Indiana true crime – Page 3 – If there is something

Predator in the park Part 3

With Jerry Watkins securely behind bars, the actual killers of Peggy Sue Altes were now free to pursue their depraved criminality without fear of having to answer for their bloody deeds. For 16 years after committing this unspeakable act of evil, the murderous jackals continued to stalk the innocent while Peggy Sue’s blood stained their clothes and the sound of her cries and pleadings reverberated in their drug and alcohol soaked memory. And despite the knowledge that Jerry Watkins could not have been Peggy Sue’s assailant, which included star witness, Dennis Ackeratt, recanting his testimony, Hancock County officials fought like hell to keep the wrong man behind bars.

Eventually, on April 25, 2000, U.S. District Judge David E. Hamilton overturned Watkins’ 1986 conviction, citing DNA and additional evidence investigators and prosecutors failed to disclose to the defense at the time of Watkins’ trial. In addition to the DNA evidence eliminating Watkins as Peggy Sue’s rapist, Judge Hamilton’s decision cited the eyewitness to Peggy Sue’s abduction at Porter Park, another suspect who had failed a polygraph, men who had admitted involvement in the crime to others and a man who was seen wearing bloody clothes the night of the murder all as evidence “that no reasonable jury would find Watkins guilty of murdering Peggy Sue Altes.”

Naturally, Myrlene Altes, Peggy Sue’s mother, was devastated. “If you want a pervert out on the street, that’s what you’re going to get. I’m very angry because this guy is dangerous,” Mrs. Altes told reporters. It is certainly true that they were letting a pervert out onto the street. Jerry Watkins had inflicted immeasurable and lasting damage on the Altes family, but he could not have been Peggy Sue’s killer. Those degenerate monsters were still at large, slinking in the shadows between brief stretches behind bars for other criminal offenses.

In August of 2001, the same DNA evidence that led to the release of Jerry Watkins shone a spotlight on one of the shadowy predators. Joseph Mark McCormick was found to be a match to the crime scene DNA to a certainty of one person in 1.5 billion. “We put the evidence through an analyzer and it mapped everything,” Indiana State Police DNA database supervisor Paul Misner told The Daily Reporter. “All we did was use the computer to match the sample we had with anyone in the database. Everyone arrested in Indiana on crimes against persons or serious offenses is required to provide a DNA sample that is kept on record. We just did a cross match and found a match.”

McCormick, who investigators learned was living across the street from Porter Park at the time of Peggy Sue’s abduction, was “in the wind” at the time of his identification. “He is on probation for a theft and burglary conviction in Marion County but has skipped out on his probation officer,” Hancock County Sheriff’s Department Captain Jim Bradbury told reporters. After embarking on a reinvestigation of the case following the Watkins exoneration, Bradbury uncovered another interesting lead that was showing some promise. “I had been talking with a confidential informant that was questioned when the original investigation was going on. I talked with him and he began to tell me little bits about what he knew about the girl’s killing,” Bradbury said. The informant was able to show investigators the precise location where Peggy Sue’s body was found, and according to Bradbury, “He told me things that only someone who was involved in the case would have known.” Bradbury also revealed that the confidential informant was safely behind bars under protective custody.

Detectives also interviewed the young men who were then the young boys seen playing with Peggy Sue at Porter Park prior to her abduction. “The original witnesses to the abduction, who were like 7 years old or 8 years old at the time, said there was more than one (abductor),” Hancock County Sheriff Nicholas Gulling told the Indianapolis Star. “And the information we received subsequently indicates there was more than one.” Here Gulling could be indicating that the confidential informant confirmed this piece of information. Setting aside the DNA match, if all of these witnesses were questioned at the time of the original investigation, why weren’t they taken more seriously then? Even if investigators felt that Watkins was involved, they had ample reason to believe that others participated as well. Yet they discounted and even suppressed that information. Nevertheless, authorities got a tip on Sunday, August 5, that McCormick was in attendance at a party in Morgan County. Investigators rushed to the scene of the festivities, but a slippery McCormick had left the party by the time they got there. They missed him by that much.

