Bloodline Detectives - Season 2, Episode 19 - Chilling Notes from a Killer - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: April 4, 1988, Spencerville, Indiana. The body of an 8-year-old girl found by a jogger.
When the Tinsley case happened, I think it caught a lot of people off guard because that's not something
that was seen in Fort Wayne. NANCY GRACE: The 8-year-old girl has been raped and strangled dead.
This was purely a crime of opportunity. It was just an accumulation of a tragic set of events,
and now you're hearing it at firsthand. It was, it's really-- you just can't imagine the evil
that are in some people. NANCY GRACE: Eventually, the investigation goes cold but the killer leaves behind a few clues.
On the side of the barn, written, basically, I killed April Tinsley and I will kill again.
NANCY GRACE: This is the story of the murder of 8-year-old April Tinsley. It is solved because her family and investigators never
give up. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] April 1, 1988.
It's a Good Friday before Easter in Fort Wayne, Indiana. April, a second grader going to Fairfield Elementary,
is playing with her friends close to their own homes and close to West Sutton Field Street
on the south side of the city. BRIAN MARTIN: That was Good Friday. So therefore, they got what we call a half day.
They're out shortly before lunchtime. It was kind of a rainy, dreary day. And April came home and then checked in with her mother
and then started playing with friends in the neighborhood. April was playing with those friends.
Everything was going well. She was told by her mother to be home around 3:00 or shortly thereafter.
And ultimately, never made it home. KAREN RICHARDS: It was raining that day. She'd taken an umbrella.
She left about 11:30 in the morning to walk over to her little friend's house, and she was supposed
to be back by 3 and she wasn't. Her mother went over to this little friend's house
looking for her and found that her umbrella was still there. And at that point, they realized that--
or started to realize something was very wrong, something was possibly had happened to April.
And they contacted law enforcement shortly before 8 PM. NANCY GRACE: Once Fort Wayne Police were contacted,
a full on search begins. Panic started coming in. Sitting there worrying about where she's at.
And her dad come home from work and I told him. BRIAN MARTIN: Her family was very helpful looking for April.
They had actually organized a search prior to law enforcement even being called.
And they were very concerned, they were very worried. Originally, it came in as a missing child in Fort Wayne PD.
There was a massive search for her. Unusual to have maybe a report of a missing child.
Usually they're found within minutes. BRIAN MARTIN: So the plan at that time was--
Fort Wayne still had a mounted patrol, horseback patrol, K-9 units, uniform officers, patrol officers
began scouring the area, doing a canvas, looking for anybody who may have information.
But they contacted local media outlets and they did a media release, and April's picture
was shown on the television. JANET TINSLEY: Next day, we were out scanning the neighborhood
again, asking anybody if they had seen anything, went to the gas stations, asked them if they seen anything.
And they kept telling us about a blue pickup truck that's been going around the neighborhood.
Then all of a sudden that night, started panicking more knowing that I had a almost 2-years-old child [INAUDIBLE]
and think of him so I couldn't go completely nuts. But for a couple of days, I just sit in my one chair right
by the window, just stare out the window. NANCY GRACE: Three days later in Spencerville,
a small town just northeast of Fort Wayne, a jogger makes a horrific discovery. So April 4 was that call-- that day
that no one wanted that call. KAREN RICHARDS: There was somebody out jogging. And there was a barbed wire fence.
So there's the road, then there was like a little ditch, then there was a barbed wire fence.
And then this jogger saw something. And he believed it was a body, so he immediately called police.
Police came and it was indeed a body, and it was April's. BRIAN MARTIN: The worst was discovered.
They discovered the body of a young girl, believed to be April Tinsley based on what was happening.
And ultimately, April was identified. JANET TINSLEY: Had to go up to the hospital and we walked in.
And it was like, you can drop a pin and you would hear that pin drop. It was so quiet.
I wanted my sister to go with me when they-- to identify her. And when I turned this way and walked like this
and went right in front of her, I was sitting there thinking. Everybody, they kept going, is that her.
