomas met Buzbee through an online gaming platform. After luring Buzbee from her home, he drove her to his residence in Columbus and also held her at a rental in Hocking County. A search of Thomas’s phone revealed several sexually explicit videos and photographs of Buzbee.

Hailey Buzbee’s father posted a statement to Facebook. “Hailey was a smart, beautiful, kind, and caring young lady with a bright future. She had a deep love for her family and holds a very special place in so many hearts.

Our family is devastated. We want the community and others to know that we are so thankful for the support we received. It’s been tremendous and gave us the hope and strength we needed during our darkest hours.

Please continue to keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we move forward and thank you for all the love you have shown our precious Hailey.”

While Tyler Thomas has yet to be charged with murder, it is clear from the contents of his phone and his knowledge of the location of Buzbee’s body that he knows a great deal about what happened to her. More information will emerge and it would come as little surprise if he is eventually charged with her murder.

According to an article in The Columbus Dispatch, Thomas’s lawyer, Sam Shamansky, said his client “maintains he didn’t kill Buzbee,” and Shamansky “thinks a charge of abuse of a corpse may be more appropriate.”

“We don’t want anybody conflating our cooperation with any admission of guilt relating to her cause of death,” Shamansky said.

If any of that is true, Tyler Thomas has a hell of a lot of explaining to do. It is already known that he lied to detectives when confronted with information that his vehicle was identified in the area of Buzbee’s home. He told detectives that he dropped off Buzbee along the side of the road in western Ohio.

Whether or not Buzbee left her home voluntarily to meet Thomas, how is it not a crime when a 39-year-old man, unknown to the family and without the family’s consent, transports a minor across state lines?

Per USA Today, “Officials spoke with Thomas within a few days of Buzbee’s disappearance.”

Reports have also stated that authorities believe Buzbee died within days after her disappearance.

At the present, we have a very incomplete picture of the events surrounding this terrible crime, let alone the timeline on which they occurred. Obviously, citizens have rights that should not be infringed upon, and there are other investigative issues of which the public is not yet aware, but it is hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that a 39-year-old man admitted early on that he transported a missing teen from Indiana to Ohio and dropped her off alongside the road. Is that not enough to warrant an arrest?

I hope we end up getting the complete picture here. Because parents deserve to know what they’re up against. And everyone from lawmakers to law enforcement to gaming and social media platforms need to learn to do a better job protecting our kids from online predators.

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 4

As the winter of 1987 rolled in, the reports of opened graves and disturbed cemetery plots in central Indiana ceased. It makes sense that snow and frozen earth would put the brakes on grave robbing activities. Finding it difficult to operate in the winter months, the fair-weather-satanists probably took their activities indoors as outdoor conditions became inhospitable.

With 15 graves robbed in Hendricks County and no suspects in sight, at least one expert voiced the opinion that the focus on satanists was misguided. Julia M. Corbett, Religious Studies professor at Ball State University, told the Indianapolis Star that the profile of a grave robber did not match that of a typical satanist.

According to Corbett these crimes were committed by “real ‘sickies’ out there who do things like animal sacrifice and grave robbing and things like that and say they’re doing it in the name of satanism.

“My impression of it… is that we have a collection of several incidents that may be tied together of people simply doing very bizarre things that are being labeled satanism. It’s very probably not associated with the Church of Satan.

“Legitimate satanists don’t break laws as long as they consider it’s for the public good. I’m quite sure the grave robbing wouldn’t be in the public interest. ‘Devil-worshipper’ is kind of a convenient catchbasket when something negative like this happens,” Corbett said.

Police did manage to apprehend at least one individual who was not acting in the public interest. A Hendricks County teen-ager was arrested for robbing the grave of a woman buried in 1865. Although the theft occurred three years earlier, the youth had only recently confessed his misdeeds to the police. When questioned by investigators, the youth admitted that he had removed the earth from the grave. Once the casket was exposed, he smashed the glass in the lid and searched inside for jewelry or other valuable items. Finding nothing of value, the youth removed some teeth from the skull and took them. The young man was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and theft.

As the calendar turned to 1988, stories about the Hendricks County grave robberies investigation began to fizzle in the local press, even as the news of satanic activity exploded in the national media. However, Lt. Michael J. Nelson did not give up the investigation, despite being told by Sheriff Roy Waddell to drop inquiries into alleged satanic activity in the county. Additionally, when national media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and the New York Times came calling, Lt. Nelson gave interviews without getting permission from Waddell.

