Delia D'Ambra (14:30)
According to an article by Ken Koski for the times, on Tuesday, August 22, 1995, just over two weeks after Jaunis was murdered, an eight year old girl named Sarah Paulson, who lived in the nearby city of Portage, Indiana, which is basically right next door to Gary, was found brutally murdered while out on a bike ride. In an eerie similarity to Johnnis case, Sarah was also found partially undressed, lying face down in a wooded area close to her home. The two big differences between her crime scene and Jonas was that one, Sarah's bike, which also happened to be pink and purple like Janice's, was found close to her body. According to the coverage, it was anywhere from a few feet away to less than 50ft away, not in an entirely different location as was the case with Janis and two Sarah had been found about 100 yards behind the row of homes her family's house was close to, so literally right down the street. Janice's body on the other hand, had been discovered a decent distance away from her home. From the start, Sarah's death was investigated as a homicide. And after her autopsy was conducted the night her body was found, the coroner's office determined she'd been strangled and sexually assaulted. Now, the timeline of Portage Police Department's actions involving Sarah's murder was a bit more condensed simply because she'd been found almost right away. According to news reports, she disappeared sometime after 11:30am but around 12:20pm a woman walking her dog in a wooded area near the Paulson's home discovered the little girl's body. So the timeframe of her murder was super small, roughly 40 minutes between the last time she was seen alive and when her body was found. The woman who discovered her initially shrieked because she was so horrified by the sight. In fact, another eight year old girl who was playing in that exact same wooded area heard that woman scream and was so frightened she straight up left the woods as fast as she could. Naturally, Sarah's murder gripped the Portage community with fear. I mean that's exactly what I would expect. A vicious slaying of such an innocent child would send most residents sense of terror through the roof. One mother from Portage told Ken Koskey, quote, this is just too close to home. We used to ride horses back there. We were never afraid to go there. What is the world coming to? Kids aren't safe. It's nothing like when I was young you get one evil person who took it out on a little innocent girl. I hope they get whoever did this. End quote. Sarah was expected to start the second grade when summer ended, and her friends described her as quiet, kind, sometimes a bit of a prankster and full of life. But she was not the type of kid who would strike up a conversation with a stranger or go off with someone she didn't know. One girl who was friends with her and saw her playing shortly before she was killed told the Times that Sarah was fast and strong and it would have been out of character for her to go into the particular part of the woods behind the homes where her body was found. In the wake of the crime, parents and kids in the Paulsons neighborhood told reporters about a few different incidents that had happened in the days leading up to Sarah's murder that were now, in hindsight, even more unsettling. One mother said that sometime shortly before Sarah's death, a man driving an old black rusted pickup truck with a crack in the windshield had followed her daughter home and then circled their house. She described this guy as having a beard and dark hair that went down to his shoulders. The incident of him circling their house was so eerie to her that she'd gone the extra step and called the police. But nothing seemingly came of her report and no one was arrested. A few other children from the neighborhood said that the Friday before Sarah's murder, a man they seemingly didn't know had chased them through the neighborhood, but he'd been unable to catch any of them because he was on foot and they were riding their bikes. I think it's safe to to say with all of these reports circulating, plus Sarah and Jaunice's murders happening so close together just a few weeks apart, caused people to wonder if maybe everything was connected. It's also probably a good time for me to mention that in addition to Sarah and Johnice's cases, there had been other child abductions and murders in the greater northern Indiana northeast Illinois area during the summer of 1995. In June, just two months before Janice and Sarah's deaths, a 14 year old girl named Nikita Moore had been murdered and dumped in some woods close to her house in Gary. And there was also another case just about an hour and 25 minutes southwest of Gary in Aroma Park, Illinois, that involved a young boy. According to reporting by the Associated Press, on the evening of August 7th, so the same day Janis disappeared, 10 year old Christopher Meyer vanished in a recreation space close to his mom's house. He'd been walking and riding his bike along some trails next to the kankakee river when he went missing. Organized searches on land and in the water Got underway right away. But despite not finding Christopher, Investigators from the kankakee county sheriff's department did manage to locate his bicycle Near a boat launch about a mile