FORT WAYNE, IN — Thirty years after a young Fort Wayne girl was abducted and killed, police arrested a man Sunday in connection with the famous cold case. According to a recent police affidavit obtained by Patch, Fort Wayne Police Department and Indiana State Police arrested 59-year-old John D. Miller of Grabill for the 1988 homicide of 8-year-old April Tinsley.
According to a probable cause affidavit from police, the DNA recovered from the first-grader’s underwear in 1988 matched Miller’s DNA.
Police say that on April 1, 1988, Tinsley was abducted from her south-central Fort Wayne neighborhood while walking to a friend’s home. Three days later, a jogger found her body in a ditch in southern DeKalb County. She’d been sexually molested, suffocated, and dead for at least two days, police said.
In the years after the murder, police believed the killer was taunting them, and terrorizing other children in Indiana. In 1990, two years after April’s death, a confession was scrawled on the side of a barn in rural northern Indiana. “I kill 8 year old April M Tinsley,” the confession read, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In 2004, horrifying messages — along with used condoms and Polaroids showing parts of a nude man’s body — were left on little girls’ bicycles in the Fort Wayne area, with threats that the child killer would target them next. One note reportedly told a little girl to report the message to the police, threatening to blow her house up if she didn’t. Years later, those messages, including some that referred to April Tinsley, would provide authorities with DNA that matched the DNA found in April’s underwear, the Tribune reported.
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But how did authorities track down Miller three decades later?
According to the affidavit, a DNA technology company working with FWPD narrowed the suspect list down to two brothers, Miller and another man, leading police to begin surveillance at the start of this month on Miller’s mobile home and analyze his trash, recovering condoms to pull DNA from.
According to court documents, when police arrived at Miller’s home Sunday, they asked him if he knew why they were there, to which police said Miller answered, “April Tinsley,” before admitting the crime to investigators.
The police affidavit also said Miller admitted he abducted Tinsley and took her to his Grabill trailer, where he sexually assaulted and killed her by choking her for nearly 10 minutes so she wouldn’t be able to report him to authorities. Miller said he drove Tinsley’s body nearly 20 miles north to Spencerville and dumped her, the documents say.
On social media, there have been plenty of strong reactions to Miller’s arrest in this cold case.
You guys my mind is BLOWN that they finally solved that April Tinsley murder. She was found near my grandpas house and I had nightmares for months after I watched the episode on America’s Most Wanted. So happy her family finally has some peace.
— KB (@ButIts_Kendra) July 16, 2018
This was one of the most chilling cases I ever covered during my time at America’s Most Wanted. More than 30 years later, an arrest is made in April Tinsley case (praying hand emoji) #NeverGiveUpHope #AprilTinsley https://t.co/6ygRLz5GTA
— Angeline Hartmann (@AngelineDC) July 15, 2018
The original sketch of the April Tinsley suspect…and today’s mugshot, 30 years later. pic.twitter.com/qgKz8fXNCM
— Brett R Rump (@BrettRumpSports) July 16, 2018
Miller was booked into Allen County Jail Sunday on murder, child molestation and criminal confinement charges, and is scheduled to be arraigned in Allen Superior Court Monday.
Image via Indiana State Police