Indiana
Murder investigation puts eyes on small Indiana town after bones found in search for kids
Sexual abuse: How you can help protect a child from harm
Indiana has double the rate of child abuse than the national average, a federal agency reported. Here’s how to protect children from sexual abuse and other harm.
Dwight Adams, dwight.adams@indystar.com
Outside of a house in Wheatfield, Indiana, officers from the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office discovered several partial bone fragments on Sept. 30, after being alerted that two children may have been killed on the property.
On Sept. 20, officers received a tip that a parent had allegedly confessed to an acquaintance that they had killed two of their children and burned their bodies in a backyard fire pit, the sheriff’s office announced in a social media post one day after the bones were found.
After receiving this tip, detectives launched an investigation and located the children’s parent at a hotel in Newton County later that day.
Detectives interviewed the parent, who denied any involvement. Before detectives left, they seized the parent’s cellphone as evidence, which gave detectives evidence in the case. They have not said what that evidence includes.
With this new evidence, detectives confronted the parent, but the parent continued to deny any involvement or knowledge about the case. The sheriff’s office has not said which parent they were interviewing.
The Indiana Department of Child Services was called to take custody of a third child who was in the care of the parent.
The children were born at home and never received birth certificates or attending school, law enforcement said.
On Sept. 30, the Jasper County Sheriff’s detectives, alongside personnel from the Jasper County Coroner’s Office, Indiana State Police, Wheatfield Police Department, and the Indiana Department of Homeland Security searched the property with the assistance of two cadaver dogs.
The dogs alerted officers to three separate locations where the partial bone fragments were found.
On Oct. 1, officials transported the bone fragments to a specialist in Indianapolis to determine if they were from an infant or an animal.
Wheatfield is a town of fewer than 1,000 people located in northern Indiana, roughly 130 miles northwest of Indianapolis.
If anyone has information relevant to this investigation, officials recommend contacting the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office at 219-866-7334 and ask to speak with one of their detectives.