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INFAMOUS: The Westside Park Murders
00:47:15
In September of 1985, two teenagers drove into Westside Park but, tragically, never left the park alive. The police have spent decades trying to hunt down their killer.
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- [00:01]
Ashley Flowers
Hi, crime junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers.
- [00:03]
Britt
And I'm Britt.
- [00:04]
Ashley Flowers
Today I am as baffled as I am consumed by this case. It's one where two teens seemingly excelling in every way, go out for a night of fun and then are brutally shot dead in what could almost seem a targeted ambush. And I'm obsessed with this case, not only because it took place right here in Indiana, but because some believe answers in this unsolved double murder may have been right under police's noses throughout their nearly 40 year quest for justice. This is the story of the Westside park murders. It's around midnight on September 28, 1985, when Officer Terry Winters of the Muncie Police Department is on patrol in Westside park, which literally, as its name suggests, is on the west side of the town and it runs along the White River. It's a Saturday night just before midnight, and according to a book by Keith Roysden and Douglas Walker, a source we'll rely on very heavily here for this episode, Derry also has his canine partner Max with him. Now, at some point, this real life, Turner and Hooch hop in their squad car to leave, and as they pull out, the headlights catch on some tire tracks that lead to a Volkswagen hatchback idling in a little gravel area of the park. Now, one of Terry's responsibilities is to scope out any cars left in the park past closing, which was about an hour earlier. So this is literally the gig, and Terry gets out to investigate. There doesn't appear to be any movement coming from inside the car, but as he approaches and puts his flashlight through the open driver's side window, he gets the shock of his life. There are two teenagers, a boy and a girl, shot dead in the front seats. In the book the Westside Park, Muncie's Most Notorious Cold Case, it says that both the front seats were reclined with, like, sleeping bags draped over them, and the passenger side window was shattered. The guy who's in the driver's seat has been shot in the torso, and the girl who's in the passenger seat was shot in the head. It's not long before the entire place is crawling with police, and investigators take note of the fact that there are no signs of a struggle and no signs that point to this being motivated by a robbery. Nothing appears to have been taken from the car as far as they can tell. I mean, like, there's even literally a portable stereo still in the back, and they see an open pocket knife just sitting on the dashboard. But the murder weapon, the gun, that's nowhere to be found. They just find a small empty gun holster under the young man's body.
- [03:16]
Britt
Like he was sitting on it.
- [03:18]
Ashley Flowers
Well, some accounts say sitting on it, others just say under the body. Some say it was found in the car. More broadly, I think the important thing is that it seems unlikely that it would belong to one of the kids, which could mean that the killer left this thing behind.
- [03:33]
Britt
Right?
- [03:33]
Ashley Flowers
And it seems they may have left behind something else too. Prints on or in the car. Now some of those obviously though, might belong to their victims, who they learn are 16 year old Ethan Dixon and 15 year old Kimberly Dowell. Now, they were able to ID them so quickly because while they were still on the scene processing, this guy named Don showed up. And Don tells police that he'd been out driving looking for his stepdaughter Kimberly, who just never came home that night. I guess she had gone out with a guy that she just started dating, Ethan. He picked her up between 9 and 9:30 and the plan was for them to go get some pizza, take it over to Westside park, eat, hang out, but they just never came back. And while they were concerned when the teenagers didn't return home, I mean, they hadn't called police or anything yet, which like, I understand, like teenagers missing curfew or whatever is like kind of par for the course. But it becomes clear that this isn't par for the course that night when police let Don go with them to the car. And according to the Star Press, it's him who confirms the thing that he was most terrified of. It is Kimberly and Ethan in the car. The events of the night don't just shock Don and Nancy, who is Kimberly's mom. News of the shooting is spreading like wildfire. And while publicly the victims aren't being named, it didn't take long for local parents and teenagers to put two and two together. Both teenagers were students at Northside High School and by all accounts, like really standout kids. According to the Star Press, Ethan was on the debate team, he was the junior class president. Kimberly was a cheerleader, recently named as part of the homecoming queen court. And a story in the sun at the time quotes their principal describing them as very, very fine people, basically saying that like, they never caused any problems, they were never difficult. So for them to end up like that, this, it's hard for anyone to fathom, but that didn't mean that they were teenagers like, who weren't dealing with teenager problems because police discover that Ethan had been the victim of bullying. Now, I don't know the full extent of it. It doesn't seem like this is something police ever really fully explore or find the need to explore. But Ethan's parents do say that at one point, they had taken a knife away from him that he was keeping on him because of bullying. So when I think about that, I mean, that could be one of the reasons there was that pocket knife in the car.
- [06:04]
Britt
Yeah, but then why would it be on the dash and not in Ethan's hand? Like, thinking he was maybe trying to protect himself or something, if that's what it was.
