Murder in the Heartland: Book One

By Harry Spiller

In a place where murder isn’t supposed to happenSouthern Illinoisdeputy sheriff and investigator Harry Spiller learned the hard reality: murder is all around us. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a big city or small county with farms and churchesmurder is swift and can happen to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. All too often, victims fall prey in places we think are safe to raise our families, where we take walks on hot summer nights, where our children play in the park or yard without concern, and where we leave our doors unlocked at night. Murder in the Heartland tells the stories of innocent victims in these seemingly innocent places. From his research and investigations of twenty murder cases, Spiller recounts the gruesome details of an axe murder, a hitchhiking incident, serial killings, and even a victim buried within the concrete floors of her own basement. As much as we like to think we’re safe, murder can happen even in rural Americaand it does. Join Spiller in his first of three installments of these horrifying murders in the heartland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Oct 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781596529649

Book preview

Prologue

It was about midnight on June 5, 1974, in Marion, Illinois, when I arrived at the crime scene. Four squad cars were bumper-to-bumper in the middle of the street. Detectives were darting back and forth, taking photos, marking off the scene with yellow crime scene tape, and jotting down notes.

I got out of the cruiser and walked quietly toward the floodlights that the fire department had set up to light the crime scene at the end of Union Street. My heart was beating quickly as I approached the edge of the scene.

I looked down at the thirteen-year-old girl lying naked and spread-eagled in the gravel. Her head was turned to one side with a purplish tint covering her face and neck. The summer breeze slightly brushed her reddish hair back and forth across her cheek.

A trail of ants busily ran across the corpse’s smooth, pale skin from her lower torso to the corner of her mouth, then down her neck to the ground. Congealed blood was visible in the vaginal area. My stomach churned and my mind raced. Adults are murdered, not kids; what kind of pervert would do something like this? But one thought kept coming back over and over—this isn’t supposed to happen here.

I had lived in Marion all my life. Our county had gotten the name Bloody Williamson from a couple of historical vendettas in the 1850s, gangster activity and a mining massacre in the early 1900s, but murder wasn’t supposed to happen in Marion now. It happened in mystery books, at the movies or on television, or in the city or somewhere else, but not in Marion.

For sixteen years, I worked as a deputy sheriff, investigator, and sheriff in a place where murder isn’t supposed to happen—Southern Illinois—investigating murder cases mainly in Williamson County, but assisting in other counties, too. I learned the hard reality: murder is all around us. It is swift for the victim and can happen to anyone—rich, poor, old, young. It can happen anywhere, day or night. It doesn’t matter if you live in a big city or an area like my county, with brick-front towns, small farms, white church houses, lakes and ponds, the Shawnee National Forest, and the muddy rivers. All too often, victims fall prey in places that we think are safe to raise our families, places where we take walks on hot summer nights, where our children play in the park without concern, where we fish in the local pond to land the big one, and where we leave our doors unlocked at night.

A couple of hours after I arrived at my first homicide scene, the body was bagged and moved to a local hospital. The sheriff told me that he thought the girl was Francis June Buckner. Her father had reported her missing three days before, on Saturday, June 2, 1974.

The victim’s father said that Francis and her sister were visiting him at his apartment on the Public Square in Marion. At 4:50 on Saturday afternoon, the trio started to walk to a local grocery store on East Main Street.

The sister left her father and Francis so she could pick up a pair of tennis shoes at a friend’s house. She was to meet them later. Francis and her father walked about five of the eight blocks to the store before his emphysema got the best of him. He stopped, gasping for air, then told Francis to go on without him. She was to wait for her younger sister at the store, then meet him at the post office steps upon their return. Francis continued while her father watched her walk the remaining three blocks to the store. A few bushes along the way, coupled with the sun’s brightness, obscured his view. But confident that Francis had made it to the store, her father returned to the post office steps and waited.

About fifteen minutes later, the other daughter returned alone. She told her father that Francis was not at the store. The father and daughter returned to his apartment and called the store. The store owner said that she hadn’t seen Francis. Her father immediately called the police and reported that Francis was missing.

Three days later, neighbors were awakened by a rock being thrown through their window. When they looked outside, they saw a body lying in the street. They reported it to the police. I got the call.