And I was sitting there, that's her. NANCY GRACE: Police launched an intense search of the April
Tinsley crime scene. They collect whatever evidence they can. BRIAN MARTIN: April was in the ditch and she was clothed
but she was missing one shoe. That shoe was ultimately found on the opposite side
of the roadway, approximately 200 feet down. And from what it appears, the body was not hidden.
It was not meant to be concealed. It looked like somebody just took April and laid her in that ditch.
I don't know that a specific theory was being looked at at that point. April was taken to the forensic center
where autopsy was conducted. And that's when we learned the manner of death was suffocation by strangulation and that there
were signs of sexual assault. KAREN RICHARDS: They tested her clothing for DNA. So they did things like that.
There was not a whole lot of evidence at the scene. One of the things they did do, though,
is they interviewed anybody that would have been there at the time. There are a few houses in that general area and, I think,
a mobile home. And they interviewed those folks as well. So there were a lot of interviews
going on at the same time. Every tip that came in was investigated thoroughly. The crime scene units in 1988 did a phenomenal job.
They collected the evidence properly. MARK HEFFELFINGER: Well, that's one of the things
is, obviously, who done this? And then is, why, why this was done and where was it done?
Did the murder occur here? Did it occurr somewhere else? Was the body dropped or?
All those things are going to be taken in consideration, which in turn is part of the evidence gathering
part because if it didn't happen here, where did it happen? Is there evidence somewhere else that would
help us determine the killer? But at that point, they had no idea. NANCY GRACE: Police know they are looking
for a vicious child killer. As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," cops also believe they've got to stop
this guy before he kills again. April 1988, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Police investigating the sex assault
and brutal murder of an 8-year-old little girl, April Tinsley. Her little body found in a ditch.
April, missing for three days. The day of April's funeral, police are looking for possible suspects.
We had over 300 people that were out searching for her. They all wanted to come to her funeral service.
They were limiting how many people comes in. And they had undercover officers acting like they work there,
because they-- like, they told me, every now and then, the suspect will want to come in and see their victims
and see how they're laying, how they look. They had little kids coming in and giving us stuffed animals.
One little girl that went to school with her, was in her first grade class came in and gave me a rabbit,
and told me she wanted this to be in with April so she can have something to play with.
NANCY GRACE: Police analyze what evidence they have so far and interview eyewitnesses to try to build a case.
CLINT HETRICK: There were several calls that came in, giving investigators different leads.
One of the things that was done was, obviously, a neighborhood canvas, going to the people that lived
on that street or that county road and just interviewing them to see if they saw anything.
And then people were calling in, and one of the tips that came in said something about a little girl
getting into a blue vehicle. BRIAN MARTIN: There was information that a child matching April's description
was seen getting into a blue pickup truck. And they gave a rough sketch of a scruffy, male, white.
And that tip was acted on and checked out very thoroughly. We have Rubbermaid tubs full of Bureau Motor
vehicle registrations from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan for blue trucks. CLINT HETRICK: Several people that called
in and gave descriptions. And from those descriptions, they actually came up with a sketch of what the person possibly
looked like. JANET TINSLEY: All of a sudden, it popped up on the news that the suspect that they're looking for
is a 6 foot, blonde hair, blond mustache, muscle built dude. MARK HEFFELFINGER: A sketch was put out.
When people look at sketches, they sometimes look too deeply into, you know, it could look like so and so,
it could look like this person. But this part of the sketch doesn't look like him
so I won't say nothing. So you've got to be careful with sketches because making a sketch from someone's memory,
it's sometimes just not always real accurate. But we're hoping that police bring a lead.
We'd rather have 1,000 leads that went nowhere that no leads at all. CLINT HETRICK: I think at one time,
we were up to almost 900 people on the suspect list. And we did use different ways to eliminate people off of that.
Most of the time what we did was if we thought we had a good suspect or a good tip
and somebody matched the profile of what we were looking for, we'd go out and talk to them
and do an interview with them and then ask them for a buccal swab, or a DNA sample.
NANCY GRACE: The FBI and DeKalb County Sheriff's Department joined Fort Wayne police in their investigation.