- [06:13]
Ashley Flowers
And again, like, I'm making all the assumptions, but if that's what it was, part of me wonders if he had the knife on him for, like, all the reasons we just talked about. But then maybe him and Kimberly were, like, you know, doing things teenagers do sometimes when they're in the park. And, like, maybe he, like, pulls. Pulled that out of his pocket or something, like, put it on the dash to be more comfortable. So I don't know, like, this is a weird fact that, like, I can't quite, like, put it in a box, but it's worth. It's worth people knowing. Like, it's something you'll read if you look into this story. Now, there's nothing in the source material about police at the time finding anything in the way of evidence, like blood or prints on the knife or even the holster, for that matter. And going back to the knife, though, like, it is important to say that I don't think, like, that was ever actually used used. So, like, nothing like blood or whatever on that. But speaking of the holster, police never find any evidence that Ethan owned a gun, so it's definitely seeming like the murder weapon belonged to the perp. And then maybe this holster also belonged to the perp. And the autopsy confirms that Kimberly was killed by a gunshot wound to the left side of her head, which most likely killed her within seconds. Ethan died from massive blood loss caused by a gunshot wound to the left side of his chest. And both of them were shot with a.38 caliber, which they for sure did not fire. I mean, like, obviously no gun at the scene. I think that's, you know, speaks for itself. But they do check for gunshot residue on their hands anyways. And even though the results that came back later were positive, that still didn't really change anything for police, like, because there could be explanations for that. Again, I think not finding the weapon there made it clear, right? This was a homicide.
- [07:53]
Britt
The gunshot residue, they're in a car. That's a pretty Small enclosed building place they were both shot.
- [07:58]
Ashley Flowers
Like, that's explainable, right? Oh, and the other thing I wanted to note about their autopsies, neither of them showed any signs of drugs or alcohol in their systems. While Ethan and Kimberly's exact time of death is unknown, the Emmy estimates that it could be about 11pm so roughly an hour and a half to two hours after they left Kimberly's place and about 50 minutes before officer Terry discovered their bodies, which was around 11:50pm which.
- [08:28]
Britt
Speaking of Terry, how did he not hear the gunshots like he was in the park?
- [08:34]
Ashley Flowers
He was. It's possible that he was just out of earshot, though, when the shooting happened. Like, I've never seen anything about his exact location at the time. Like at 11 o'clock if it's known. But I know he's supposed to be on duty at the time. According to the Star Press, the park is like a little over 20 acres. So. So if you look at it on Google Maps, it's like a very long, skinny, like, strip. So my thinking is if he's like patrolling all of it, maybe he could be on the opposite side or at least a ways away. But even though he doesn't appear to have heard anything, there are others who did hear the shots. Investigators talk to people who say that they were in the park when gunfire rang out. I don't know who these people are who are at the park at 11pm or how police even found them, but good job. Some of those witnesses say that they just booked it when they heard the bangs. But others claim to have been close enough to the parking lot to see three people around Kimberly and Ethan's car after the gunshot. And through these witness accounts, cops determined that There were between 10 and 12 other cars in the park that night, not including Ethan and Kimberly's car. And investigators zero in specifically on two cars that were parked the closest to Kimberly and Ethan around the time of the shooting. But these cars weren't there when Terry showed up. So there is a red one and then there is a black or some kind of dark colored one often described as a Monte Carlo. And it was this black one I think that they're most interested in because it was specifically said to have left right after the shots rang out. So these are either really good witnesses.
- [10:13]
Britt
They have to find or suspects.
- [10:15]
Ashley Flowers
Or suspects. Right. And according to Roysden and Walker's book, within two days of the murders, they actually might have found one of them in the early hours of September 30th. So just two days after the murders two Muncie police officers notice a car parked in Westside Park. Now, nothing in the book about what this car looked like. So I don't know if it fits the description of the cars that they were previously looking for, but considering what has recently gone down in this park, they're, like, checking out everything. And as they head towards this car, it, like, starts up and drives at them. Police were able to block the vehicle somehow. And when they finally talk to the driver, they can tell that he has definitely had too much to drink. And when they ask him about it, he says he's grieving.
- [11:08]
Britt
Grieving what, sir?
- [11:10]
Ashley Flowers
They ask him exactly that. Like, what are you grieving for? And he replies, you know what for?
- [11:17]
Britt
Oh, my God. My daughter answers, like, random questions like this all the time. And it's frustrating. Then it's infuriatingly frustrating. Here.
- [11:25]
Ashley Flowers
Prepare to stay frustrated, because that's about all the info that this guy gives. And this information about this guy is actually only in the book, so it is super limited. The authors don't even use his real name. But we do know that this guy gets arrested for driving under the influence, and he later tells police that he was just upset about the murders.
- [11:47]
Britt
Yeah, we all are. But most of us aren't melting down in the spot where they were found. So, like, what's your story, dude? Who is this guy?
- [11:55]
Ashley Flowers
I don't know much. Like, truly, like. I just know that he had a criminal record. He had even served some time. But it sounds like primarily for a minor burglary charge, like in another state. California, actually. Nothing violent like murder. So maybe for that reason, maybe because they didn't find anything to link him to the killings. Maybe something else. This guy kind of just falls off the radar, at least from the reporting perspective. I don't know what category police put this guy in. Suspect, person of interest, or some bizarre encounter.