We went to the victim’s father’s apartment. We told him that we had found a dead body and asked if he would go with us to see if it might be his daughter. He agreed, and minutes later we were at the hospital. A nurse unzipped the body bag and the father’s face tightened. He turned and looked at us with tears filling his eyes. I want the son of a bitch that did this!

Two days later, a twenty-year-old man was arrested for Francis Buckner’s murder. The youth had spotted the girl on Saturday walking alone. He abducted her and took her to his East Main Street apartment, where he strangled her and then raped her corpse several times over the next two days, before placing her body in the street.

I had been a police officer for two months when I had that first experience with murder. Since then, I have learned a lot about the myths of murder. I learned that the sensational murders like John Wayne Gacy or Jeffery Dahmer, whose names become part of the folklore, account for only a small percentage of the homicides that occur in the United States.

The most common type of murder usually occurs when parties are given and alcohol is involved. The altercations often involve matters trivial to anyone but those involved—quarrels over money, over girlfriends, and bars are common. A large percentage of homicides usually involve one spouse killing the other.

One morning, I was in the office at about 6:30, trying to catch up on paperwork, when a woman walked in and stood in front of my desk. She didn’t say anything; she just looked at me with glassy eyes.

Can I help you? I asked.

Sheriff, I think I killed my husband, she responded.

There was no thinking about it. We responded to the scene. The victim’s brains were spattered against the wall next to the bed. We later found out that the woman and her children had been battered by her spouse for years. His moods became predictable over the years—he was in another abusive period. The wife couldn’t take it anymore, so she got the shotgun and shot her husband while he was asleep.

Another case I worked made me realize how vulnerable the American family in small communities can be. On Sunday, November 16, 1987, the Dardeen family—Russell; his wife Ruby Elaine, who was seven months pregnant; and their three-year-old, Peter Sean—returned home from a family get-together. Their trailer was located outside the small town of Ina, near the Franklin and Jefferson County lines. Their closest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away.

Russell had the next couple of days off, but on Wednesday when he did not show up for work, his employer became concerned. Russell was a good employee, and he never missed work. The employer called the Dardeen home and got no answer, so he called a neighbor and asked him to check on the family. The neighbor noticed that the family car, a late-model Dodge Colt, was missing. The truck was parked in the driveway. No one seemed to be at home, but, otherwise, things seemed normal. The neighbor reported the findings, but the next day, Dardeen relatives who lived seventy-five miles north became concerned and called the sheriff’s department. They went to check out the Dardeen home. They cautiously entered the residence and were overwhelmed by the mayhem.

Elaine and Peter Dardeen lay side by side in the bedroom, partially clothed. They had been beaten to death with a blunt instrument. Further investigation revealed that Elaine’s seven-month-old fetus had been born, and the dead baby had also been placed in the bed.

Russell Dardeen was missing. He immediately became a suspect. Police contacted his employer and found out that he had last been to work on Saturday and failed to pick up his paycheck on Monday. So, the search for Russell Dardeen was on.

The next shock came when they found the Dodge Colt in the parking lot of a local bank in Benton, Illinois. A large amount of blood was found in the car. Later that day, Russell Dardeen was no longer a suspect. He’d become a victim. He was found in a field by hunters. Russell had sustained bullet wounds to the head and had been badly beaten. His pants and underwear had been pulled down to his knees and his body had been badly mutilated.

I remember a murder case that occurred at a local business on the corner of Main and First Streets in Marion where chiropractor Dr. Don Ripley had a thriving practice. I was summoned to his office on the morning of December 5, 1975. Walking into the waiting room, I saw his patients sitting quietly with blank stares. The radio in the doctor’s office played soft music. I stepped through the doorway into the hall. Dr. Ripley was lying face down. He had been shot seven times with a .45-caliber pistol. There had only been a fifteen-minute period between the time the doctor was seen dropping his son off at school and the time his body was found by his patients.

I remember a murder at Westernnaire Estates where Virginia Witte and her husband had just returned from their vacation in May 1978. The husband attended a luncheon for about an hour while Virginia went to get groceries. When he returned just an hour or so later, he found his wife lying on the bed in their bedroom. She was nude, her body had a large slash across the abdomen, and she had a knife protruding from her chest. The groceries were still in their bags on the kitchen counter.