Sheriff Waddell was not pleased to see the local issue sensationalized in the national media. “In the 30 years I’ve been here, I’ve had no experience with satanic cults, before or since this. We try to investigate all avenues and that’s one avenue that could be considered, but nothing panned out. That’s not to say we don’t have any individuals who may, to whatever degree, be involved. I have no idea. But the bottom line is there’s no substance to think we have a satanic cult problem,” Waddell told the Indianapolis Star.

By February of 1988, Lt. Nelson found himself transferred from detective work to patrol duty, and in May he resigned from the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Department. “In a nutshell, without getting in a battle with him, I believe there is satanic activity and he believes there isn’t … .He just doesn’t feel it’s a legitimate investigation and there’s no basis for any satanic cult operating in the county,” Nelson said.

However, just a few months after Nelson’s resignation, three Hendricks County teen-agers were charged and found guilty of cruelty to an animal after they each confessed in juvenile court to participating in a ritual in which they cut out the heart of a live stray cat. The incident occured the previous October, around the time the grave robberies were discovered, and took place under the Avon Road bridge in Plainfield.

According to her testimony to the Hendricks County Circuit Court, the 16-year-old leader of the ritual sacrifice asserted that only animals are to be killed, not humans. ”In satanism, we believe that the human is the ultimate being – we don’t believe in violence or suicide. Murder of a human is wrong. But every religion has its own thing, and the cat (sacrifice) is ours.”

Apparently, they should have audited professor Corbett’s class before embarking on their satanic practices.

Another youth who admitted to stabbing the animal and cutting out its heart told the judge he became involved in satanism because he “just needed something to believe in. I can’t believe in anything anymore. I’ve had a rough life, your honor.”

While none of these incidents revealed a vast satanic underground in operation, they undoubtedly provided fuel for the paranoia that would grip Hendricks County and the entire state, making Indiana, in some respects, ground zero for the so-called satanic panic.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 3

While no vandals or cult members were apprehended by law enforcement on Halloween night, Hendricks County officials did receive a report of cult activity at a cemetery in Avon. Some adults allegedly witnessed a group of teens in black robes “holding sticks and dragging what appeared to be a body,” the Star reported.

Hendricks County Sheriff’s Lt. Stephen Golden offered his thoughts on the alleged cult activity.

“We are sure devil worship exists, but we don’t know if it is really going on (in the county) or if it’s teens playing a game or people out to steal things to sell. If it’s teens, a lot could have to do with movies they’re watching like Prince of Darkness or Nightmare on Elm Street. If it is teens, it’s a very small select group of teen–agers that are not representative of teens here in Hendricks County.”

Although investigators believed more than one cult was operating in the area, they could not determine whether the groups were involved in devil worship. Additionally, Golden clarified that in most instances the devil worship activity was not illegal.

“When they trespass on people’s property, dig up graves and when they kill or maim animals, then it becomes our business. That’s why we want to find out what’s going on and get to the bottom of it.”

Investigators reported discovering a ritual site in a densely wooded area near I-74 and State Road 267 north of Brownsburg. A tree spray-painted with a “666” and the word “Satan” marked the site. Attached to the tree were a pair of ropes with an ax handle hanging from one of the ropes. Also present at the site were two small platforms and a candle in a jar.

At the previously mentioned bonfire site northeast of Pittsboro, where an 8-inch bone was found, investigators also discovered candle wax drippings on a table. Tests performed on the bone showed it to be that of a large dog.

Then in the early morning hours of November 4, 1987, the night manager of a Brownsburg restaurant was driving home from work along a dark stretch of road outside Pittsboro. Near the intersection of County Roads 750 North and 475 East, the man suddenly came upon a vehicle parked in the middle of the road. Unable to stop, he was forced to drive off the road to avoid hitting the vehicle. Angered at the driver in the stopped vehicle, the night manager grabbed an ax handle he kept in his car for protection. (Apparently, ax handles were widely available and in heavy rotation back in 1987.) As the night manager exited his vehicle, a man wearing a black leather jacket, a black hood and a black glove with spikes or claws appeared out of the darkness. Additionally, two other men wearing ski masks emerged from another vehicle. The night manager was pushed to the ground, kicked and struck by the group, and slashed across the face and abdomen by the man with the claw glove. The men fled when the night manager lost consciousness.