- [12:28]
Britt
Just some weird thing.
- [12:29]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah, that they don't know what to make of. Either way, we don't hear much more about him. Instead, police around this time seemed far more interested in someone close to Kimberly, her stepfather, Don. Because not only was it pretty convenient that he showed up at the park that night while they were still processing the scene, but the Star Press reports that police also discover that two witness accounts might lead back to Don and the car that he was driving that night, possibly putting him at the park before the shooting. So on October 4, they bring Don in for a formal interview, and they talk to him for about six hours. And in that time, Don's story is unchanging he said that when Kimberly wasn't home by 11pm her mother, Nancy got worried. And when she still wasn't home an hour and a half later, Don went out looking for her. He's like driving around checking out local McDonald's, whatever. And then he was heading to the park where Nancy had thought that they might have gone. And that's when he came across all the police activity and he was told what happened. So the Star Press reports that police asked Don if he will take a polygraph, which he agrees to. Braver than me, Don. But it actually plays out in his favor. Don passes it, but that's not enough to close the book on him because while the answers he was giving were deemed to be truthful by a machine and some guy reading the machine, other answers that he was giving to Deputy Chief Marvin Campbell in follow up questions were like kind of friggin weird. Like for example, when asked if he was in the park, Don replies, quote, within my body, I wasn't there.
- [14:10]
Britt
Okay, is that a no then?
- [14:14]
Ashley Flowers
I think it's trying to be. And I like you like Deputy Chief, like we all find this kind of sus.
- [14:21]
Britt
Yeah.
- [14:22]
Ashley Flowers
And in another statement during the interview, Don said, quote, if I did this, you're going to have to tell me I did it. And listen, Deputy Chief Campbell isn't going to put words in his mouth, but he doesn't believe him in like what he's saying. And he doesn't believe the polygraph results either. The hang up is Don's alibi. I mean it's rock solid. Kimberly's mother Nancy said that Don went to a football game earlier in the night but was home before the shootings even took place and that he only went back out around 12:30am to look for Kimberly.
- [14:56]
Britt
And like that's great. I guess my biggest hang up about him as a possible suspect is why, like what would his motive even be for killing Kimberly and Ethan?
- [15:07]
Ashley Flowers
That's the other problem. There isn't one. So it's not quite adding up. And listen, we've contacted Muncie PD to ask like why they were so hot on dawn early on. Like there could be things on police's radar that they didn't make public, maybe a motive we're unaware of. But as of this recording, we haven't heard back from them. Now it's no surprise that after this initial interview, Don lawyers up the Star Press reports that his lawyer tells police he will not let Don be interviewed again without a lawyer in the room. So essentially Don stops Cooperating which then Deputy Chief Campbell like, seems to suggest that Don is now somehow hindering the investigation. But the police have nothing that they can really make stick to Don as their guy. And I mean, the thing is, they can't make anything stick to anyone. For a brief moment, they looked at one of their own, actually, Officer Terry Winters, the police officer who discovered the bodies, which was like, honestly, my first crime junkie. Guess when I got into this case.
- [16:04]
Britt
Like, maybe your first Nancy Drew guess.
- [16:06]
Ashley Flowers
The amount of times that I've looked into real cases, and it turned out to be the person patrolling who finds the bodies, but not here. This guy was asked to turn over his guns for analysis. It's determined they were not used in the killings. And as far as I can tell, no one seems to place his police vehicle anywhere near the shooting at the time of the shooting. So by early October, police are in a long way, like, circling back to the Monte Carlo tip, because, you see, they had gotten a tip from someone pointing at their neighbor, this guy named James, or he goes by Jimmy Swingley. And just an FYI, the book is the only place that he is officially named. And we couldn't corroborate this anywhere else. But according to Royston Walker's book, someone who lives down the street from Jimmy reports to police that his house was robbed, and he is convinced that Jimmy did it. He is also confident that Jimmy knows about the murders of Ethan and Kimberly or was maybe involved in them, which.
- [17:03]
Britt
Are all, like, pretty bold allegations. Did this tipster happen to mention why he felt Jimmy was involved? Like, he felt this pretty strongly.
- [17:12]
Ashley Flowers
I know if he did, I don't know. Like, all I know is that we get to him somehow or like, that they make this suggestion. And I do know that police look into this afterwards and maybe give it some weight, because on October 7, they release a description and a sketch of someone that they're looking for who they also associate with the black or dark colored Monte Carlo. So I said, it kind of all comes full circle. And while there's no mention of this publicly at the time, Deputy Chief Campbell later indicates that this sketch looked a lot like our guy Jimmy. White male, about 24 years old, 150 to 160 pounds, slender build, brown hair parted down the middle, acne, scarred face. And this guy apparently wears gold wire glasses. But on the other flip side of this guy apparently looked a lot like other people, too.
