The Laura Jean Mitchell Case

Chris discusses the recently solved, 1975 murder of 17-year-old Laura Jean Mitchell. 

Transcript

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People always want to know what it's like to be me. How does it feel to see a dead body? Tell a family their loved one has been murdered, talk to a rape victim, catch a killer and get them to confess hold on time my friends, get ready for the journey and welcome to murder with Mannina. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of murder with Mannina. Well, we'll jump right in and I want to talk about a case that happened several years ago, but actually a long time ago was August of 1975. So and it was in in small Indiana town not far from where I went to college. And about two hours from where I live right now. So 17 year old Laura Jean Mitchell was reported missing by her parents on August 6 of 1975. So I would have been four, okay. When she didn't return home after leaving her job at a church camp, around 10 o'clock at night. She was supposed to leave the job at the church and meet up with some friends at an Adventure Land kind of amusement park place, about a half a mile away. She was supposed to walk there. Her body was found the next morning in a river in western Noble County, Indiana. And like I said, that's about two hours north of where I'm at. She was 17 miles from home. Alongside her was her class ring with her initials on it. That's a super sad, super sad story. So they did an autopsy that listed her cause of death as drowning. You know, because I like to repeat always that the autopsy is so so important because it gives you some facts of how, you know this person died and kind of what, what the what the person went through and that type of thing. So they did an autopsy that listed her cause of death as drowning. But it also stated that her body showed signs that she had fought for her life. That then prompted the Indiana State Police to knit to kind of call it a homicide investigation. So And what's so interesting about that is when you think about autopsies, and she's reported missing, they find her the next morning. And, you know, it appears at first that she just drowned. And so if they would have just stopped right there, right? And just said, Hey, she drowned. You know, maybe they got some information that, you know why why she would have gone to the water or whatever, then that would have been the end of it. Right? Because not every case, you have to have an autopsy, you know, and some families, you know, don't if there's not trauma that you can see, right when you get there. Sometimes you're not always going to do autopsies. And sometimes families won't request them. And then sometimes families will sometimes they like to request them when it's a suicide because they can't believe that, you know, their loved one would commit suicide. But my point is, if they hadn't done an autopsy, then they wouldn't have been investigated as a homicide because they would have known that, you know, from the autopsy that she fought for her life. So she fought for her life and then that just turn that drowning. But Chris, not only that, I mean, was she wearing a bathing suit? Why would she have been in the right? Absolutely. Why would she have been in the river at that time of day? I mean, obviously, there was something absolutely so. Um, okay, so they for the first detectives, aside of the case, had spent 1000s of hours trying to solve the murder. And I really have to get give kudos out to Indiana State Police because from the research that I did, they really investigated the hell out of this case. So Indians, state police said that they continued to work on this case for the next five decades, while a caring family obviously agonized and waited for answers, as they were investigating it. You know, her sister, his sister, I'm sorry, her sister Mitchell sister had always wondered what exactly happened to her and wondered what kind of person she would have been because she wasn't very old. She had a loving family. She had loving parents. And her sister has just been, you know, obviously agonizing over this. She wanted to know you know, she missed everything like what most people talk about when they lose a loved one. They miss prom graduations, getting married, having kids. Her sister kind of described the town and I know this is a small town laid back I mean, a type of town where you keep your front doors open, you know, unlocked and laid back town felt safe, kind of her and her sister kind of came and went as they wanted to during the summer. Parents really never worried about her. Worried about them. So investigators said that witnesses and science helped to solve the case. Okay, so it went cold. For a long, long time, and then several developments started to come in. And they, they had, they had some suspects at the beginning, but they just weren't strong enough. And they just kind of went to a dead end. But new developments came in the last just several months. So there was clothing at the scene where she was, you know, found in the water. And that was collected, her shoes were collected her sweatshirt, her bra underwear in jeans. So they