The night manager was not badly injured and the assailants were never identified. Robbery was ruled out as a motive in the attack because the restaurant’s deposit the manager carried with him was not taken.

As highly bizarre as the attack appeared, it was not an isolated incident. Due to the popularity of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, assaults committed by individuals with clawed or studded gloves were not altogether uncommon back in 1987. But with fears already running high over reports of satanism and satanic crimes in the press, the attack only caused the paranoia to grow.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 2

As Halloween 1987 approached, reports of grave robberies in Hendricks County continued to pour in. On October 27, the remains of four people were discovered missing at the Weaver-Dillon Cemetery, bringing the total number of grave robberies to ten. A resident who lives nearby discovered the open graves while walking in the wooded area northeast of Pittsboro, Indiana. Lt. Stephen G. Golden expressed doubts about a Halloween prank, as the work involved in opening the graves required a great deal of digging and the location was very secluded.

The largest hole was marked by a headstone inscribed with the names Joeann F. Dillon, Judith M. Dillon, James W. Dillon, Abia Dillon and Flemingo Dillon whose deaths occurred between 1852 and 1919. Golden commented that the freshness of the dirt indicated the hole had been dug sometime within the previous two months. Another hole lay at the base of a headstone with the inscription “Emma V., wife of S. A. Surber.” Nearby another large hole with no headstone marking the grave had been dug and filled back in.

With no apparent motive and little to go on other than the profile of an extremely fit and prolific hole digger, the theory that the crimes were motivated by satan worship moved to the forefront. An 8-inch-long bone resembling a femur discovered at the most recent site, bolstered the satanic angle.

“What’s significant is that it was found near a bonfire site. In rituals, they usually have a bonfire near the cemetery,” Lt. Golden told reporters.

For Sheriff’s Lt. Michael J Nelson, who had been working on the grave robberies since they first began appearing, the satanic cult angle had always been at the top of his list. Investigators believed that almost anything found in the hundred-year-old graves would be of value to a group of satan worshippers. Items discovered in these ancient graves would bond members to the group, investigators thought.

Needless to say, residents of this part of Hendricks County were becoming very nervous indeed. Grave robberies and allegations of devil worship would send a chill down anybody’s spine in 1987. But Lt. Golden assured the public it was too soon to start worrying.

“Sure, it’s unusual, but people shouldn’t be scared. Hopefully, we’ll find out who’s doing it and they’ll be arrested,” Golden said.

However, the grave robberies continued. On Halloween 1987, an Indianapolis Star headline announced “5 more graves disturbed in Hendricks County.” According to the article, attempts had been made to steal the remains of five more people, but it could not be determined whether the thieves were successful in their endeavor.

Meanwhile, additional reports of graveyard malfeasance flooded into the Hendricks County Sheriff’s office. In Avon, a woman reported that a private cemetery on her property had been targeted. A four foot deep hole had been dug at the site of one grave, but no remains removed. Two other cemeteries in the Pittsboro area showed attempts to open graves that were abandoned after two feet of digging. In one instance, it appeared the robbery had been attempted several months earlier, as the hole showed signs it had been dug earlier in the spring.

“What is getting strange now is, for some reason, they’re digging part of the way into these graves and then quitting,” Lt. Golden told reporters.

Could there have been a copycat on the loose who didn’t have the stomach to finish the job, or could the older abandoned attempts show a grave robber who was just getting started but lacked the confidence to see the gruesome task through?

Whatever the case, Lt. Golden called up a number of local reservists to patrol the area on Halloween night in hopes of catching a grave digging ghoul in the act. After all, what twisted creature of the night or sick satanic cult could resist communing with the dead on Halloween night?

At the time and given the circumstances, Golden’s plan was necessary and had to be undertaken. But imagine being a local citizen called up to stake out a remote, ancient cemetery on Halloween night. In retrospect, it sounds like a movie premise with loads of comedic potential, something like Abbott and Costello Meet the Body Snatcher.