- [18:02]
Britt
Yeah, like you just described a guy in Indiana.
- [18:05]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah, because when they, like, put this sketch out to the papers or whatever, they get A lot of calls, like somewhere between 100 and 200 calls about it. Police take all these calls and they kind of narrow them down to get a list about of like a dozen people. And they do this by, like, seeing who was named the most. But none of those actually lead to a huge breakthrough. Not even the Jimmy stuff, I guess, because I don't see him come back up yet. So they're starting to hit a wall early on, which is maybe why police decide to cast a wider net, looking beyond just their crime, even to other crimes that feel kind of similar or happen not too far away. Like maybe if this is part of some larger pattern that will tell them something about their killer and where to find them. And I know specifically they looked at two cases. There was one that was local, one that wasn't. The first was an assault of a woman that took place in the summer at another park in a nearby county. And in that attack, the suspect might have had or been in a Monte Carlo. Then in the second case, that one happened five years earlier, a few states away in Kansas, where two young people were shot while sitting in their car. And on the surface, both of those, like that crime and this one have similar elements. But ultimately, police can't connect them in any way to one another. Same with the other one. So they're kind of at another dead end. And investigators turn their focus to some more like, experimental investigative tactics like hypnosis.
- [19:39]
Britt
Hypnosis, that means they have someone to hypnotize. Like who?
- [19:43]
Ashley Flowers
It's mostly those witnesses that were at the park that night to see if they can remember any more details about, like, the car, I'm assuming, car, license plate, whatever. Here's the problem, though. Like, the way they were doing this, hypnosis veers, like, pretty far into unethical territory, if you ask me. Because according to the Star Press, before being hypnotized, one of the witnesses who was actually an off duty officer who was in the park that night. Listen, I know I hear it, like, I have the same questions, but it sounds like this guy, they vetted him because I have the same, like, oh, like Terry, things like, we've seen this before. He's vetted, he has an alibi, whatever. I mean, alibi, he's always in the park, but I think he was with someone else that night. But anyways, this guy was shown some pictures of cars, including the one that Don was driving that night, which was Nancy's car. And then he's shown a photo of Don before the hypnosis.
- [20:35]
Britt
So he's kind of been fed info.
- [20:37]
Ashley Flowers
Which is what it feels like. It feels like they're being like, here are some. Here's the guy that the chief is, like, very interested in.
- [20:43]
Britt
Jog your memory.
- [20:44]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah, but even them doing this. Again, I said it's unethical. But even when they did it, like, nothing tying Don to the killings even comes from this. So whatever they were trying didn't even work. But I do think it gives a glimpse to where investigators heads were. For Deputy Chief Campbell, all roads were still leading back to Don. And he, at that point, is tired of Don's perceived unwillingness to cooperate. So he decides to try and put pressure on publicly. In September 1986, Deputy Chief Campbell says publicly that a person related to the case refuses to come in for a second interview. And though he didn't explicitly say Don's name, everyone pretty much knows that's who he's talking about. And when asked about a motive, the chief says, all they have are rumors and no real motive in this case. Listen, I don't know what the rumors are that he's referring to. Like, you're gonna tell me if they're even real. Like. But again, nothing really happens in the case, and a full year goes by, and really, even then, nothing happens in the case itself that, like, full year. That's just when Kimberly's family is hit with yet another tragedy. Because on Christmas Eve, 1987, Kimberly's mother, this is Don's wife Nancy, unexpectedly dies of a heart attack. The police at the time decide to have an autopsy done on Nancy to rule out any kind of foul play, which Don even agrees to like, presumably to get these guys off his back. And ultimately, nothing is found. It was a heart attack. So over the next few years, Kimberly and Ethan's case just kind of stalls out. There are rumors that swirl through Muncie about what could have happened to them, but there doesn't seem to be anything, like, tangible police latch onto.
- [22:34]
Britt
Like, what?
- [22:36]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah, so I didn't have examples about, like, if. If the rumors that the chief was talking about were in relation to Don. I don't know any rumors in relation to him, but they ran the gamut, really. Like, I mean, there was one that centered around the son of a politically connected family. Then there was one about someone who showed up at a party dressed as Rambo on the night of the murders. And then in one of the wilder accusations, a guy was convinced that a woman he knew might have committed the murders. Like, and he thinks this woman, who I assume is, like, his girlfriend or something like, someone he knows intimately. Basically, he assumes that she mistook Ethan for him in the car and, like, thought she caught him cheating and then committed the murders. Again, there's no real meat to any of those stories. So police continue to look high and low and wide and far, and they do get at least one decent lead that they do follow. In the early 90s, two investigators go to interview a man named Steve, who's in prison on an armed robbery charge. Unclear if Steve reached out to them or how his name might have come up, but he tells investigators that the murders stemmed from a marijuana deal that had gone bad in the park. He said the three men involved in the deal decided to mess with or take it out on a couple parked in a car. Which feels like a promising tip, knowing there was at least that one sighting early on of three people outside of the kid's car. But it feels a little less promising when they're told the couple was killed with a shotgun. Which, like, we know isn't true. But still, detectives are like, okay, listen, we gotta at least, like, continue following this through. Like, this line of investigation might lead somewhere. And the victim's family wants that also. So much so that Ethan's family pays for a trip to Virginia, where a woman supposedly can corroborate Steve's story. But unfortunately, when the detectives get down there and interview her, she ends up admitting that the whole thing is a hoax. And another inmate tells police that the whole thing was Steve's effort to try and get some kind of deal or get, like, early release.