I remember a case in 1985, when I was summoned to a local motel after Tag Anderson was found dead near a shed at the back of the motel. He was lying on the ground grasping a rifle. He had been shot once in the side with a shotgun. Just thirty minutes before, he had spoken to his wife at work and was getting ready to settle down for the evening and watch a movie. We theorized that the victim heard someone browsing around his property out back and went to check it out. Evidently, his inquisitiveness resulted in his murder.

And I remember the Wildlife Refuge on Route 148 where most people see the beauty of the lake, the green fields, and the wildlife. I, however, saw Ladonna Cooper, a mother of three, lying at the edge of the lake with a slashed throat and mutilated body. She had been abducted from a local restaurant, robbed, and bludgeoned to death with a knife. Minutes before she was abducted, she called her husband to tell him that she would be home shortly. She was laughing with him as she hung up the phone. Ladonna’s husband sat back in his chair and dozed off. A few minutes later, he awoke, startled that his wife wasn’t home. It was 12:15 a.m. He rushed to the restaurant and found the door wide open. A small amount of blood was in the room. Three days later, we found Ladonna at the refuge.

These murders all have similarities: they were all unsolved murders that occurred in places where most people think murder isn’t supposed to happen.

In September 1989, I resigned as sheriff to take a position as associate professor of criminal justice at John A. Logan College. I thought the immediate presence of murder would be something of the past, something for discussion in the classroom—until one morning when I turned on the television.

I watched the morning news and learned that the decapitated body of Michael Miley had been found in his car trunk. His hands were bound behind his back, and the car had been burned. It was a shocking and gruesome murder, but what was even more shocking was learning that the two people that had committed the murders were a husband and wife, both students in my criminal behavior class. Convicted of the crime, one of those students is serving a life term and the other is on death row awaiting execution.

The classroom gossip about the headless murder victim has quieted down now, but I still have daily reminders of murder and how swift it can be.

In this book, Murder in the Heartland, there are twenty case files. They are cases from the Heartland that, as Sheriff, I participated in the investigation of or that I have researched as a writer. It is my hope that in reading these murder cases people will become more aware of our vulnerability as citizens. Rural America isn’t immune to the bizarre and unpredictable human behavior that leads to murder. As much as we like to think of ourselves as safe, murder can happen here. Too often it does.

.

Case 1

Serial Murderer John Paul Phillips

Theresa Clark

January 26, 1975

Kathy McSherry

July 13, 1976

Susan Schumake

August 17, 1981

Joan Weatherall

November 11, 1981

Carbondale, Illinois

At about 8:20 on Monday morning, January 27, 1975, two Southern Illinois University students pulled into the parking lot of the Ambassador Apartments on Danny Street in Carbondale. The couple had just returned from a weekend trip in Pana, Illinois.

Both students grabbed their luggage and climbed the stairs of the two-story apartment building and stopped in front of apartment 20. The girl set her luggage down. When she’d left the apartment on Saturday for the trip to Pana, her roommate Theresa Clark had been sitting there writing letters dressed in a blue robe. Now, the letters were scattered all over the floor. The books that normally sat on the coffee table were on the floor. She scanned the room and noticed the hanging plants had been moved off of the picture window curtain rod so the curtains could be closed.

The couple slowly walked to the girl’s bedroom. As they walked down the hall, they saw large brown spots in the rug. Was it dirt? But a rag was lying to one side of the hall soaked with something red. The bathroom door was shut and had smears of brown on it. The couple walked into the bedroom and set the luggage down.

They looked at each other and without saying anything walked into the kitchen. Broken glass was everywhere—on the table, the floor, the counter top. Theresa’s eyeglasses were lying on the floor; one lens was popped out. A cutting board that had been hanging on the wall was on the kitchen table broken into three pieces.

The couple’s stomachs churned and their minds raced with thoughts of horror as they noticed the still quiet of the apartment. Terri! Terri! the male student called out. No answer.