did a fantastic job of collecting all of the evidence. And again, fantastic job of storing it and keeping it. So this is 1975. So, you know, kudos to them. So a DNA profile was obtained from testing or clothing, which was saved, you know, since 1975. Fast forward to the probable cause, and I'm kind of doing this a little bit backwards. But there's a reason for that the the probable cause affidavit, which is what the state needs in order to make an arrest, okay. The probable cause is the most important thing if the who, what, when, where, why it answers all of the questions, and it is a lot more than just reasonable suspicion, reasonable suspicion, you can't make an arrest. Reasonable suspicion allows you to kind of investigate it more, but reasonable suspicion alone does not allow you to make any arrests. So the probable cause affidavit stated that she was deliberately drowned and forcibly drowned. And she was abducted by the suspects in a 1971 Oldsmobile and was taken to the river. Now, this is just kind of information that they are getting a many, many, many years later. Finally, witnesses came forward who were teens at the time of the killing, and they tied two men to the crime scene based on incriminating comments about her death with that were made when they were teenagers. Okay, so the police had developed a lot, there was a witness that said that they heard at the time, right before that she was murdered, that they heard kind of a what they thought was a truck slamming, you know, in a car, and they thought it sounded like an older kind of bigger car, which later they found out was a 1971 Oldsmobile. So like I said, they came forward, they tie two people together. So based on DNA, DNA evidence and people coming forward, Fred VND, Jr, who was 67 from Goshen, Indiana, another small town, but not too far. And a John Wayne Lehmann 67, of Auburn, Indiana, which is another really, really small town kind of close, had been charged with murder. They had been suspects for many years. And they both lived within driving distance from the crime scene. So how that looks is you've got this investigation going, they obviously looked at these guys, but DNA was a lot different back then. And I don't, from what I could tell they hadn't been interviewed. They were just people of interest at that point. But not long ago. BND one of the suspects provided his DNA last December, this is really recent to the Indiana state police lab, and it determined that he was 13 billion times more likely to be a contributor of the DNA, oh, my spam on her Chloe. So 13 billion times more likely to be contributor than any other unknown person. Okay. And that's what they say it's so interesting with the DNA and how they, how they label that. I mean, DNA is left everywhere, right, like your skin cells and your and what's so great about this case is that, you know, the investigators right off the bat did exactly what they needed to do and stored the clothing and kept everything in a lab and and if he had said no, they could have gathered as DNA anyway, just picked up a cup he drank out of or is it from the trash? Right? Right, right. So the DNA testing came after three people who were teens at the time came forward. The first man in 2014 said that he had socialized with Vandy in high school. And that Bandy told him that he killed Mitchell and told him where the body was found. Okay, this is all stuff that was said in high school while they were in high school, that why they didn't go forward did they say to is was it anywhere in the story? Why he did not come for was he worried about was he concerned for his own life? I mean, that's not Yeah, excuse. But what could it have been? Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question. And I wasn't able to figure out like I would love these types of cases. You just love to go back and go, Why Why didn't you write it right? And also, how Did he live with himself this long knowing that never. Right, so the second person that he came forward in 2014, the second person came forward to 2019. Five years later told police that him and the first witness had had had attended or I'm sorry, the first suspect had attended a high school party with Bandy. And the second suspect, so he talks about being in High School and attended a party with both suspects. So there were two people arrested with this. And Mitchell's murder came up and Vandy said that he in in lemon did the murderer. Crazy. It's crazy, right? So we've got like, as teenagers, you know, and that's the thing, too, you have to understand these are still small towns. But there wasn't a social media that wasn't talked about a lot. In other words, nothing, you know, just it wasn't being circulated where you would think maybe, you know, as teenagers with social media now everything is so circulated and everything, everybody knows about everything. Well, back then, that just wasn't the case. Right. And they're teenagers, and things. So that's crazy. The third person came forward in contacted, who now lives in Florida, they moved to the Bay and moved to Florida, but contacted police in 2013. And said, this is completely interesting that she was 16. And that she was living in