- [24:43]
Britt
You know, we see this all the time, and it's so incredibly heartless, right? Like, yeah, you're messing around with police, wasting their time. But the most devastating part is giving Kimberly and Ethan's families this, like, little, tiny, glimmering bit of hope, and then it just gets ripped away just like that.
- [25:00]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah, I don't. I just don't. I don't think criminals have the same code of ethics, right, that you and I do. Like. Like, they're operating in, like, a completely different field. And, like, in their minds, everyone is fair game. Like, I don't think they see a difference between, like, someone they know or someone they're in jail with or a victim's family.
- [25:19]
Britt
Anything to save their own skin, right?
- [25:22]
Ashley Flowers
So, I mean, you get how it goes. Same as in so many cold cases. Random tips and pointing fingers and a case file that gets dusted off just every so often for a fresh set of eyes to take a crack at it. And that's where it was in 2012 when Detective Nathan Sloan first starts working Kimberly and Ethan's case. Now, he spends about two weeks locked away with this case file. And when Detective Sloan emerges, there is a familiar name on investigators radar again.
- [25:52]
Britt
Swear to God, Ashley, if you say.
- [25:53]
Ashley Flowers
It'S Don, it's not Don. It's someone else. You see, while the deputy chief all those years ago was paying so much attention to Don, more and more tips about Jimmy Swingley kept coming in. In. Remember, he's the one who'd been accused of robbing that guy's place. And the guy accused him of also maybe being involved in the murders. Well, here's what's interesting. So the first tip about him came in, like, a week into the investigation. And then a couple of months into the investigation, they got another tip, a more specific tip from someone said to have been close to Jimmy. And this guy said that Jimmy had come to his house on the night of the murders, and he told this guy that a drug deal went bad and the teenagers ended up dead. And there were two other men with Jimmy.
- [26:44]
Britt
So three guys again.
- [26:46]
Ashley Flowers
And he said that one of them pulled the gun out and the holster came out with it, and that's how it ended up in the car.
- [26:52]
Britt
But is there any evidence that Ethan or Kimberly were involved in drugs or would be in the park to buy drugs?
- [26:59]
Ashley Flowers
No. So it doesn't sound like it. And, like, more than just, like, from their parents. Right. Who, like, most of the time are like, I don't think so. According to the book, police also talked to other kids that knew them, too, and none of them said that either of these two were involved in drugs. So if this was some kind of drug deal gone bad, it seems more likely that they were in the wrong place, wrong time. Like, if you remember that, like, other rumor we heard, it was like, there was a drug deal gone bad, and then they took it out on two kids. And maybe that's. That's what really happened.
- [27:27]
Britt
Yeah, maybe someone approached them about drugs and an argument ensued, like, oh, yeah, that could be. There could be a lot of situations.
- [27:35]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah. Whatever happened, Jimmy's name wouldn't go away. Detective Sloan sees several more instances where people point to Jimmy over the years. Some say that Jimmy admitted to the killings or to knowing something about what happened that night. And he also sees that at some point in 87, police had given Jimmy a lie detector test, which he failed. But they didn't have anything to hold. You can't, you know, arrest someone on a polygraph. So, like, they end up letting him go.
- [28:05]
Britt
I mean, they were probably still so focused on Dunn that, I mean, in 87.
- [28:10]
Ashley Flowers
True, maybe. And listen, by 2012, Jimmy had been free to live a lot of life, lots that Detective Sloan had to dig through. And he finds that he apparently hightailed it out of town shortly after the murders, which is interesting. Like, within a couple of months, there are records of him being arrested all the way down in Florida. And he continues carrying out a lengthy criminal history over the next decade. And there's this one blip in his record that stands out, at least to me, amongst others. It didn't involve, like, a violent offense, but the circumstances were a little chilling. So the Westside Park Murders book notes that at one point, Jimmy was pulled over for blowing a stop sign. And apparently he didn't have his license or he refused to give it. And when police ask him for his name, the name that he gives to me is, like, a huge red flag. So he tells police that his name is Kevin Dixon.
- [29:09]
Britt
As in, like, Ethan's last name Dixon.
- [29:12]
Ashley Flowers
I mean, it's Ethan's last name. I can't speak for Jimmy and why he picked that last name. And there's nothing in the book about police, like, putting two and two together at the time. But, like, it's just so odd that I felt like I had to mention it. I don't. It's weird.
- [29:28]
Britt
Is Jimmy still alive in 2012?