At any rate, with the level of weirdness in Hendricks County cranked up to 11, it seemed impossible that events could get any weirder, but as Hunter S. Thompson used to say, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 1

On Monday, September 28, 1987, Hendricks County Sheriff’s deputies followed up on a report of a recently reopened grave in a remote cemetery plot north of Plainfield, Indiana. A hiker discovered the disturbed area near a tributary of White Lick Creek while exploring the surrounding farm fields and wooded areas. A six foot deep hole had been dug at one grave site and the remains removed, while several inches of topsoil had been cleared from two other plots.

The site was an old family cemetery belonging to the Carters, an early pioneer family who in 1823 settled 240 acres in that part of Guilford Township. One grave belonged to Ruth Hadley Carter, who died at the age of 68 on April 24, 1869. Another grave belonged to a two-month-old infant, and the third grave was unmarked.

Regarding what would motivate an individual to remove centuries old remains from a remote and obscure settler grave, there weren’t many good theories. Hendricks County Sheriff Lt. Stephen G. Golden speculated that the robbers could have been looking for antique jewelry, or the disturbance was possibly just a sick prank.

Christopher S. Peebles, director of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University, was also uncertain of what the vandals would have found in the grave other than skeletal remains. “I don’t know what would have been left in this case, but it all comes down to thievery, pure and simple. It’s pretty sick for someone to dig up graves for no apparent purpose. I suspect it’s someone with a screw loose,” Peebles said.

There was one thing investigators did know for sure, the present scene of a recently looted grave in Central Indiana was not an isolated incident. Only a month earlier, residents of nearby Brownsburg and Greenfield, Indiana, went to clean up an ancient family cemetery near Brownsburg and discovered one of the graves dug up and the remains missing. Walker Cemetery, as it is known, sits along 56th street near Brownsburg about a mile west of the Marion County line. The missing remains belonged to Ann Walker, a member of one of Brownsburg’s founding families.

Whether it was someone with a screw loose, a thief in search of valuables, or some twisted, rogue member of the local historical society was anybody’s guess. However, in 1987 there was one theory that explained a lot of grisly and macabre behavior: devil worship. In the climate of the time, it was difficult to understand a series of grave robberies as having any explanation other than dirty deeds done in service of the dark arts. And as the discoveries of disturbed graves and missing remains continued, and tales of strange hooded figures deepened the mystery, the spectre of Satanism spread like a fever until all became infected with its delirium.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

Queen of the Con: Buda Godman Marries Tell Taylor

Safely ensconced at convent school in Adrian, Michigan, Buda Godman was midway through her time at St. Joseph’s Academy when a group of travelling players came through town. It was Christmas Eve and the students were allowed to give a late supper. One of the invited guests was Mr. Tell Taylor, a young actor and aspiring songwriter from Findlay, Ohio. He sat across the table from Buda Godman and the pair seemed to hit it off. However, when the dinner ended, the two parted ways without any intention of continuing the friendship through future meetings or correspondence.

A few years later, a nineteen-year-old Buda Godman was out of school and back in Chicago where her family resided. One evening in 1907, Buda attended a performance of The Girl Question, a hit musical that enjoyed a run of over a hundred performances at the Lasalle Theater. There she recognized the man playing the part of Harold Sears as the same actor she’d met a few years earlier. After the performance, she sent him a note and “their acquaintance was renewed.” Buda Godman and Tell Taylor proceeded to embark on a whirlwind courtship. “Several times during the course of the week the young couple were out together, lunching and driving, and Monday evening after dinner together at a downtown hotel Judge Arms was called to the parlor and joined them in marriage,” the Lafayette Journal and Courier reported. Before going to the theater to catch her husband’s performance that evening, Buda called her parents and notified them of the marriage. Buda’s father joined her at the theater and after the performance took the couple back to his house where the Godmans held a dinner for the newlyweds.

While the Journal and Courier reported that the new bride “would not go on the stage,” Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer wrote in Chicago Confidential that Taylor got Buda work in the chorus of The Time, The Place, and The Girl. According to Lait and Mortimer, following Buda’s performance “Chicago woke up to the discovery of a new rave, Buda Godman. She was wooed and pursued and she fell. Taylor tried to kill her and fired several shots at her, but missed.”

There are more than a few inaccuracies in Lait and Mortimer’s account of the life of Buda Godman, so it’s difficult to know how much, if any, of this episode actually happened. However, one thing that is undeniable is that Tell and Buda’s relationship was stormier than a water spout off of Ohio St. Beach. To hear Tell Taylor tell it, “I married Buda when we were both drunk and I found out she was quite incapable of loyalty to anyone.” As Variety put it when Taylor filed for divorce from Buda in 1910, “his complaint mentioned several vaudevillians as ‘affinities.’ Their names were omitted from the final record.”

