Crime Junkie - UPDATE: Monster in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Episode Date: April 5, 2018

In this bonus episode, we get the opportunity to talk with April Tinsley’s mom, Janet, about the investigation into her daughter’s murder and the torment April's killer has put her family, and the city of Fort Wayne through. Be sure to listen to episode 18, WANTED: Monster in Fort Wayne, Indiana, before you listen to this update episode. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/update-monster-in-fort-wayne-indiana/

Hi crime junkies, we are back with another update episode. This time I got the opportunity to sit down with April Tinsley's mom Janet, and we covered April's case back on episode 18. As a reminder, these update episodes are not a retelling of the cases, there are a chance for families of the victims to get out any new information, or correct misinformation about the case. So if you haven't heard episode 18 yet, go back and listen, you'll want to know all of the details and the players of the case before we jump into this.

And on that note, I'm sorry for the audio quality on this one, the only chance I had to meet with Janet was at a restaurant outdoors, so at times you might hear traffic or people walking by, it's not perfect, but it is real life. So with that, let's jump in. Brett the first thing that I asked Janet when I met with her was about the events of the day that April went missing. I know this sounds minute, but one thing that I couldn't seem to get straight from online research was where was that umbrella that April left?

Yeah, some places say she went home to get it, some say that it was at a friend's house, but it was confusing for me too. Well here's how Janet explained it. She left your house to go to another friend's house, right? She went, well, when I called her from downstairs, I took the umbrella down and handed it to her. She came and got the umbrella and I walked her to the alley and watched her go through, used to be a school, but they tore it down and it was just a vacant grass and I watched

her cross that and then she made it to the girl's house and then her and Nicole at the time left was playing at their house for a while, then they both left, Kate went outside and went around the corner to the other little girl that they went to school with, went to her house and April knew she had to be home by 3.34 o'clock before it started raining again. And so April left the other little girl's house to go around the corner to get her umbrella and she never made it around the corner. So she never picked up her umbrella.

So initially April went to her friend Nicole's house and she had her umbrella from home with her there, but her and Nicole left to go to a third friend's house just around the corner and she left her umbrella at Nicole's and it is when they left this third girl's house, she was planning on going back to Nicole's to get her umbrella and then go home, but she never even made it to Nicole's just around the corner. Man, that makes me wonder if April was the target specifically or if it could have been any of the girls just whoever was out there alone. I know it's something I actually brought up to Janet and I asked her what she thought

and she said she doesn't know either anything is possible at this point. But yeah, whoever this guy was, he was probably just looking for a little girl and April happened to be that little girl. It still shocks me that no one saw or heard anything. Well, according to Janet, one of the witnesses was an elderly lady who's probably deceased now, but she said that she saw the same blue truck like doing a loop in the neighborhood with a couple of guys in it. Then it was another elderly lady that lived not too far from there said that she seen

a blue beat up pickup truck with a couple of guys in it driving around the block couple of times. Wait, a couple of guys? I don't think we ever heard a couple of guys before. No, I saw it come up randomly in the research, but I assume it came from this witness, the same witness that saw the blue truck, but if we're to go off of everything on the FBI and police websites, they feel that they're confident it's just one guy now. Did Janet agree with them?

Not a hundred percent. She actually says she trusts the police that they have all the info and know what they're doing, but it's really hard for her to believe that just one guy could have taken April. Like I told the police department, there had to be more than one. If there wasn't two, there was like three, one in the back, two in the front, one to jump out and grab the child, one to throw it back in there and get out because at first they thought there was only one person because I said, no. How is that one person going to go around, stop the vehicle, get out, go around the

vehicle, grab the child or whoever is grabbing and then jump right back in, throw her in the truck, go all around, jump back in, get in the car without. I get where she's coming from. It's terrifying to think that one guy could pull over, park his car, get out, snatch a little girl off the street, put her in the car and get away with no one seeing his face or license plate or anything. Yeah, it's not like people weren't out that day. Anna told me that there was a group of guys actually working on a car all outside just

caddy corner from exactly where they think April was taken and they didn't hear or see a thing. And this is where I think police and even Janet come back to wondering if it was someone that April knew who she could have gone with. But even that list of people is very small. I said there, she was shy and bashful. She wouldn't go to nobody. The only person she went to was my mom and dad and her, her own uncle lived candy, four

houses down from where we lived at. Every time he says, see her, he'll say, hi April, she will hide. We're 30 years out now. I have to assume they looked at all of the family, right? Right. And this actually started with the family. Investigating us, I had to do DNA twice. I knew the family would have had to been cleared, but Janet said it was more than that.

