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Two Indiana men have been charged with homicide almost a half-century after a 17-year-old woman didn’t return dwelling from her job at a church camp and was discovered useless in a river, state police introduced Tuesday.
Fred Bandy Jr., 67, of Goshen, and John Wayne Lehman, 67, of Auburn, had been arrested Monday on one depend every of homicide in the killing of Laurel Jean Mitchell, stated Capt. Kevin Smith.
Bandy and Lehman had been being held with out bond on the Noble County Jail and had been scheduled for preliminary courtroom hearings Wednesday. Online courtroom paperwork didn’t record an legal professional who may converse on behalf of both man.
Smith declined to touch upon the particular developments that led to the arrests greater than 47 years after the killing, however stated that “science finally gave us the evidence we needed.”
A possible trigger affidavit filed Tuesday in Noble County courtroom stated witnesses tied the men to Mitchell’s killing and DNA proof linked Bandy to the crime.
Smith stated that on the night time of Aug. 6, 1975, Mitchell didn’t return dwelling from her job on the snack bar of the Epworth Forest church camp close to a lake in her hometown of North Webster, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Indianapolis.
Her mother and father reported her lacking, and Mitchell’s physique was found the following morning in the Elkhart River about 17 miles northeast of North Webster. Smith stated investigators decided that she had drowned, and the post-mortem discovered “signs that she had fought for her life.”
Officers have spoken to Mitchell’s brother and sister, he added, saying he hopes the arrests can carry them “at least a little peace.”
“I cannot imagine having dealt with that for 47 years, wondering what happened,” Smith stated at a news convention in Albion.
According to the possible trigger affidavit, investigators imagine Bandy and Lehman “forcibly, deliberately drowned” Mitchell after taking her to the Elkhart River in Bandy’s 1971 Oldsmobile.
In addition, the affidavit says a DNA profile was obtained by means of latest testing on Mitchell’s clothes, which was saved together with different proof collected in 1975.
Bandy voluntarily offered a DNA pattern in December to state police, and testing decided that he was 13 billion instances “more likely to be the contributor of the DNA in Laurel J. Mitchell’s clothing than any other unknown person.”
That testing got here after three individuals who had been teenagers on the time of of the killing tied the men to the crime primarily based on incriminating feedback made concerning the loss of life, based on the affidavit.
One man instructed police in 2014 that he socialized with Bandy whereas in highschool and that Bandy instructed him after Mitchell’s homicide that “he had committed the crime” and likewise offered the situation the place her physique was discovered.
A second man instructed police in 2019 that he and the primary witness had attended a highschool social gathering with Bandy, Lehman and others when Mitchell’s homicide got here up. Bandy “stated he and John Wayne Lehman committed that crime, together,” the person instructed investigators.
And a Florida lady who was 16 and dwelling in Noble County in 1975 contacted the county sheriff’s division in June 2013 to say she had gone on a date with Lehman and as he was driving her dwelling, he “admitted his involvement in a crime that he committed with his friend, Fred Bandy.”
Lehman additionally instructed the lady particulars per police findings when the physique was discovered and with “anatomical findings” from the post-mortem, based on the affidavit.
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