One thing that is never mentioned in the ‘love story’ of Tell Taylor and Buda Godman is the erratic behavior of Taylor himself. Life with the songwriter wasn’t always blissful romance by the old mill stream. Taylor did start a successful music publishing company in Chicago, and he managed to author his most famous tune “Down By The Old Mill Stream” in 1910 while still married to Buda. However, Taylor had his own ‘affinities’ that caused him to make headlines on more than one occasion.

In July of 1908, Taylor was fined $3 for disorderly conduct over a fight that took place at Freiberg’s Dance Hall 182 22nd street, Chicago. In his defense, “Taylor declared to Judge Crowe that as a result of the fracas he was carrying around two highly decorated eyes as well as several and sundry abrasions on different parts of his anatomy and that he did not deserve any additional punishment,” The Inter Ocean reported. Apparently, Taylor, Tim Jordan of the Brooklyn Superbas professional baseball team, and several other individuals were out “doing the levee” when they wandered into Freiberg’s at around two a.m. As the Inter Ocean reported, Taylor “created a disturbance in the dance hall, and that when asked to leave he had started a row.” He was then ejected by two waiters and later arrested when he tried to return to the dance hall.

During a separate incident in August of 1910, Tell Taylor again tangled with waiters at George Silver’s basement saloon at Clark and Randolph streets. After Taylor made a request to cash a check, he was attacked by Silver and several waiters who “threw him to the floor” and “pounded his head with a billy.” Silver maintained that Taylor “started the row” when he “used abusive language” and “refused to leave when ordered,” the Chicago Tribune reported. “O, no, he wasn’t beaten up. He was just thrown out gently,” Silver said.

The following month, on September 13, 1910, Buda’s father, Otho Godman, died in New York City at the age of 53. Less than two weeks later, Tell Taylor filed for a divorce. While Taylor blamed Buda’s lack of loyalty and affinities for fellow vaudevillians as the reason for the break up, it is pretty clear that his adventures in the levee, his brawling, and public drunkenness demonstrated that he was no more committed to the marriage than Buda.

Within a few years, Buda Godman would be deploying her theatrical skills to con rich men out of large sums of money. How a former convent school girl managed to fall in with a highly organized gang of international blackmailers is a bit of a mystery. She certainly could have encountered some of these characters in Chicago. Lait and Mortimer write that “her father’s calling threw him in with shady people….” Could Buda have come in contact with underworld figures among her father’s business associates? Otho Godman’s obituary said he worked “at race tracks in the big cities, and his services were always in demand.” As an expert in telegraphy, morse code and wireless communications, Otho Godman’s work at horse racing tracks would have placed him directly in the sphere of big-time gambling interests. Was it only a matter of time before Buda Godman adopted the life of crooks and conmen? Whatever the case may be, it appears that once the protective influence of Otho Godman had fallen away, and her marriage to Tell Taylor dissolved into ruin, Buda Godman was set free to relieve rich, philandering fat cats of their beefy bankrolls.

Forty Years Unsolved: The Abduction and Murder of Peggy Sue Altes

Forty years ago on November 12, 1984, eleven-year-old Peggy Sue Altes was abducted from Porter Park in Indianapolis, Indiana. Five days later her nude body was discovered by hunters in a field off Jacobi Road in Hancock County, Indiana. She had been sexually assaulted, brutally stabbed in the neck and left for dead.

Peggy Sue’s brother-in-law, Jerry Watkins, was wrongfully convicted and served fourteen years for her murder, despite having a solid alibi and a blood type that excluded him as her attacker. Watkins was exonerated in 2001 when DNA evidence pointed to another man, Joseph Mark McCormick, as the man who sexually assaulted Peggy Sue. Turns out, Joseph Mark McCormick lived across the street from the park where Peggy Sue was abducted.

November 12, 1984 was Veterans Day and Peggy Sue had the day off of school. She went to a neighborhood friend’s house while her mother and sister went to a church meeting. When Peggy Sue’s friend wasn’t at home, she went to Porter Park to enjoy some play time. At around 2:30 in the afternoon she was seen playing with two other boys who were also in the park that day.