Noble County, Indiana, where this happened, and went out on a date with Lehman, who was the other suspect. And as he was driving, hit her home from the date he admitted to being involved with the killing with Fred brandy. So he admitted it to her while they're driving home. What from the day? That's right, exactly. And so here's somebody that lives in Florida for a long, long time that decided to come forward. But that was in 2013. And so that's still, you know, decades later after that. So wasn't even like one witness came through decades later. All of these witnesses came through decades later, what could have possibly been three witnesses that and they all knew they didn't say anything? None of them said, yeah. Well. So it's both things. So like, you have the people who and you have to ask the question, like you just said, Why the hell didn't you come forward sooner. And also, these are people that were, you know, when the investigators first got the case, if these were some people that were person of interest, and I don't know exactly, when these two guys that were eventually arrested, were a person of interest. I don't know if it had been many years, because you have to wonder if they were Person of Interest, pretty early on. And then of course, you would interview their friends in high school, and, you know, if they're talking about it, and these guys are high school people, then rumors get passed. So quickly, you know, so I just have to feel like, you know, while it had been many, many years before, you know, they had developed or figured out that he was assessed back. So on that day, he also told the girl details consistent with police findings when the body was found, in kind of how the body was positioned. So that's crazy to like, it's so crazy. And all the information later, you know, days or weeks, or months, very early on. So I had been 47 years. What's interesting is that it was Lehmann that volunteered to give did he have to volunteer to give his DNA or was he forced asked, he was asked, and he did it? But he said Yes, I know. He wants to be famous at this late age. He's not even getting sick. He's not even really getting very much. Press. He's got like one article. And I tell you, I found out about this case, because one of our listeners messaged me and said, Hey, will you will you talk about this on the on the podcast? Fabulous. So yeah. And what's so crazy is Noble County is where my very best friend's husband, Dave, who you've met is where he's from there. Yeah, he's that's where he patrolled. That's where he worked. So that's crazy, too. But anyway, so if it hadn't been, you know, 47 years later, they finally make an arrest. And if that had been for the people coming forward, they would have not had the names to get DNA. So those people came forward, told them the specific information, gave them the names. And then they got DNA. They were able to get DNA and they were able to compare it to so they tied the two men. They tied to the two men to her based on DNA, and it was kind of a done deal. So there's so many things as far as like when we talk about genetic genealogy, and what's that doing? So what DNA investigators do their job right at the scenes, you know, and they preserve it, which means that you collect it you do everything right you collected the right way. And I imagined in 1975, they then may or may not have had a crime lab unit, you know, when I worked in homicide, we have specific people there their crime lab people, and all they do. And I don't mean all they do, but what they do is come out and preserve and collect the evidence, and you just want them to do it, because that's all they do, they're trained in it, you don't want another detective picking something up, because then that becomes an issue in court. And how many people have touched in DNA, you know, you have to keep really, really specific records of who picked this piece of evidence up, what did they do with it, they backed it after they, after they backed it, they sealed it, then you've got to put the case report number on it, then you've got to put the time in the day. And if they're really good, they'll put, you know, a description of what was the weather like in those types of things. So the train people that do that, and those are the ones that say this case. But as we've talked about before genealogy, and all of that stuff has become so popular, and in his solves so many cases, and then on the flip side is gotten people out of prison, that a have maybe been on death row or two that had been in prison for many, many, many, many, many years, and are getting left out because DNA is emerging. So the listener that he wanted me to a little bit to talk a little bit about the genealogy thing. And it's kind of an interesting thing. But it really what it does is it helps to construct the family tree. And it helps us to, to you've got DNA, and Gene genealogy and those things. So if you decide that you want to do and this is how it happens, right? It started out and I don't know the the name of the companies, but you see the commercials, right? And then you learn the ancestry of, you know, your seventh cousin, you know, you're trying to get all