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Nearly 50 years later, genealogy testing identifies suspect in 1975 assault of 3 young girls left in Indiana cornfield
For nearly 50 years, three women have sought the identity of a man who abducted them when they were young teenagers, bound and stabbed them, and left them for dead in an Indiana cornfield in August 1975.
Kandice Smith, Sheri Rottler Trick and Kathie Rottler all survived the horrific attack, and decades later, thanks to genetic genealogy technology, they finally got their answer.
The Indianapolis Metro Police Department, after combing through evidence and rigorous DNA testing, announced Thursday that the suspect was finally identified as Thomas Edward Williams.
Williams died in November 1983 while in prison in Galveston, Texas, at the age of 49.
The 1975 assault
On August 19, 1975, Smith, then 13, Rottler Trick, then 11, and Rottler, then 14, were leaving a gas station in eastern Indianapolis at 10:45 p.m. and decided to hitchhike home.
A white man driving a station wagon pulled over to give them a ride.
But he drove past their destination. The girls tried to escape the car and Kathie tried to hit the brakes, but her legs weren’t long enough.
The suspect then pulled out a handgun, put it to her head and threatened to shoot her, retired Indianapolis Metro Police Sgt. David Ellison told reporters Thursday.
The man ended up stopping the car near a cornfield in Greenfield, Indiana, forced the girls out of the car and bound two of them. He then sexually assaulted one of the girls and repeatedly stabbed her.
He proceeded to stab the other two girls numerous times.
“They actually played dead to avoid being stabbed anymore,” Ellison said. The suspect fled the area and the girls were left wounded in the cornfield.
Two of the girls were able to eventually make it back to the main road, where a passerby helped them and police were called.
Miraculously, all three girls survived the attack.
At the time, an investigation into the suspect led to a composite sketch, and several leads were followed and suspects ruled out. Eventually the case went cold.
Looking at the case again
In 2018, the survivors reached out to Ellison and he agreed to look at the case again. He worked with other agencies to obtain evidence from the case and have it analyzed and tested.
Evidence from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office was obtained in 2019 and analyzed and tested, and in 2021 two other pieces of evidence from the case were recovered and tested by the Indianapolis-Marion County Forensic Services Agency.
All three tests produced an unknown male DNA profile that matched one another, and one of the items tested had Sheri Rottler Trick’s DNA on it, as well.
“It was at that point that we knew we had our suspect’s DNA,” Ellison said.
However, that profile had no match in CODIS — the FBI’s national databases of DNA profiles from convicted offenders.
In January 2023, Ellison reached out to DNA Labs International in Deerfield Beach, Florida, a private lab that uses investigative genetic genealogy technology. The testing was funded by Indianapolis-based media company Audiochuck, which produces multiple podcasts including “Crime Junkies,” which investigates cold cases.
Using genealogy websites like FamilyTree.com and GEDmatch.com, genealogists at the lab were able to identify a potential daughter and son from the DNA profile.
Investigators approached the family, and the daughter and son shared DNA samples. Testing of those samples in December proved to be a match and led police to finally identify their suspect as Williams.
Originally from Indianapolis, Williams at one point was living close to the kidnapping site, Ellison said. It was not immediately clear what charges Williams was serving time for in Galveston.
“This was an act of evil that none of you deserved. I hope today brings you some sort of closure knowing that your attacker has been identified and is no longer in this world,” Ellison told Smith, Rottler Trick and Rottler, who were present for the news conference.
Kathie Rottler thanked the men who stopped to help her and Smith after the attack, crediting them with saving their lives, and thanked investigators for their diligent work.
“I stand here before you today as a survivor who has learned the true meaning of patience. I’ve learned that sometimes the answer you are waiting for can take decades to get. Nearly five decades in fact,” she said.
“There are times over the past 48 years that I felt no one was working on this case, but I kept hoping and praying and I’m so glad that I kept faith in myself and investigators,” Rottler continued. “My message is to other survivors out there is never give up and continue to fight to keep your case open. This is a day I never thought would come, but I told myself to keep going and never stop looking for answers. Today we got our answer and I’m so grateful for that.”
In this photo illustration, The Onion website is displayed on a computer screen, showing a satirical story titled Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’, on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California.
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The satirical website, The Onion, has a new deal to take over Infowars, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s far-right media company. If approved by a Texas judge, the deal would take away his Infowars microphone, and allow The Onion to resume its plans to turn the website into a parody of itself.
Families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who sued Jones for defamation, want the sale to happen. They’re still waiting to collect on the nearly $1.3 billion judgement they won against Jones for spreading lies that they faked the deaths of their children in order to boost support for gun control. That prompted Jones’s followers to harass and threaten the families for years.