He walked slowly back down the hall to the bathroom, his girlfriend close behind him. He opened the door and stepped inside. Oh my God! Oh my God! She’s dead, he screamed as he spun, grabbed his partner, and bolted from the apartment.

The Carbondale police logged the call at 8:34 a.m. There’s a dead body at Ambassador Apartments, number 20, the frantic college student blurted.

Minutes later the police arrived at the apartment and met the students at the front door. She’s in the bathtub, the male student said, sobbing.

The Carbondale officer entered the apartment and carefully made his way to the bathroom. Floating face up was the nude body of a white female. The officer noticed that her blue eyes were open and dilated. She had several wounds in her chest, one breast was mutilated, and her throat had been cut. He quickly secured the scene and called for the detective unit.

Detectives arrived and began to process the crime scene, one room at a time. In the living room, they found a stick to aid the growth of plants knocked out of the pot and lying on the coffee table.

The female roommate told the police that a plant stick found on a shelf in the living room had been moved; a model car that normally sat on the television had been moved onto some books on the same shelf; and speaker wires from the stereo were also on the top of the shelf, and they usually were on the floor.

Smeared blood was found on the couch along with the victim’s notebook and some crumpled papers.

Under the coffee table, several blood-soaked papers were found with hair fibers matted in the blood. A footprint of blood was underneath the chair in the living room and a large amount of blood was found on the rug near the couch. The wall next to the large blood spot was splattered with blood. Several bloody footprints led off in different directions from the large blood spot. A blood-soaked dish rag lay on the floor near the couch.

From the major area of blood in the living room, drag marks of blood led across the room, down the hall, and into the bathroom. Scratch marks were on the bathroom door. Inside the bathroom, the trail of blood led to the bathtub where the body was found. Police found blood on the table and on the counter top and bloody footprints in the kitchen.

The officers discovered pry marks on the back door, a bloody footprint just outside the back door, and then a trail of blood leading down the stairs.

While detectives were completing the crime scene process, other police officers were scanning the area around the apartment. A tenant from apartment 9 approached one officer and gave him a set of keys. The officer examined the two-key ring, seven-key combination. The tenant told the officer that shortly before noon on Sunday, January 26, he went to empty his tray in the dumpster at the southwest corner of the apartment building. He noticed the set of keys and picked them up. He said that he figured someone had accidentally thrown the keys away. Then when he saw the police at the apartment, he decided to give them to the police.

The officer immediately took the keys to apartment 20 and tried the key in the front door lock and the back door lock. Both fit.

About that time, another officer scanning the area reported finding two keys, two double-edge brass keys, and one Chrysler key on the south corner of the driveway. The roommate identified the keys as belonging to Theresa.

The crime scene examination was completed and the body was transported to the local hospital for an autopsy.

The investigators continued the on-scene investigation with a canvass of the apartment complex where the murder took place. The resident of apartment 18 told police that on Saturday, January 25, she was washing dishes when, sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., she saw a white male pass by the kitchen window. She said that it startled her because he was so quiet. He was about five feet, seven inches tall, had dark brown hair, and was about twenty-five years old. He was wearing a dark coat and a light shirt with an open collar. She said that a short time later she heard a screen door open and close.

Another neighbor said that about 9:30 p.m. she heard a scream and someone hit the floor. About twenty minutes later, a man walked down the stairs in front of the neighbor’s bedroom. He was wearing quiet shoes, a dark jacket, and possibly gloves, she reported.

The police continued the door-to-door canvass. One by one, however, the remaining neighbors told the detectives that they had not seen or heard anything that aroused suspicion.

At 5:00 p.m. on January 27, A. S. Thompson, M.D., performed an autopsy on the body of Theresa Clark. The doctor concluded that the victim had sustained multiple stab wounds: four in the back penetrating the lungs and liver. As a result, there was massive hemorrhaging of the lungs and liver. In addition, the victim’s throat was cut, exposing the larynx. The right breast had been mutilated extending into the mammary gland tissue. There was blunt force injury to the scalp causing hemorrhage of the brain lobes. There were defensive wounds to the right hand, thumb, and finger. The victim was raped, but the doctor was unable to find any sperm. However, the most distributing finding for the police was the condition of her skin. Although she had died from the stab wounds inflicted, she had still been alive when she was dragged into the bathroom and placed in the bathtub. Her killer had placed her in scalding water.