that all that information for a family tree. So you are giving them your DNA so that you get it back. So that's what's starting to happen is people were doing it for fun and entertainment purposes. But now we've got a database of DNA. So when you have these cold cases, and you can start to develop a family tree, then you then then the work really starts, right because you have to start to eliminate and as you dig deeper, you go, Okay, well, here's, here's a cousin. And then you have to do some investigation, say, oh, my gosh, this cousin, or this friend, or this suspect lived in the area where this murder occurred, right. And you have to kind of peel back the layers of everything. But it's an amazing thing that's happening now. And it's really changing the game of of law enforcement to be able to have these DNA comparisons. And because I'm telling you, you leave your DNA everywhere you leave it everywhere, skin cells fall off of you, hair falls off of you. And then of course, touch DNA and touch DNA has been, it became really, really popular, but I didn't have a lot, I don't think I had any luck with it, we would test it a lot. And touch DNA was used a lot like if I were able to recover a gun that had the magazine in it, and had bullets in it, because it's it's a little bit of pressure on your thumb and your forefinger to load bullets into the magazine of a gun. And that's where a lot of the touch DNA when we have guns, that's what we test for to see if we can get DNA on the actual bullets. When people are pressing bullets into the magazine. I haven't had any luck with it, I I would put in for testing all the time, but I literally never had any luck with that. But again, it all comes down to preserving it. So now fast forward to 2023 when we get to these crime scenes, and you're thinking that you don't have any physical evidence, it's just such a it's such a game changer in this world, but it's specific with this investigation. You know, you have to wonder were friends interviewed, you know, they were to the to the stretch that they learned a lot about her. And of course, she was very nice and, and you know, she was working at the church and she was very, very likable and all those things, but did it go a step forward into interviewing all the people that were and from what I could tell it's it sounded like they did a really, really good job of investigating this. But you know, when people have information and it comes down to the question of what I always say, people do not give information. Why? Because they were not asked because they are not asked. It's the craziest phenomenon that I learned. One of the craziest things as a homicide investigator, I can be three or four hours into it, or I could have interviewed you five or six times. And for whatever reason, I didn't ask the question, you know, or whatever. And I'm like, and it's a really, and maybe it's my assumption that they should, that it's obvious or something. But me, and I've heard it, if I've heard it once, I've heard it 50 times, I didn't tell you because nobody asked me. And that goes back to my philosophy of like, turning over every single rock, talking to every single person that you possibly could think of, you know, to get that one answer and where it was it missed. Well, it's, it's interesting to like, when you when you hear about things, or when something's happened, maybe, like an event or something and you rewind a little bit, you're like, oh, yeah, that that kind of didn't feel right. Not even necessarily being a victim of a crime, but just kind of in your everyday life, when you're kind of just muddling through and something happens. And you're like, oh, yeah, you know, and, you know, we do that all the time. Now, with this case, I would love to contact all three of these witnesses that eventually did the right thing and go one, why did it take you too, so on? When were you first interviewed, you know, and what made you finally you know, pull the trigger, and call and give it because, like I said, Oh, my God a million times, it's always the people that solve it. It's not the place, it's not the detectives. It's the people that solve it. And this is a great example of them finally doing that. And so but, you know, from reading the articles and things, the detectives never stopped, and I love that attitude of never stopping, you know, and I, you know, I can't emphasize enough, this small town, things like this didn't happen. It reminds me a lot of the Delphi case, and I would love to get my hands on a, the, you know, more of the probable cause, or go in and interview the suspects and say, why, you know, why did you do that? And it also begs the question, what other crimes have they committed, you know, and of course, they're now being looked, they've got to be, you know, looked into that. And, from what I could tell one of the other suspects, they didn't get DNA from him. So I'm feeling that the first guy where the DNA was, was found Bandy, he probably gave up the other guy, and said that he was a partner in crime with them. So it's brand new, this literally just happened, they arrested them at their homes, there was no big deal. The police had a warrant, they