- [29:30]
Ashley Flowers
Oh, alive and kicking. And Detective Sloan knows right where to find him. Prison, of course. I told you. He had a real run in Florida. But his decade of criminal activity stopped in 1999 when he was convicted of murdering a man named Bradley Brian Insco. Like, violently. Brian was found in his own apartment with his throat cut. Like, nearly decapitated is how it's described. And so Jimmy ends up getting sentenced to 65 years in prison for that, where he's still hanging out in 2012. Now, Detective Sloan wants to be totally solid before he goes talking to him, so he continues to try and run down old leads about Jimmy, tries to run down new leads about Jimmy. And the long and the short of it is a clearer and clearer picture starts to form around what could have happened. It seems like there really were multiple people in the park, and there was some kind of argument about something. And at some point, Ethan pulled a.
- [30:31]
Britt
Knife, which lines up with the pocket knife in the car on the dash.
- [30:35]
Ashley Flowers
And then the theory went on that someone in this group of people that included Jimmy, fired the shots. The group then took off in the car, and Whatever account he's pulling this from, he has the car not being a Monte Carlo, but one that maybe looked a lot like it or had some similarities. It was a Chrysler Cordoba.
- [30:55]
Britt
But how can they prove any of this?
- [30:58]
Ashley Flowers
Well, that's the thing. They can't. I mean, they have nothing physical tying Jimmy or anyone else to the crime.
- [31:03]
Britt
Right.
- [31:04]
Ashley Flowers
But now that he likes has heard enough that he feels solid on what happened, Detective Sloan is finally feeling that it's time that he can go straight to Jimmy now. Like, maybe they can get something from him. So he heads to the state prison where Jimmy is being held, and let's just say it doesn't go well. Jimmy basically tells him to, like, f off. There's gonna be no conversation.
- [31:25]
Britt
Okay, then.
- [31:26]
Ashley Flowers
Now, that's kind of the end of the line for Jimmy. But listen, Detective Sloan, like, isn't just gonna rest on this, like, being the one and only answer. I don't know Sloan, but I like the way this man works. Like, if you can't prove one theory, go try and prove others. Like, best case scenario, you find out you were wrong and you do get an arrest. Worst case, like scenario, you're, like, buttoning up your case even more. Like, close all those doors that a future defense team might try to use when you finally do get your guy. So the next door he wants to explore and hopefully close or prove or whatever, was that whole grieving man in the parking lot thing.
- [32:02]
Britt
Oh, I like Detective Sloan, too. Let's do this.
- [32:06]
Ashley Flowers
So he tracks that guy's ex wife down. She tells him that her husband was prone to drinking too much, often blacking out, and he would even get out of bed in the middle of the night and leave the house, which he had done the night police found him in that park. She also admits that she wondered if her husband could have had something to do with the murders, but it seems sounds like ultimately she doesn't think like, that he actually did. I don't know if this guy is dead by this point or what, but from what I can tell, Sloan doesn't get a chance to talk to him directly. It might also be because he gets redirected with a new tip, and those are few and far between in cold cases. So, like, strike while the iron is hot. Right? In 2013, the name Rafael Resendez is suggested to Detective Sloan as a possible suspect.
- [33:00]
Britt
Oh, he's the railroad killer.
- [33:02]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah, I was just about to say, like, we've talked about him before, he is someone that gets brought up in a decent amount of cold cases from all over because of how mobile this guy was. Throughout the 90s, he is suspected of killing, like, 23 people. And his M.O. was to hop on and off railway cars, committing murders along the way in numerous states. Florida, Texas, even as far away as California. And while Indiana is not on the list, Illinois is. So he's like, within shouting distance.
- [33:32]
Britt
And were there train tracks near the park?
- [33:33]
Ashley Flowers
There were. Now, according to the book, it sounds like the earliest of Resendez's known crimes happened in 1986. He murdered a couple in Texas, and at least one of those victims were shot to death with a.38. So the murder weapon lines up. The majority of his known crimes, though, took place in the 90s and often involved him strangling or beating his victims to death. And unfortunately, Detective Sloan isn't able to speak to him himself because he was executed by the state of Texas in 2006. And maybe it doesn't matter because ultimately, it sounds like Detective Sloan doesn't think Resendez is his guy. He's able to, like, close that door. So whether it's a local criminal like Jimmy or a serial killer like Resendez, nothing is sticking for Sloan. And in light of closing all the doors, there is one more that Detective Sloan needs to look at probably more than anything else, like, to rul in or out once and for all.
- [34:31]
Britt
And we're back to Don.
- [34:32]
Ashley Flowers
We're back to Don. You got it. In April 2013, Detective Sloan interviews Kimberly's stepfather, Don, to see what he has to say after all these years. Don's story is the same. And Sloan presses him on some of the odd things that he said to police back in the 85 interviews. But according to the book, Don tells Detective Sloan that he was just tired that then and the statements didn't actually mean anything.
- [34:58]
Britt
And in this, does Detective Sloan have the same hunch about Don that police had back in 85?