They were sure that the family had to have been involved somehow and not necessarily her mom or her dad, but someone in the family, someone that would have known her. But why did they need DNA twice? I asked Janet that as well. Now, we still can't figure out why they did DNA twice. I know I flunked the lie detector test. You did? Yeah.

Was this like right when it happened? Oh yeah. This is why you don't take a polygraph. Exactly. I am telling everyone now, if all you take out of this whole episode is that April's mom failed a polygraph and you go online and spread rumors, you are a bad, bad person. She had nothing to do with sexually assaulting and murdering her eight year old daughter. It just shows you though that when something so traumatic happens to you, you're in such

an emotional state, you can fail one of those easily. They're machines and they're wrong a lot of the time. It's just sad though that there's no winning. Like either you take it when you're a wreck and you fail and the police waste time looking at you or you refuse to take it and you still look suspicious and police waste time looking at you. I know it's not fair. I've seen so many instances of parents failing lie detectors when their kids go missing or

are murdered just because they're so emotional and not because they did anything. I'd like to think that people from Indiana are decent people and wouldn't dare think to accuse her of murdering her own daughter, especially knowing the way she died. Oh, you'd think that, but crime jinky life rule number six, people suck. There are a few certainties in life. It's death, taxes and trolls. So all I ask of everyone listening is be a kind and understanding person. You need to be the balance to all of the negativity and awful that other people are throwing out

in this world. I had some woman put in a paper that she heard that I didn't want the little girl. I just want all boys to like, eliminated her. Somebody said that. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. That's disgusting. That really hurt because I went to one reporter that we knew and I told him I'd go print this and he was printing it and I was sitting there, you'd tell him ever since I was 16 years

old, I told him when I got married, whenever I got married, the first child I had, if it was a little girl, it was going to be named April Marie. It was going to have blonde curly hair and going to have blue eyes. And when she was born, everybody knew exactly who it was because she had curly hair and it was just brown, it's brown, but I was sitting there, I had a piece of paper that I had notarized and told him when I was sitting there, I didn't want the little girl, then how come I broke this down and. Oh my God, you weren't kidding, people suck.

I know. And I feel so bad because Janet felt like she had to justify herself to these people. She explained to me how she always wanted a girl, always knew her name would be April. And it just made me sad that anyone who had put her in the position to have to justify wanting her own daughter, like of course she wanted her daughter, of course she loved her. People even accused April's dad at some point of like pushing her down the stairs and then all this was just a giant cover up. It's all horrible, horrible stuff.

And unfortunately, Janet has dealt with more heartache than anyone mother should. She actually shared with me something that no one talks about anymore in relation to April. April was actually a twin. What? I did not know that. Because what everybody don't know, well everybody keeps forgetting about the other one, April was a twin.

I never knew that. Yep. She was a twin. I lost her twin three months prior being born and I had to carry all of them together. Oh my God, Janet. So you had to deliver two babies but you only had April. That makes this whole thing even more heartbreaking. I know, it would have been another brother for April and she's had enough grief for one

lifetime and she lost her first baby, got to raise April until she was eight and then lost her as well. And her son, who was two at the time that April went missing, is now 32, his name's Paul. And he lives at home and she said a lot of people tell her that he shouldn't and he should move out and he should be on his own. I don't think anyone has the right to look in on their situation and say what they should or shouldn't do. I agree but this is what Janet has been facing since day one.

She said people tell her all the time you should be doing this or you should be looking here. I know a lot of people told us over the years that what they would do if it was them and they'd be out searching for the person and I said there ain't like I have. What can you do? I said there, I don't know where he's at. He could be anywhere, he could be dead as far as I know, he could be in another state somewhere. I have no idea.