On Tuesday, August 7, 2001, 39-year-old Joseph Mark McCormick of Indianapolis walked into the Greenfield police station shortly before noon to turn himself in. His long hair and bushy beard gave him the look of a survivalist or a former Manson family member. He told police he did not have a permanent address and had been living in motels. After learning that he was being sought by authorities, McCormick got a ride from a friend to the police station. The friend, however, didn’t stick around to answer questions. Despite turning himself in to the wrong law enforcement agency, the Greenfield Police held the bedraggled drifter until Hancock County Sheriff’s officials could arrive.

At an initial hearing, McCormick was charged with murder, felony murder and two counts of child abuse to which he pleaded not guilty. Despite new suspects and solid evidence connecting Joseph McCormick to the crime, Hancock County still wasn’t finished trying to put Jerry Watkins back behind bars. “We have seen a lot of twists and turns in the case. The tests show that Jerry Watkins didn’t have anything to do with the sexual assault. That doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her but it does point to McCormick,” said Hancock County Prosecutor Terry Snow, seemingly unable to decide whether to state his case emphatically or undermine it by not letting go of Watkins as a suspect. While indicating that other arrests were possible, Captain Jim Bradbury agreed with Snow that the investigation still included Jerry Watkins. “We are still not done yet,” Bradbury told reporters.

Indeed, they weren’t done, not by a long shot, and not letting go of Jerry Watkins as a suspect was just the beginning. Investigators and prosecutors were just getting started on their clumsy efforts to sabotage their own case, practically ensuring that none of the men responsible for the rape and brutal stabbing of Peggy Sue Altes would do time for her murder.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Daily Reporter (Greenfield, Indiana)

Watkins v. Miller, Southern District of Indiana (2000)

Predator in the park Part 2

After a year in which there seemed to be little movement in the Peggy Sue Altes murder investigation, suspicions came to rest squarely on the brother-in-law, Jerry Watkins. Two days prior to Peggy Sue’s disappearance, Watkins was caught by his wife, Janice, molesting the girl in the couple’s living room as Peggy Sue watched cartoons. According to his testimony at trial, it was the “second or third time” he had molested Peggy Sue, and he also admitted molesting another Altes sister on multiple occasions. Janice moved out of their home that Saturday, but the couple reconciled the following day after Watkins made a public admission to the family that he had molested Peggy Sue. That weekend, Watkins cut his hair and shaved his beard for the first time in several years. He expressed an interest in attending church with Janice and appeared ready to turn his life around. The next day, Peggy Sue went missing.

Eventually, the timing of the Watkins’ disclosures just prior to Peggy Sue’s abduction, rape and murder would seem like too much of a coincidence to overlook for both the family and authorities. However, other than the admissions of molestation, there was no evidence to link Watkins to Peggy Sue’s murder. On August 14, 1985, Jerry Watkins pleaded guilty to molesting Peggy Sue. Additional charges of assaulting a five-year-old boy were dropped as part of the plea agreement. Watkins was sentenced to serve two years at the Indiana State Farm, but ended up serving only five months after a judge reviewed his case and released him early.

It wasn’t long after Watkins’ release from prison that he was arrested and charged with the murder of Peggy Sue. Following the arrest, Hancock County Sheriff Nick Gulling revealed that Watkins had been the focus of authorities since “the initial stages of the investigation.” Gulling went on to disclose that a search warrant had been served at the Watkins’ home shortly after Peggy Sue’s body was discovered. Additionally, investigators searched Watkins’ car and drew his blood for testing and comparison. Results of testing came back negative or inconclusive. Sheriff Gulling admitted the search netted “some evidence, but I’m not sure it was critical evidence.” Indianapolis Police Department investigator Alda Kaiser echoed the notion that the investigation zeroed in on Jerry Watkins almost immediately. “I’ve always felt the molesting disclosure had something to do with her murder,” Kaiser told reporters.

Clearly, Watkins is someone investigators would want to take an intense look at due to his ongoing abuse of Peggy Sue and her sister. But it seems like investigators went all in on Watkins to the near exclusion of other investigative leads, despite having no evidence against him. According to Sgt. Louis J. Christ of the Indianapolis Police Department, “Our primary thought throughout the entire investigation was to try and locate physical evidence to connect the perpetrator to the crime. From the very beginning we came to the realization that we had no real evidence to tie the perpetrator to the crime. Anything we found we processed through the lab, but we had no identifying evidence.”