The families are also eager to take away Jones’s platform for spewing such conspiracy theories. The deal not only would divorce Jones from his Infowars brand, but it would turn the platform against him by allowing The Onion to mock his kind of conspiracy mongering and advocate for gun control.
The families “took on Alex Jones to stop him from inflicting the same harm on others” by using “his corrupt business platform to torment and harass them for profit,” said Chris Mattei, one of the attorneys for the families. “When Infowars finally goes dark, the machinery of lies that Jones built will become a force for social good, thanks to the families’ courage and The Onion’s vision, persistence and stewardship.”
A mourner visits the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial on the 10th anniversary of the school shooting on Dec.14, 2022 in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot and killed, including 20 first graders and 6 educators, in one of the deadliest elementary school shootings in U.S. history.
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For its part The Onion called it a “significant step in an effort to transform one of the internet’s more notorious misinformation platforms into a new comedy network for satire.” The company says it could announce its new rollout of Infowars in a matter of weeks if the judge approves the deal.
“Eight years, almost to the day, after the Sandy Hook parents first filed suit against Alex Jones, they’ll finally get some justice, and even some money,” said Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. “This is a chance to make something genuinely new out of a very broken piece of media history.”
On its website Monday, The Onion posted a satirical message from the fictional CEO of its parent company, Global Tetrahedron, “Bryce P. Tetraeder,” stating a “dream is finally coming true.”
Jones’s posted on X Monday that “The Onion Has Fraudulently Claimed AGAIN That It Owns Infowars!!!” adding that “The Democrat Party Disinformation Publication Is Publicly Bragging About Its Plan To Silence Alex Jones’ Infowars And Then Steal & Misrepresent His Identity!”
On a podcast in March, Jones alluded to the impending demise of Infowars, saying, “We’re getting shut down. We beat so many attacks. But finally, we’re shutting down like the middle of next month,” before insisting, “We’re going to be fine.”
Jones suggested Monday he would appeal any court decision to approve the leasing deal. And even if he loses control of Infowars, Jones could continue to broadcast from another studio, under another name.
Jones’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
More than a year ago, a federal bankruptcy judge rejected The Onion’s first attempt to buy Infowars through a bankruptcy auction, saying the process was flawed. Since then, the bankruptcy court clarified that because Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, is not itself in bankruptcy, its property should be handled instead by a Texas state receiver. That cleared the way for the new pending deal to lease Infowars to The Onion, with the hope that a future sale could be approved.
In papers filed in state court, the Texas receiver said he “determined that licensing the Intellectual Property is in the best interest of the receivership estate.”
The deal calls for The Onion to pay $81,000 a month to license the Infowars.com domain and brand name, which the receiver says will “cover carrying costs to preserve and protect the assets of the receivership estate” until an appeal filed by Jones is decided and the path is cleared for a sale.
Jones’s personal bankruptcy case is proceeding in federal bankruptcy court, where a trustee continues to sell off Jones’s personal property, including cars, homes, watches and guns, with proceeds intended for the families.
A memorial to massacre victims stands near the former site of Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2013 in Newtown, Connecticut, one year after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 first graders and six adults at the school.
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US negotiators to head to Pakistan and Iranian cargo ship seized – a recappublished at 00:37 BST 20 April
Tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday
Here’s a recap of the latest developments.
US negotiators will head to Pakistan on Monday with the intention of holding further talks on ending the war, Trump says – but Iranian state media cites unnamed officials as saying Tehran has “no plans for now to participate”.
The prospect of further high-level negotiations – a White House official says Vice-President JD Vance will attend – comes amid reports of fresh attacks on commercial vessels.
Trump says the navy intercepted and took “custody” of an Iranian tanker attempting to pass through the US blockade, “blowing a hole” in the ship’s engine room in the process.
Earlier, in the same post announcing his representatives would travel for more talks, Trump renewed his threat to destroy Iranian energy sites and bridges if no deal is reached.
Reports in Iranian media over the weekend suggest Iran is continuing to work on plans to potentially apply a toll to ships passing through the strait – although it’s unclear if such a move will be implemented.
Iranian state TV cites unnamed officials as saying that “continuation of the so-called naval blockade, violation of the ceasefire and threatening US rhetoric” are slowing progress in reaching an agreement.
Trump also accused Iran of violating the ceasefire, saying more commercial ships have been attacked by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
A UK maritime agency reported two commercial ships came under fire in the strait on Saturday.
Iran’s foreign minister had said on Friday that the strait would be opened – which was shortly followed by Trump saying the US naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place until a deal is reached. Iran has since said the strait is closed again.
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