Post by Joanna on Jul 16, 2018 0:16:16 GMT -5
Arrest in 1988 Murder of 8-Year-Old Indiana Girl
Thirty years after the murder of 8-year-old April Tinsley (above), police have arrested a man in connection with her death on the same day the cold case was to have been examined during a prime-time crime documentary. John D. Miller (pictured below), 59, of Grabill, was arrested at his home Sunday morning by members of the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Indiana State Police. Hours later, Investigation Discovery’s On the Case with Paula Zahn was set to air an episode concerning the search for the man who taunted law enforcement for years following the crime.
According to court documents, when police arrived at Miller’s home, they asked if he knew why they were there. He answered “April Tinsley,” before admitting the crime to investigators.
The FBI indicated the investigation began April 1, 1988, when the child was abducted from her Fort Wayne neighborhood while walking home from a friend’s house. Three days later, a jogger discovered April’s body about 20 miles to the north in a ditch along a country road in DeKalb County. Officials also found one of the girl’s shoes around a thousand feet from the body. April had been raped. The killer left DNA, but authorities could not find a match.
In 1990, when her killer scrawled a message on a barn door: “I kill 8-year-old April Marie Tinsley. I will kill again.” In 2004, 16 years after the little girl’s death, the killer left threatening notes, photos and used condoms on three girls’ bicycles and in a mailbox in the Fort Wayne area. The pictures showed a man’s nude lower body. DNA in the condoms matched that found on April’s body. “Hi honey. I been watching you,” one note released by the FBI read. “I am the same person that kidnapped, raped and killed April Tinsely. You are my next victim.”
Court documents reveal a break in the case cane in May of 2018, when a detective arranged for DNA testing and analysis on the suspect’s evidence sample at Parabon NanoLabs. On July 2, the lab was able to narrow the DNA sample to two brothers, one being Miller. Investigators then placed Miller under surveillance. On July 6, police searched Miller’s trash in an attempt to find items bearing the suspect’s DNA and they found three used condoms. On July 9, investigators learned the DNA from the used condoms found in Miller’s trash matched that from the condoms found in 2004 and the DNA found on the victim.
Police explained to Miller they had connected his DNA to the 1988 slaying, Saturday morning. When asked to explain what happened to April Tinsley, Miller looked at police and said, “I can’t.” He then admitted to abducting the girl on Hoagland Avenue in Fort Wayne on April 1, 1988, and taking her to his trailer, where he sexually assaulted and killed her.
Miller admitted he choked the victim so that she wouldn’t tell police what happened and it had taken 10 minutes for the little girl to die. He sodomized her corpse before taking the body to Spencerville the next morning where he dumped it in a ditch.
Miller was taken to the Allen County Jail, where he is being held on suspicion of murder, child molestation and confinement. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance Monday.
Source: Vic Ryckaert, The Indianapolis Star, July 15, 2018.