And then they kept on wanting to know about the jogger who found her and everything else. I said there, don't ask me because I don't know his name, I don't know his wife's name out. I don't know the area where they found her at because I've never been there. Really? I told her but they go, why haven't you been there to put flowers on where I said nope. I can't do that. Wow, after 30 years she's never been there?

It's gotta be hard. I don't know if I could go to the site either. Janet has to live with so many awful sites and memories. I don't think she needs more and she actually talked to me a little bit about the night that she had to identify April. Well, before they transfer her back, they had us go up there to identify her. Yeah, that right there haunt me for a while. You had to go?

Oh yeah, I had to be the one. Was your husband with you? Nope. Just you being? Yeah. His brother and other sister stayed with him to keep him from going nuts because he kept trying to say he was going to drink himself to death so they got his whiskey and all that and poured it out and kept an eye on him while me, his other sister, the neighbor down the

street and my sister, one of my sisters and the minister went and drove all the way up to Spencerville, went to the old hospital that's up there and when we're sitting there waiting for the coroner to come down, sitting there like, you get the nurses and everything, doctors coming up, they'll sit there and just stare at, I got so many hoes in me, I said there, good God, just there are more hoes in me. And then when I was going to have my sister go in with me, but they wouldn't let my sister go in with me. So you had to do it alone?

So they left the pastor go, so he went in with me and when he went in, we seen the top part and they go, well, we can't show you the whole body, I said there, I wasn't going to ask you to show me the whole damn body. I said, top part would have been a fine dandy. And when I turned to the side and see how she was sleeping, I knew it right down in there and I just sat there and just stared, I just sat there like, they didn't move, didn't blink, didn't do nothing and they go, are you all right now sit there. Yeah, and so the pastor, he put his arm around me and walked me out, he goes, so that is

her and I said, yes, it is, you can notify them that yes, it is. And then when we walked out the door and after I shook the corners hand and everything, everybody was sitting in the wedding room, I just, I just walked straight past everybody walked straight outside, went to the car and they go, what happened and then I heard my sister say, it's her, because she ain't talking, I couldn't talk, I cried all the way back halfway here and everybody, the minister goes, does you want anybody wanting anything to drink, get some coffee or water or something, cause it's like 1am in the morning and we stopped and they asked me to go, when's the last time you ate and I said, like two days

ago and they go, we're going to stop and get you something to eat, I was sitting there, I couldn't eat, I just sprung it back with me and they had one guy there at the west front, cause I'm sitting there, you can tell if somebody's crying and I'm sitting there blowing my nose, crying, blowing my nose, shaking and rocking back and forth like I can't sit still and he had these smart aleck people in a couple of tables over and girls started staring and making fun of everybody and I heard somebody say one of us was wrong with her and I looked around and I just took all I can and I stood up and said, you all want to know why I'm crying, it's cause I just had identified my daughter's body and she's

only 8 years of age, I said, if you all got a damn problem, y'all keep on looking and when I said that, the whole restaurant quiet, I mean, everyone in the room, you can hear a pin drop. I don't even know what to say after that. I know, I don't know how she made it through, she said that people always say to her, if it were me, I would have gone nuts. The only thing that kept me from going completely nuts is that I knew I had a 2 year old child at home and like everybody else said that if it was me, I done went nuts, crazy and

I said there well. You had Paul? I had Paul at the time and my focus was myself on him that kept me from going as I said there's days I'll have my good days, there's days I'll have my bad days. One thing that kind of stuck out to me is how the coroner wouldn't let her see all of April. Do you think that's just a formality or do you think there's more, the police are keeping close to the vest?

I really have no idea and I can't even begin to guess, but Jan and I did talk a little bit more about how April was found. She was fully closed when they found her, she had her jacket on and everything else, the only thing that was inside out was her underclothes and her socks, they were inside out. So they know she had been undressed and then redressed? The police department asked us if that's the way she dressed her clothes, you know put her socks on backwards, I said no, I said because I put her socks on, I said no they

wasn't inside out at the time and so they wanted to know if that's the way it was at the beginning, I said no. The police asked Janet over and over if April would have dressed herself this way or if someone in the home helped her dress and her mom was emphatic, no, someone else must have put her clothes back on. And actually this is something new that I learned from Janet that it was that specific piece of information that led them to one of the only named suspects we talked about in the episode, Everett Shull.