went in, they didn't fight, they didn't struggle. They're older guys, now they're close to 70, that they've lived complete lives. I mean, they're in their 60s, even late 60s. Yeah, it's crazy. So hopefully, their lives over, I would be great to talk to those people in real life, and maybe with this podcast being out and in the in the, if they get much media attention, as far as the process of the case, we can learn a little bit more and circle back around, because it's like, why did you do it? You know? What's your life been? Like, since the night you murdered her? And, you know, do you have kids? Are you married, you know, all that type of stuff would be interesting to learn. What's interesting about this is the method used in this, the method used in this DNA and forensics was called standard genetic identification technology. And it's used in you know, crime labs, the shorter version of short tandem report, or I'm sorry, short tandem repeat, is the technology that is developing, it's allowing this technology that they're using, they're using is allowing smaller and smaller particles to be picked up to be tested for the DNA. I think what's happening is the smaller smaller pieces, which was harder to test for DNA, now they've got technology that can test for really small pieces of DNA. So like science and everything, it's getting to the point where really, you're not going to be able eventually to be to be able to get away with anything, unless you're in like a full body suit. You know, because because, and that's great. So the police in this case, in an article that I read, said that they interviewed over 1000 people, in these past decades, decades to try to get this case solved. So kudos to the detectives on exactly. It's just so wonderful to know, they did not give up. And they went obviously when they were able to make to make an arrest. They called Mitchell, sister and brother and told them that they you know, had made to arrest. They were surprised, but very, very grateful. And the one thing that they said to the law enforcement officers that called is that they just wish their parents were alive, you know, to see that an arrest had been made because, you know, 47 they described it, yes, it was 47 years ago, but it feels like yesterday, so it's just so sad that the parents saw they had to die not knowing, you know, that anybody was held responsible for their daughter's murder, but man, I really love to see these types of things. And again, this is a great example of two things. One, the DNA technology that's out there, and that is evolving. And then to just keep in mind to always, always, always, always, if you have information, just pass it along. And another thing too, that I've learned is that people don't give information because they weren't asked. But then people also have information, but they don't think it's relevant. And so I always tell everybody, everybody, it doesn't matter if you think it's stupid, or revelant, just tell me, it's my job to figure out if it's useful or not, you know, please just give it to me. And that happens a lot, too. And I think as time went on, you know, they probably forgot about it, or didn't maybe think it was relevant, or maybe I don't know, but I don't know how in this case, when they're describing then they are admitting that they did it. It wouldn't have been relevant. Or maybe just like, you know, did they go home and tell mom and dad, oh, my God, you know, we heard that, you know, I was out with this guy. And he said that he did it, you know, I mean, it's just, it's just crazy, because teenagers talk, right? You know, that it just didn't get further and further along where it did. But kudos to that. And I'm glad that this case got solved. And she's got a brother and sister that now hopefully can rest a little bit easier knowing that two people but of course, now the scab is going to be ripped off because now they're going to have to go through the trial in court, you know, and relive all of this stuff. You know, as they go forward in the in the criminal justice. So alright, guys. Well, thanks again, for listening or all the great comments, please share and comment on our podcast. And thank you, thanks to the listener for bringing that story to your attention, Chris. That's a very interesting story. What's the listeners name? Yeah, that gave me the idea. Absolutely. I don't even remember but I'll give a shout out next time when I go back and look but yes, I appreciate that because and then I think next episode, we're going to talk about another Indiana case. So it's interesting, you know, my Indiana listeners know about these cases are intrigued by him and asked me to talk about him and I absolutely will do that. So unfortunately, we have cold cases and bad things that happen still. So again, guys, keep your head on a swivel, stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time on murder with Medina. If you have a cold case you'd like Chris to review, submitted through our website at murder with mannina.com. And follow us on Instagram and Facebook at murder with Mannina and Twitter at murder W Mannina. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of murder with Mannina.