Then, other law enforcement join in as well, all committed to finding April Tinsley's killer.
BRIAN MARTIN: So in 1988 and even moving forward into the '90s and 2000s, DeKalb County Sheriff's Department,
Auburn Police Department, Indiana State Police, the FBI, NCMEC, the US Marshals, and Fort Wayne Police Department
work this investigation. This case, for being a cold case, was actively being worked for 30 years.
But April Tinsley's murder case is getting cold until July 1990 when April's killer seems
to reveal himself with a cryptic message written at an abandoned barn. So the barn is located on Schwartz Road
in northern Allen County, set in a pretty remote area, wasn't a lot of houses around it.
On the side of the barn, written, basically, I killed April Tinsley and I will kill again.
BRIAN MARTIN: So the message on the barn was discovered. And basically, the message was bragging
about killing April Tinsley. It had the phrase, ha, ha. And what really stuck out to investigators
and really set off the alarm bells was the phrase about the shoe-- did you find the shoe?
Prior to the barn writing, there was no mention by law enforcement to the media or to the community
about the shoe being discovered on the opposite side of the road, approximately 200 feet down.
That, in law enforcement, was a piece of evidence that was being held very close in so
that if a tip came in talking about the shoe, it would show that this was a very high priority tip
because only somebody who was present at the scene or the perpetrator of this would know that that shoe was
discovered or discarded on the opposite side of the road, 200 feet down. KAREN RICHARDS: It was scary, and there was still
a little bit of, is this the person that killed April or is this someone just playing a horrible, awful joke?
MARK HEFFELFINGER: It can be scary to a lot of people, but as a police officer, to us, that's good news
because now we have a lead. It may not go anywhere, we have a lead. It may be the suspect, it may not be.
What was scary about it was the fact that it was attention-getting. That and what followed were clearly attention-getting.
It was all about, I did it, and if you don't call the police and if it doesn't appear in the media,
I'm going to come back and kill your family and you will be mine. CLINT HETRICK: The FBI did a handwriting analysis
on the writing on the barn. There were some questions about it whether it was written that way purposely
to try to throw off police or not being able to identify who wrote it. I guess I would describe it as almost,
like, childlike language and the misspellings that you would have of a child who was trying to write bigger words than they
knew how to spell and so they were kind of sounding them out. JANET TINSLEY: The way they talked about it, first thing
came to my mind was a copycat. I said, there is somebody out there that wanted a 15 minutes of fame.
BRIAN MARTIN: It'd be devastating to be the parent of April Tinsley and find out that this individual is still
in the community or at least makes trips to the community and left a taunting message on a barn,
bragging and laughing about the death of their daughter. KAREN RICHARDS: The FBI came and did a couple
of different things for us. They did some analysis of what personality of the crime
would have been like. They compared April Tinsley's death to the death of another little girl in this community
that happened two years later. There were more differences than there were similarities,
because, I believe, the original concern was that we might have had a serial killer.
But the differences in those two homicides meant to the FBI profilers that they were probably
committed by different people. NANCY GRACE: The writings on the barn are intriguing, true,
but they lead investigators nowhere. And once again, the case goes cold. Police wonder if April Tinsley's killer may, in fact, be dead.
BRIAN MARTIN: I think that there was time that we thought maybe-- well, maybe this individual did the barn writing
because it was like a deathbed confession, they didn't have the nerve to come forward.
Or maybe that was a last ditch thing and then they took their own life. But in 2004, we realized our suspect was alive, was
well, and was moving through our community and had to be stopped. NANCY GRACE: 14 years after the barn confession,
April Tinsley's killer looks for attention again, but this time he leaves DNA evidence that could
possibly help investigators. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." 2004, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
16 long years have passed since the horrific murder of an 8-year-old little girl April Tinsley.
14 years have passed since the killer left an anonymous confession scrawled on a barn.