Originally I had heard that he was just talking about April at a party, it was very vague and nothing more specific than that, but. Because the rest of this guy named Everett Shull and this was right after? Yeah, this was right after because he went to like a party and he was telling them what color clothes she had on like socks, underwears, and stuff like that and I said there, I know what you know about that unless it was me, I don't know what it was there when she was dressed and he knew everything else and I said there, if he didn't do it, he knew who did.

So he was describing her socks and underwear, there's no way he couldn't have been there. Yeah. Like he had to have done it, right? Yeah, I can see why the police were so confident in the beginning that they had their guy, I would have thought he was their guy too. I think they did because when they arrested him for his stepdaughter, they took his DNA, they claimed it didn't match but he knew who it was because he wanted to talk. I think it was, he wanted to talk to them when he was in the hospital or did he get

sick? Because I know he got sick and he was rushed to the hospital. When was this? Oh, it was probably, hmm, see he's been gone, I guess probably about ten, maybe ten years ago, somewhere around there. So he wouldn't talk to police for a long time, his DNA didn't match but not too long after April's funeral, I guess he got really sick and he was in the hospital. It wasn't too long after we buried her and then they went to Lutheran Hospital and tried

to talk to him and he was in like a, I think he was in a coma. And they reduced his coma and he was starting to come out of it and he wanted to talk to the police department so the detectives went back up there and talked to him and right when he was trying to speak and he was going to give them the guy's name, who he thinks he did it and he died. Wait, and this was right after April's funeral or this was like ten years ago? It was right after April's funeral. So Edward Shulman did that for a long time.

So he was going to talk to the police but they didn't get there fast enough? No, they didn't know how bad his condition was I guess and I don't know how like what time period this all took place over but he was never able to give them anything. Wait, I'm confused, he seems like the guy but his DNA wasn't a match? Right, I clarified this with Janet too, they know he obviously didn't sexually assault her but they're still thinking maybe he either had a partner or he knew exactly who did it, how and why. We're thinking he knows who did it because-

Do you think he helped him or do you think he just talked to the guy? There's possibility because at the time they arrested him for his girlfriend's daughter, he was hanging around with this other guy that had a shady past. Who was that? I'm not sure what his name was but he had a blue van and that's the main picture of it right there, the blue van. Who's that guy? I don't know but it sounds like he is a great suspect as well but whoever he is I have to

assume police already cleared him and tested his DNA too, right? I mean I guess they would have by now, what the heck though? How did Everett Schull know all of what he said he knew? No one knows and he died with those secrets. So if it's not his DNA and we can assume it's not his friend's DNA, who's left? Does she know of anyone else who might have done it? No and frankly she said she's so tired of people asking. Every time an anniversary hits, news stations will come around, do a five second blur before

they all go forget about April again and she says it's always the same questions. Who do you think did it? Who do you think did it? And she said my god it's been 30 years don't you think if I had any idea we would have found the guy by now. I get that, that's gotta be so annoying. Yeah but we did talk a little bit about the suspect's profile and how police think that he's local and I asked her her thoughts on this.

The time to me it had to be someone that knew that area because where they put her body at it's like in a rural area and yeah like a ditch and everything and it's like whoever it was knew what they were doing. She went on to mention that this was too put together and this wasn't their first time so I asked her if she thought that this guy had ever done this before. I think they have because the way they did it and everything to me yeah I think they have done it once or twice before. Well if he did it before he likely didn't do it in Indiana.

I feel like we would have heard about similar cases and the Indiana State Police would have put that together right? Yeah but there was Sarah's case but when I asked her about that she said that all she knows is police tell her they're not connected but they won't tell her why. I get it early on like you want to preserve a case if you go to trial but at 30 years like. Yeah they keep telling us they'll go you can't, if you talk about the case you can't say this, you can't say that, you can't talk about this, you can't talk about that.