- [35:04]
Ashley Flowers
No. So according to the book, he comes away from the interview, ruling Don out as a suspect. He closes the door. He also even returns two guns that police had seized from Don at one point that turned out to have nothing to do with the murder that they had, like, all those years. And while he's talking to dawn and talking to her family, he circles back to Ethan's family, too. And he talks to Ethan's dad, but he doesn't learn anything new or anything earth shattering all these years later. So much like back in 1986, nothing is really there to be gained from their families. However, in light of talking to families, Jimmy's family members Offer investigators some new information that is very interesting. Again, I'm going to give you the tldr, because spoiler alert, Everything they learn about Jimmy feels super incriminating, but it's all just hearsay that they can't actually use against him. Like, he might have had a Monte Carlo. He might have stolen a gun from a family member, and maybe that gun was used in the murders. Oh, and he might have killed two other people, one of which was his brother Jackie, whose death was ruled undetermined. And I think the whole brother story is really interesting. So in early 2014, Detective Sloan interviews Jimmy's mother, and she tells him that Jackie's wife had Jimmy's baby some nine months after Jackie died.
- [36:34]
Britt
Oh, that's a motive.
- [36:35]
Ashley Flowers
Mm. She also claims that Jimmy was in the room when Jackie died back in 1981. And according to the book, she tells Sloan that she thought he was capable of committing the Westside park murders. And she had heard a rumor that he was arrested in connection to it, which obviously we know wasn't true, but this is just to say, like, what everyone in the area is talking about at the time. And it's like, no matter where police look or what roads they go down, it always keeps coming back to Jimmy, who has made it clear that he is not going to cooperate willingly. But in what seems like the first lucky break they get, the courts rule that his willingness is neither here nor there. According to Roysden and Walker's book, on November 14, 2018, a judge approves a warrant to get his DNA. So a few days later, on the 20th, Detective Sloan and another colleague go to see Jimmy. And surprisingly, this time, he is cooperative. He, like, lets them do the swab, which, again, like, they had to do. And according to the book, he sits for a 40 minute interview, which he didn't have to do. But in his interview, Jimmy denies any involvement in the murders. In fact, he points to the rumor a lot of people had heard over the years that it was Kimberly's stepfather. Don, you said DNA.
- [37:55]
Britt
What were they trying to match Jimmy's DNA to?
- [37:59]
Ashley Flowers
So, according to the book, potential DNA evidence on the holster got left behind. That, like, I can't tell when, but sometime between 85 and, like, when he's all these years later, like, looking into this cold case. Obviously, they were able to, like, test old evidence. Yeah, but here's the thing. Whatever they have, it doesn't match Jimmy. Now, despite this, Detective Sloan still seems to think that he has his guy. Remember? I mean, Right. Like, there's potentially Multiple people. But others, like former Deputy Chief Marvin Campbell, who's one of the OGs in this case, like, not so sure. But without more evidence, they'll never know.
- [38:38]
Britt
Does he still think it's Don then? Like, was Don's DNA tested?
- [38:43]
Ashley Flowers
Here's the problem. Unfortunately, Marvin Campbell recently passed away, so I can't ask him if he still thinks it's Don or what he thinks about Don and if others like Don were compared to the DNA or like, that grieving guy or whatever. Like, that's never been reported on. In the book, the DNA evidence is described as being damaged and muddied. So I assume that, like, any advanced testing like IgG is out of the question. I don't know that for a fact, though. And as far as things like, remember, they found, like, prints in the car. Like, some sources claim, like, one was found in the car, on the car, whatever. Like, I just know none of those helped in the case either. Chances are, like, the killer never even touched the car. Right. Oh, and by the way, like, we did attempt to reach out to Jimmy in prison, but haven't gotten connected. And same again, I said this earlier, but goes for the Muncie police. Now, In January of 2020, Detective Sloan became Chief of Police in Muncie. And according to the Star Press, as late as 2022, he continues following up on leads in this case when he can. Chief Sloan admits in that article that he hadn't assigned a new investigator to the case. Like, the time commitment and other investigators caseloads just hasn't allowed it. But I did see, like. So that's the last official update from police in 2022. But I did see, like, something interesting on. Here's my disclaimer. Reddit, cool. But this was from 2023, and someone posted on a Reddit forum that their neighbor confessed about a murder. That sounds like what happened in Westside Park. Now, this person doesn't name names or even a name where this happened. Again, it sounds like Westside park, but they don't say that. But the story that this neighbor told them goes a little something like this. The neighbor had claimed to be involved with a girl at his high school that he very much liked. One day, he and his friend happened to be at the park where he saw this girl with another boy that he hated. So he went over to the car and shot the girl in the head and then shot the boy in the chest. And he shot the boy in the chest because he wanted to watch him suffer.
- [40:49]
Britt
Okay, that's all public information about like, the crime scene.
- [40:55]
Ashley Flowers
It is.
- [40:55]
Britt
Even if he's talking about west side park, like, this could just be a troll.