So how were authorities able to execute an arrest on Jerry Watkins? What was the crucial piece of evidence that dropped in their lap tying Watkins to the crime? Enter jailhouse snitch Dennis Ackeret. According to Ackeret, on August 14, 1985, he shared a cell with Jerry Watkins in the City-County building while Watkins awaited sentencing for his Marion County molestation conviction. At that time, Watkins told Ackeret that he had killed a girl, slashed her throat and dumped her in some bushes in Hancock County. This was the big break investigators had been waiting for. They had their confession and didn’t seem to mind that it was made not to authorities, but to another inmate.

Watkins went on trial in September of 1986. The prosecution’s case relied almost exclusively on the jailhouse confession and their ability to poke holes in Watkins’ alibi. Dennis Ackeret was the star witness, describing for the jury a distraught Watkins so wracked with guilt that he felt compelled to unburden himself to a cellmate, Ackeret, whom he had just met. The defense pointed out that Ackeret was a thief and a forger, and that he had previously worked as a paid police informant. Other defense witnesses testified that Ackeret made up the story to get a reduced sentence, and that Ackeret boasted about how to become a state’s witness by researching crimes in the newspaper.

Forensic pathologist Dr. John Pless, who conducted the autopsy on Peggy Sue, testified that she died from 15-20 stab wounds to the left side of her neck. Some of the wounds severed a jugular vein and a carotid artery. The doctor testified that Peggy Sue had abrasions on her hands and neck, plus a bite mark on one of her breasts. Additionally, there were other wounds that indicated a sexual assault had taken place. Regarding time of death, Pless could be no more specific than sometime between the day of her disappearance and the day before discovery of her body. While there was no murder weapon presented, prosecution witnesses testified that Watkins was sometimes seen carrying a knife at work and at church.

Watkins himself took the stand. His testimony focused mostly on denying the accusations made by other witnesses and establishing an alibi for the day of the abduction and the days that followed. Watkins testified that he had worked from 7:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on the day of Peggy Sue’s abduction. His testimony was corroborated by his employer. After work, he and his wife, Janice, moved furniture back into their house that had been removed during their brief separation. This testimony was corroborated by Janice and Watkins’ mother. At 7:00 p.m. the couple attended a church revival at Bethel Tabernacle 4232 S. Foltz St. Indianapolis until 10:00 p.m. After the revival, the couple returned to Janice’s parent’s home to find out that Peggy Sue was missing and participated in the family search until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Subsequent days were spent searching, working and attending church revival meetings in the evenings.

During closing statements, Hancock County Deputy Prosecutor Pete Shumacker attacked the veracity of Jerry and Janice Watkins’ testimony. “If you’re going to be a liar, you better have a good memory. Janice doesn’t have a good memory and neither does Jerry.” For prosecutors, the fountain of truth and virtue was Dennis Ackeret who wanted nothing for himself, but willingly gave testimony “as any human being with a soul that had information would come forward with it,” said Prosecutor Larry Gossett. Furthermore, prosecutors would assert, Ackeret’s testimony had to be credible because he gave details that went unreported in newspaper accounts. According to Prosecutor Gossett, newspaper articles made no mention that Peggy Sue’s jugular vein had been cut as Ackeret had testified. In fact, Judge Richard Payne allowed newspapers to be entered into evidence to allow jurors to verify that the information could not have been gleaned from news articles. I’m no lawyer, but this seems like a highly prejudicial move.

Despite the scarcity of evidence, Watkins was convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison. In the end, Watkins was an admitted child predator who had molested Peggy Sue and her older sister on numerous occasions, making him a wholly unsympathetic character in the eyes of the jury. It is not hard to imagine how law enforcement, prosecutors and jurors would think he had to be the guy. However, there are abundant reasons to believe that investigators should have known he wasn’t the guy. First, during the investigation, he and Janice both passed a polygraph examination. While not admissible in court, detectives used the exam to eliminate certain suspects. Why wasn’t it used to clear Watkins? Especially, since it lends credibility to what was a pretty solid alibi. Second, tests on seminal fluid revealed that Peggy Sue’s attacker must have had type B blood. Watkins was blood type O and Peggy Sue was type A. How is this not evidence that the rape was commited by someone else? Third, investigators had a witness that saw Peggy Sue get pulled into a black Camaro at Porter Park around 2:30 p.m. on November 12. Not only did Jerry Watkins not own a black Camaro, his employer confirmed that he was at work at that time. Apparently, this bit of evidence was not shared with the defense. In the end, the exculpatory evidence is much weightier and far more credible than the evidence to convict. On this knowledge alone, investigators should have known they were pursuing the wrong man and that the real killer or killers were still on the loose. Although it would take several years and investigators would resist it tooth and nail, eventually DNA technology would set them straight, eliminating conclusively Jerry Watkins as Peggy Sue’s assailant and redirecting the focus onto a man named Joseph Mark McCormick.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Daily Reporter (Greenfield, Indiana)