I said well I don't mind saying hell I don't know half the stuff anyway because you can't tell us anything yeah and then I'm supposed to not talk about the case or anything else and it's like I don't know I was in there y'all gotta make up my mind. Listen I get preserving stuff for trial but it's been 30 years I know and when I talked to the Crime Stoppers people in Fort Wayne they said the guy's probably dead by now so like what's up why can't we talk about it but her family isn't dead so how about we give them some closure even if someone is in the grave and we can't prosecute them anymore.

My god I bet they'd sleep better at night with at least one answer. I couldn't agree more and I'll never figure this part out about cold cases why not just open it up to the public at the end I mean when you are this far down the line 20, 25, 30 years you literally have nothing to lose it's been 30 years and no one has closure and Janet thinks it's a selfish move by police. Like we told one detective I know we made him mad I said I couldn't care less I said all you guys are doing is waiting for everybody to die and then you'll come out with the case. But Janet thinks even if this person is dead it doesn't mean all the answers are.

Even if he did die that's not the end for you guys. He's got family members he's got a brother, kids, somebody has to see him acting strange you know there's something happened or something came up and he's been acting weird. And if police thought this guy is local his family members are probably still around too and maybe they'd be more willing to talk after this guy is gone you know. Yeah. Janet brought up something else that I thought was really interesting. She said that after the funeral police took the guest book.

They had it for a long time and finally the family asked for it back. They couldn't find the book it was not an evidence book room or anything like that somebody threw it out. So you never got it back? We never got it back the state department state police didn't have it county didn't have it city didn't have it but all of a sudden out of the blue the city come up with a couple copies gave us copies of the book some of the pages not the whole book a couple of pages and the ones that they gave us was family that signed the book.

But nobody else who you'd actually want to know was there interesting and there was like over a couple hundred people showed up. Wait when it appeared again they only got some of the pages. Coming to Janet they only got the pages with family members named on it and there were hundreds of other people at the funeral. Yeah we've talked about this before a lot of times killers will go to the funeral of their victims to like experience the high and the thrill of the kill again right. Yeah or even just to see the family grieving or whatever sick reason I would think that

the police took this as kind of a checklist I mean when we talked about the episode they had 400 people that they took DNA from I have to imagine they kind of went down the list but I think it's weird that they won't give it back to the family if they have it they could have really lost it but it's it's just weird to me it's a big question mark. At the end of the day Janet has just as many questions as all of us do and sometimes her relationship with law enforcement is strained and she loses faith that they'll ever be able to solve her daughter's case. It's been a cold case for some time now and it gets put on the shelf and only dusted off

if a new tip comes in or sometimes around the anniversary. And I sat there you're never gonna solve it if you're gonna just put it back on the shelf I said they need somebody that will be on it all the time have someone with that's got new eyeballs new new perspective yeah that's never known anything about the case let them look at it and let them you know determine what it will what it can be. So right now they're stuck in the same vicious cycle where the case only gets attention if something new comes in but nothing new is coming in because it's been 30 years and maybe because of a 30 year anniversary they'll bring her case off the shelf and give it a fresh look.

I asked Janet how this time of year is for her birthday then it gets to the anniversary of the first four days of our anniversary day yeah see you've never had a good Easter no I'd imagine you'd rather never really celebrated Easter after that and then I tried I tried to put a when I guess I'd be around a bunch of people I'll try to put a smiley face on there but most of the time ain't nobody knows not to call my house don't call don't call my cell phone don't text me don't come bother me don't knock on my door you just want to be alone I just sit in my little chair be by myself and no TV on or nothing. That's so sad and heartbreaking it is it's been Janet's whole life for 30 years and

year after year she just sits and she waits hoping every year will bring her closer to answers for April so again we urge anyone with any information anything at all no matter how small no matter how big go to the website take a look at all of the pictures they have the sketches the evidence and if you know anything or feel anything contact the Fort Wayne Police Department or the Fort Wayne Crime Stoppers you can contact Fort Wayne Police by calling 1-260-427-1404 or if you want to remain anonymous you can contact the Fort Wayne Crime Stoppers at 260-436-STOP. You can also see all of the police sketches and different clues from the case on our website

crimejunkiepodcast.com. Crime Junkie is written and hosted by me all of our sound production and editing comes from Britt Praywat and all of our music including our theme comes from Justin Daniel Crime Junkie is an audio check production so what do you think Chuck do you approve?