Meanwhile, police interviewed the couple who found the victim. According to her friends, Theresa was a career-oriented grad student in speech pathology who had no boyfriends because she did not want to become involved. She would go out with a few guys to dinner on occasion, but nothing else.

The friend said that Theresa wasn’t expecting anyone to visit on Saturday, the day they left. There was never any company or anything like that. I want to say one thing. There’s…about two nights before, you know, this guy kept coming in and using the phone. He used the phone. He used the phone twice. He said he was the next door neighbor. When he came in the first time, you know, he barely made it to the telephone, he was staggering, she said. He was the next door neighbor or the one downstairs. He said to come down. He said his name was Jack.

Another witness came forward and told the police that a man named Jack Wells, twenty-seven; five feet, eleven inches; and 185 pounds, lived in the area and was on parole. Wells had a long record of assault and sexual crimes against women that dated back several years.

Meanwhile, the citizens in the community were becoming frightened after hearing the news of the murder. Police received a number of calls about suspicious activity. One lady told the police that a man had been following children at a local church. The lady said that the first time she saw the man, on Saturday, January 25, he was standing on the front steps of the church watching the kids play. The second time he was on the steps leading to the basement. He came into the church once and walked up to the display board for a few seconds then walked toward the area where the children were playing on a trampoline. I asked him if he was there to pick up one of the girls. He said no, smiled, and walked off.

On Sunday, January 26, the man saw one of the girls walking up to the church. He pulled to the curb and asked her to get in the car. She wouldn’t and continued to walk toward the church. He got out of the car and followed her to the church. He asked her, How many times have you shit today?

The girl was terrified and began to cry.

What kind of bowel movements do you have? Runny? he asked, laughing uproariously. Then he turned and walked away.

Further investigation revealed that Wells had confronted several women about having sex with him. One woman in particular said he wanted her to have anal sex with him. She told him that she was not up to it and allowed him to perform oral sex on her. He then asked her to defecate and urinate on him. She said that she refused to do that and soon broke off any relationship with him.

Police took a group of six photos that included one of Jack Wells to all the people who had reported information in the case. In every case, the people identified Jack Wells as being the one they had seen or who had approached them.

On January 28, police arrested Jack Wells on a parole violation and took him in for questioning. He was read his Miranda rights and questioned for several hours. He claimed he knew nothing about the murder or the victim. Then police took fingernail scrapings, scalp hair, pubic hair, and blood samples from the suspect. They turned them over to the lab for analysis.

At about 8:00 p.m. that same day, police received a call from a lady that worked at a department store in the local mall. She said that a man by the name of John Paul Phillips with an address of apartment 5, Ambassador Apartments, had just returned a knife, serial number 110. The lady told the police that the man was in the record department of the store.

Police confronted the twenty-one-year-old Phillips, who told them that he received the knife as a Christmas present from his dad. He said that he used the knife to skin deer. He told the police that because of the neighborhood that he lived in, he frequently stuck the knife in his bedpost at nighttime to be used as protection in the event of a break-in. Recently, he told police, he had removed the knife from the post and the point of the blade had broken.

Police learned that Phillips was a heavy drinker and lived close to work because his driver’s license was suspended. Probing further they found that he did now wear a size twelve shoe, the size calculated to have produced the bloody footprint in apartment 20.

The knife was submitted to the lab for serology testing.

A few days later, the evidence collected from all suspects was analyzed. Polygraphs were given. All the suspects were cleared. The police were back to square one.

The Carbondale Police Department worked day and night for weeks on the case, but their efforts were fruitless. Months passed and then a year. Then, in the middle of 1976, there was another murder in Jackson County, and once again it was brutal. At about 6:00 a.m. on July 13, 1976, a young woman pulled into her driveway on Allyn Street in Carbondale. The Southern Illinois University student had just returned from a weekend with her family and was looking at another Monday morning of classes at the university.

The student opened the door and took one step inside. The house cat darted between her legs and shot out the door. What’s wrong with her, she thought. She noticed a lamp lying on the floor in the living room. A chair had been moved slightly from the angle at which it normally