away from aroma park. And his shoes were also recovered. Around that same time, they received several good tips that allowed them to quickly zero in on a 27 year old man from nearby joliet, illinois, who'd been paroled two years earlier in 1993 for, wait for it, murdering a five year old girl. More than a decade earlier in 1981, this guy's name was Timothy buss. And actually, when Timothy committed that 1981 murder, he was just 13 years old, which is possibly one of the reasons why he got paroled in 1993 and didn't serve the full 25 years he was supposed to for that crime anyway. Within a week of Christopher's disappearance, Authorities learned that timothy matched the description of a man who several eyewitnesses had seen fishing on the river and walking with Christopher on the evening he vanished. Even more incriminating, Timothy's vehicle was similar to a car that had been seen in the aroma park area, and when investigators searched it, they found blood in the trunk. He'd also washed a pair of boots he owned and tossed them in the trash. On Friday, August 11, four days after Christopher vanished, Investigators from kankakee county arrested Timothy and charged him with kidnapping. Unfortunately, they couldn't yet charge him with murder Because Christopher was still technically missing, and lab tests for the blood found in timothy's truck had not yet confirmed whether it even belonged to the 10 year old. In the meantime, searchers continued to scour the woods in and around aroma park and turned up further clues, Like a pair of undergarments and a strip of fabric that matched the color of Christopher's shirt. However, just over a week after he disappeared, everyone's worst fears were realized when authorities discovered a shallow grave in kankakee river state park, which sits on the border of kankakee county and will county. Inside the makeshift grave were Christopher's remains. His autopsy results later showed he'd been stabbed and sexually assaulted. In total, between the searches for him and what investigators found at the shallow grave site, roughly 100 items of potential evidence were collected as part of the case. At a vigil held in his honor at a local church shortly after the discovery, Christopher, his heartbroken mother, read a eulogy that stated, quote, God loaned me ten and A half years of twinkling blue eyes, dimples and joy. It is time now to lift up Chris and ask God to use this child as our special angel. End quote. Christopher's father, whom he actually lived with most of the year in Washington state, also spoke publicly about the tragic loss of his son and swift arrest of Timothy Buss. He stated, quote, hold your children. If you let them out of your sight, people like this will take them. I'm not getting through this. I'll never get through this. End quote. Because of the timing of Christopher's abduction and murder and the fact that his slaying had quickly been tied to Timothy, it made it impossible for his case to be linked with Jonas and Sarah's. But the fact that his kidnapping and murder was still so fresh in people's minds, I think that fed parents and guardians growing fears about the safety of their children. I also want to clarify here before I go on, that Timothy Buss was eventually convicted in 1996 for abducting and killing Christopher. He was later sentenced to death, but had his sentence commuted to life in prison in 2003 by Illinois's then Governor George Ryan. As of this recording, he is still an inmate in the Illinois Department of Corrections. An article Kim Liebler wrote for the Times addressed the topic of children's safety in light of all the recent violence against kids in the region. In the piece, investigators from all the agencies involved in the separate cases stated that they did not think any of the killings were connected. A Gary PD detective who was working on Nikita Moore's case told the newspaper that it was highly unlikely Nikita's killer was the same person who'd murdered Sarah Paulson simply because the two victims ages were so different. Nikita was 14 and Sarah was 8. And this detective said she firmly believed that this was the case. Another Gary Peedy detective told the Times that he didn't think Jaunice's killer was responsible for Sarah's murder. In his opinion, there were just too many differences between the crimes. For example, Jonas had been beaten and found much further away from her bike and home, whereas Sarah had been strangled and her body and bike had been left basically in her own backyard. Their ages were also very different. Jonas was 15 and Sarah was 8. However, I was thinking a little bit more about this detective's comments while researching this episode and I found myself wondering if maybe it was possible, since Jonas had learning disabilities, that she might have come across much younger than she actually was. I don't know this for sure, but it's one possibility that the Detective who made those comments to the Times may or may not have considered. Now, even though authorities were collectively downplaying the theory that there was one serial predator to blame for Janice, Sarah, and Nikita's cases, that didn't stop them from issuing warnings to families to be more vigilant of their children. And people took those cautions to heart. In fact, a lot of