A delivery driver in the area witnessed Peggy Sue get pulled into a black Camaro against her will. He was able to provide an accurate description of Peggy Sue and the clothes she wore that day. The witness described the black Camaro as having gray stripes that ran the length of the car along the door handles. The car had rust over the rear wheel well, a blue interior, and a piece missing from a wing on the back of the car. The witness described the driver of the Camaro as having a mustache and black curly hair that puffed out in the back.

Additionally, information contained in Judge David Hamilton’s decision freeing Jerry Watkins revealed detectives were looking at two sets of brothers, the Munsons and the Beevers, who may have had knowledge or been involved in the abduction. According to Hamilton, the investigator’s “notes on the Munsons and the Beavers reflect a confusing and sordid account of drug use, knives, violence, and adult men having sex with under-age girls.”

By August, 2001, Joseph Mark McCormick was sitting in the Hancock County jail charged with murder, felony murder and two counts of child abuse to which he pleaded not guilty. At McCormick’s September, 2001, bond hearing, Kenneth Wayne Munson testified against McCormick, at one point telling the defense attorney, “I saw your client rape that baby.” During testimony, and through conversations with investigators, Munson revealed his own involvement in the abduction and murder. Detectives knew Munson had to have been involved because he was able to lead investigators to the exact location of the murder.

Despite the presence of McCormick’s semen on vaginal swabs taken from Peggy Sue, and a witness willing to testify against him, McCormick was allowed to plead down to child molesting and received a mere six years in prison. For Kenneth Munson’s part, even though he was clearly involved in the kidnapping and admitted pushing Peggy Sue to the ground and stabbing her, he was allowed to plead down to conspiracy to commit criminal confinement resulting in serious bodily injury of a child. He faced a potential 20 year sentence, but he only got six.

The dropped charges and light sentences were contingent on McCormick and Munson testifying against William Beever, who they claimed delivered the fatal stab wounds to Peggy Sue’s neck. However, William Beever was never brought to trial. Prosecutors decided McCormick and Munson lacked credibility and eventually dropped the charges against Beever. Well played, Hancock County.

I’m just a true crime dipshit who likes to read old newspapers. I have no education, experience or training in how to build a case, bring it to trial or prosecute. But you’ve got two suspects who are clearly involved in this crime through DNA and knowledge of the facts and circumstances of the crime itself. While their stories don’t align on every detail, they’re mostly consistent and partially backed up by other witnesses. It just seems like there should have been some way to hang a felony murder charge on this whole pack of scumbags, no matter who actually delivered the fatal knife blows. How could prosecutors allow these men to escape justice for this awful crime? Are detectives still investigating, and is there currently any effort being made to hold all involved accountable?

It’s been forty years since Peggy Sue Altes lay in that Hancock County field dying from this savage attack. Confused and full of fear, surrounded by monstrous figures, she could never have anticipated the evil that would come for her as she innocently played at the park on her day off from school.

“If somebody was going to stab you, wouldn’t you cry or scream? Can you imagine a child being in fright, scared to death?” Myrlene Altes told the Indianapolis Star.

A memorial written for Peggy Sue on her Find A Grave page reads in part:

“Growing up in Indianapolis, Peggy Sue’s life was much like that of any other child in America’s heartland. She was a fifth-grader at School 48, known for her blondish-brown hair and her bright, engaging smile. Those who knew her describe a girl full of life, a child who embraced the world with the innocence and enthusiasm characteristic of her tender age.

“Though Peggy Sue’s life was heartbreakingly short, her impact transcends the years she spent on this earth. Her story, a poignant reminder of the fragility of life and the cruelty that can befall the innocent, has resonated with countless individuals. It serves as a call to protect the vulnerable in our society and to tirelessly seek justice for victims and their families.

“As we reflect on the life of Peggy Sue Altes, we are reminded of the preciousness of each moment and the enduring impact of a single life. Though she is no longer with us, her memory continues to inspire and influence those who hear her story. May her spirit find peace, and may those who loved her find solace in the knowledge that her life, though brief, will forever be remembered.”

The inscription on her grave marker reads, “I cried – He answered.” Indeed, God answered Peggy Sue’s cries during those final terrifying moments and pulled her into His loving arms. When are investigators going to answer her cries and bring some measure of justice and resolution to this awful case?