- [41:00]
Ashley Flowers
It is. And it's what some of the users in the forum wondered. But, like, some other people felt strongly about this confession. Like, so strongly that they contacted the police with this information, although, like, they never heard back from them. And, like, there were other people who were, like, you know, could this have been some kind of deathbed type confession from someone? Now, one big flag for me on this, besides the whole, like, Reddit of it all, is that the poster said the neighbor said he used a.22 caliber in the shooting, while we know it was a.38 used to kill Kimberly and Ethan. And the poster also said that he brought out a piece of evidence that he took from the car, but he doesn't say what the evidence is. And unless police are holding something back, the only thing that we know that they were looking, Looking for was the murder weapon, which they never found. No one, like, talks about anything ever being stolen or taken from them. Yeah. So, like, it makes this whole confession a little money, and you can write whatever you want on the Internet. And eventually they did take this down from Reddit. So, like, it's. You know, if we got to talk to Chief Sloan, this is what I would have loved to ask him if we ever get the chance. It's what I would love to ask him about if this ever got looked into. I mean, I think it's interesting, especially when you think about when the confession says, like, they hated the guy, knowing that Ethan was being bullied. I don't know.
- [42:16]
Britt
It feels like there could be something there.
- [42:18]
Ashley Flowers
Yeah.
- [42:18]
Britt
And what I keep coming back to is, like, Jimmy's DNA didn't match the holster.
- [42:24]
Ashley Flowers
Like, that's huge. Right? And again, was he there or knew something, maybe. But, like, there's someone else that we should. We should be still looking. Right. And I think at this point, it's important to point out that no one. Not Jimmy, who is due to be released from prison in 2030, by the way, and despite all the rumors, not Kimberly's stepfather, Don, or any of the other possible people police looked into, none of them have ever been charged in this case. It remains unsolved. Which means Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell's families have never been given the closure they deserve. So if you know anything about the murders of Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell on the night of September 28, 1985, in Westside park, located in Muncie, Indiana, please contact the Muncie Police Department. At 765-747-4867. You can also contact them anonymously through Crimestoppers at 765-286-4050. We'll also have a link to send a tip online in our show Notes. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.
- [43:48]
Britt
And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.
- [43:52]
Ashley Flowers
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode episode. But stick around. We've got some good for you. All right, Brett, you know what time it is?
- [44:21]
Britt
You know I do.
- [44:22]
Ashley Flowers
Let's talk about some of the good that comes out of the crime junkie community. What do you got from our listeners this month?
- [44:26]
Britt
We have a submission from Kayla. My best friend and I are huge crime junkie fans. We actually have tickets to see you in New York in May. So soon.
- [44:36]
Ashley Flowers
See you soon.
- [44:37]
Britt
But before I was a crime junkie myself, my best friend had stumbled upon one of your episodes at the end of the year in 2019. It had to do with domestic abuse. I can't remember the specific episode. However, when this episode was released, I was the one in the abusive relationship. I was still in denial at the time. Even with all the mental and physical signs, I still acted like he was different and this wasn't abuse. I remember one night after work, my best friend was giving me a ride home and she played that episode in her car. On the drive home, I only half listened as I felt like she was being dramatic and my boyfriend at the time would never go as far as murdering me. However, there are a few things that stuck out to me and it was what you guys said at the end. The statistics for how many times it takes before you truly leave your abusive partner is on average seven times. And that time you're leaving is the most dangerous. That stuck with me and a few months later, one of the times I was trying to leave, a gun was pulled on me. He ended up shooting it off in the wall and I was able to run for help. At that time, everything had hit me like a ton of bricks. Everything said in the episode, the reason my best friend played it, all of it was flooding through my mind. I decided I didn't want to be a victim anymore and I've since been able to get away. He is now in prison. I have three Siberian huskies that helped me get through and gave me a purpose and I am now an avid listener of your podcast. I use the resources resources you guys share. Listen to the advice given and hear the stories of the ones who weren't as lucky as me to make it out alive. I want to be a voice for them and advocate for victims. Your podcast mixed with Walking My Dogs literally got me through the toughest time of my life. My best friend and I can't wait to see you guys in New York. Thank you for sharing the stories and everything that you guys do.
- [46:28]
Ashley Flowers
I mean, it's a good reminder, like most. Most people don't stay in a relationship thinking it's going to end in murder. Like you.
- [46:36]
Britt
Right.
- [46:36]
Ashley Flowers
That's not how people get there. Like, everyone thinks that they're the exception or everyone thinks it's not going to go that far or that, like, the person's going to change or not capable of. Like, that's how people end up there. Is underestimating their abusive partner. So for sure it does. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of work. We'll put some resources in the show. Notes. I know those have been helpful for a lot of people. It's amazing how many people it's been helpful for.
- [46:59]
Britt
For sure.
- [47:00]
Ashley Flowers
I love you guys. And I love you guys loving each other.
- [47:02]
Britt
Yeah.
- [47:06]
Ashley Flowers
Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do.