folks stopped going to playgrounds and parks altogether, and one mother said she wasn't sure if she should even let her kids walk down their street to play with their friends anymore. By August 24, neither Gary Pedy nor Portage authorities had made much headway identifying a suspect or suspects in Jonas or Sarah's Deaths, despite a $15,000 reward being offered in Sarah's case and then later increased to $20,000 and then $40,000. But investigators tried not to let that stall them. Portage police detectives sent evidence to the Indiana State crime lab for additional evaluation and looked into people listed on the state sex offender registry. They also interviewed and took biological samples from a man from Chicago and questioned a guy living near Sarah's neighborhood who'd previously been convicted of sex crimes against young girls. But even with all those good leads, authorities seemingly kept hitting dead end after dead end. On Friday, August 25, a few days after Sarah's murder, her parents, friends, and several hundred attendees laid her to rest at a cemetery in Portage. That same day, the family issued a statement that read in part, quote, the family of Sarah Lynn Paulson wished to publicly express their heartfelt thanks to their friends, relatives, and the entire community for their generous outpouring of support in response to the tragic death of their daughter. Your prayers and support mean a lot to our family at this time. The response has been overwhelming, and we just want to tell everyone thank you. End quote. The day after the funeral, investigators announced that a witness had come forward and reported they'd seen a black man wearing a blue and red work shirt walking away from the general area where Sarah had been killed. They described him as acting very nervously. Portage investigators jumped on this tip and attempted to find the guy and even canvassed businesses in the area looking for workers who wore that kind of clothing, but they were unsuccessful. They also put out a sketch of the work shirt on the news, but no one who called in about it could confirm what kind of logo it was or the type of company it belonged to. This tip was considered critically important, though, because the man who'd been donning the work shirt had been spotted between 11:40am and 12:30pm on Aug. 22, which was the approximate time frame. Investigators believed Sarah's killer committed the crime and then fled. Shortly after that update came out, Authorities announced they wanted to speak with a white man in his 30s about Sarah's case. This man was a different person Than the guy who'd been seen in the work shirt. But whether or not they ever spoke with that white guy is unclear. What I can tell you is that while these leads were being chased down in Sarah's case, Portage police officials stayed in contact with the FBI and Gary Pedy detectives who were still trying to solve Janice's murder. By early September 1995, investigators working Sarah's case Had looked into and eliminated several potential suspects, including that guy from Chicago that authorities had retrieved samples from. And I couldn't find much about where progress in Janice's case was at that point in time. But it doesn't appear there was much as far as new information. And that might have to do with the fact that in early September, Janis case was lumped into a group of other murders that a newly formed task force had determined all occurred in the city between May and August 1995. These seven cases included Jaunice's slaying and the murder of that other Gary teenager I mentioned earlier Named Nikita Moore. Sarah Paulson's murder was not included in this task force's probe because all the victims they were looking into Were black females who'd either been beaten or strangled and were discovered unclothed or partially clothed in wooded areas in Gary. Basically, there was a fairly distinct pattern in those seven killings which didn't match aspects of Sarah's murder. Kenkoski reported for the Times, though, that while the task force worked its cases, Portage police stayed busy doing their own thing, Chasing down Leeds in Sarah's case. Kim Liebler reported for the Times that Gary Pedy investigators believe the seven victims from Gary, which, like I mentioned a second ago, did include Janice and Nikita, Might be the work of one serial killer. But until they could study the crimes further, they weren't sure of anything. They admitted there was a clear pattern as far as race injuries and location of the bodies. But Janis and Nikita's cases differed slightly in that they were both teenagers, and all the other Gary victims Were in their mid to late 20s to early 50s. Unfortunately, I couldn't find much else about this task force's work, though, after September 1995, because the coverage just kind of dropped off after that. The next big headlines that came up Were all related to Sarah's murder investigation. You see, in early November 1995. The homicide investigation into her death broke wide open when authorities identified and arrested a convicted rapist named Eugene Britt for the crime. Eugene, as it turns out, would become a notorious name in the state of Indiana for a slew of horrific murders and sexual assaults, most of which included cases that the Gary task Force had looked into.