Watkins v. Miller, Southern District of Indiana (2000)

Boy found in suitcase remains unidentified

A month after his discovery, the deceased body of a boy discovered in a wooded area in a remote part of southern Indiana has yet to be identified. The child is described as black, approximately five years old and about four feet tall with a slight build and short hair. He was discovered inside a suitcase discarded about 80 feet off the roadway in the 7000 block of East Holder Road in New Pekin, Indiana. A man out hunting mushrooms on Saturday, April 16 came across the suitcase around 7:30 p.m. The suitcase bears a graphic that reads “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada.” Autopsy results could not determine the cause of death, but police believe the boy had been deceased less than a week.

Despite widespread media attention in the days following the discovery, no one able to identify the child has come forward.

“For some reason, nobody’s noticing that he’s missing. It could be someone not from this country. Very possible. We’re not precluding anything like that in the investigation,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Carey Huls told WAVE. “We have to ask ourselves, how can a young boy go missing and nobody know that he’s missing? It’s very troubling and something our detectives are working around the clock to find answers for.”

As time goes on and no one comes forward, it seems increasingly likely that the person responsible for caring for the child could also bear some responsibility for his death.

“He was in someone’s custody and care for his daily needs….Somebody was taking care of this little boy.” Huls stated at a press conference in April. “Someone somewhere knows something.”

Whoever was responsible for caring for this child, it appears they have yet to report him missing to any law enforcement agency nationwide.

“If it’s a child on a missing children’s list anywhere in America, that’s already been looked into,” Huls stated in a recent case update. “They’re not finding any matches there.”

Jeff Meredith, the mushroom hunter who discovered the body, took WHAS to the spot where he made the discovery. “I decided to cross over (the road) and mushroom hunt on this side here.” It was then that he spotted the brightly colored suitcase about 80 feet off the road.

According to WHAS, Meredith “immediately thought to call the police. But, he hesitated. He thought if they came all the way out there and it turned out to just be a suitcase he’d feel like a fool.”

So he opened the suitcase and discovered the lifeless body of the boy inside. “When I first saw that little feller, immediately, I felt that he was telling me ‘Help me, I need help.”

Whoever is responsible for placing the boy’s body in those woods, it seems strange they would drive out to this remote area near the dead end of a country road, walk a short distance into the woods and leave the brightly colored case where it is fairly easy to spot. They could have buried it or covered it with brush. They could have thrown it in a ravine somewhere or a body of water. Why go to the trouble of driving out to the middle of nowhere and then leave the body where it could be easily discovered? People live on that road. Most likely, the case containing the body was out there only a few days before discovery.

Investigators are frustrated that all of the 500 calls into their national tip line have resulted in dead ends. Most of the calls alert the ISP to missing children they’re already aware of, or offer recommendations on how to investigate. As Huls told WAVE, “We don’t want those tips about, ‘Have you thought about using this or trying this? We want firsthand knowledge. Somebody knows this young man, somebody has knowledge (if) he’s not home, he’s not where he’s supposed to be, he’s not in school, and that’s the information we’re really looking for.”

“Time is something we don’t want to fight too long with obviously,” Huls recently told WLKY. “We would’ve liked to, and thought we would, have more answers.”

“Somebody out there has first-hand knowledge,” Huls said. “Not something they have looked up on the internet. We mean first-hand knowledge. Everyone wants answers. Everyone wants to bring justice and a voice to this little guy.”

The Indiana State Police have set up a national tip line to help identify the boy. The number people can call is 1-888-437-6432.