And now, the killer emerges to taunt police yet again. So in 2004, the answer to the question
of whether our suspect was still alive or deceased, it became very clear to us. Over the span of approximately 3 and 1/2 months,
four letters were discovered. There was a letter in all four occasion, there were used condoms left, and there was a photograph
of a male, white laying on a bedspread with his lower region exposed, his genitals exposed.
And these letters were taunting. They were bragging about killing April Tinsley,
they were saying that they were going to kill additional children. CLINT HETRICK: Obviously, the children had been watched.
The person that left the notes knew that young girls lived at these houses. And the notes were very alarming.
The person that left the notes identified themselves as the person that killed April Tinsley, referred to the girls
as, "Hi, honey," and said in the notes that he'd been watching them. KAREN RICHARDS: They're scary because they threaten
specific action to a specific person with an intent to harm children. MARK HEFFELFINGER: It was scary to the police.
However, it's, like, it's a possible-- we have something to go on now. Now, we have something to chase.
I thought he was reaching out for publicity. And we really didn't know whether it
was really the killer or not. We didn't know what somebody's just trying to claim and get some credit for doing something.
BRIAN MARTIN: They claim that they would blow up homes of families with children.
MARK HEFFELFINGER: My take on that was one, if you're going to do something like that, you're not going
to broadcast it, you're not going to give them notice that you're going to do that.
Two, somebody, as a sexual predator and blowing something up, in my opinion, that's two separate people.
BRIAN MARTIN: All of these homes were highly traveled areas, they-- the bicycles were right between the house and the street.
If you live in a city street, from the street to your front door, maybe 25, 30 feet.
This person was brazen. They were stalking our neighborhoods. They were stalking the Fort Wayne Community.
And it was a slap in the face, and it let us know that we knew this man was a monster
but we had no idea of what a monster he was. CLINT HETRICK: Shock, I guess, that somebody would
leave something like that on a little girl's bike is disturbing. It sparked concern in the community,
obviously, because this person is still out there. He's obviously still watching children.
He's threatening to kill again. The question is, is he going to make good on it?
It was determined that the semen left in the condoms with the notes on the bike was the same as the DNA
collected off of April's body. BRIAN MARTIN: I think what led me and got me through some
of those days of like, oh my gosh, this is just overwhelming, this is horrible, it's disgusting, bad days, was, we're going to get this guy.
NANCY GRACE: Investigators score a victory when DNA found at the murder scene and the DNA
on the letter matched. Then, investigators decide to approach Parabon Nanolabs for help.
CLINT HETRICK: 2014, when Parabon came about, we-- it was a new company. We didn't know much about it.
And with a cold case like this that's almost 30 years old at that time, you figure, why not?
Prior to my joining Parabon to create the genetic genealogy service for law enforcement, they already had a relationship
with Fort Wayne Police Department because they had already worked with them to create a snapshot phenotype--
and that is where you use the DNA from an unknown crime scene in order to try to predict
what somebody looks like. BRIAN MARTIN: When we had the phenotyping picture, the snapshot photo, I thought it was huge.
And I didn't even care what the photo looked like, what I was so keyed in on was eye color and hair
color, because that allowed me to work through my suspect list and kind of prioritize.
I could prioritize the people who had the eye color and hair color of our suspect.
KAREN RICHARDS: It really is a game changer. What had happened was it had been used in California.
BRIAN MARTIN: In 2018, when the Golden State Killer case broke, I started working with a state trooper named
Clint Hetrick, who was a detective for the Indiana State Police. On May 11 of 2018, I received an email from Parabon Nanolabs.
And the email told me that they had a new technique that was being put out to law enforcement
and they believed that the Tinsley case would be a good case to use this technology.
And that technology was described to me to be investigative genetic genealogy. KAREN RICHARDS: When he contacted
these folks at Parabon, it was a total game changer. Because without that, we never would have solved this crime.
This man had hidden in plain sight ever since 1988. He'd never moved. NANCY GRACE: Parabon's scientists start the tedious
work of cross-referencing the known DNA sample with a DNA library. They are looking for a family member related to the killer.
CECE MOORE: Really, I just had the crime scene DNA. And I needed to identify the people that were sharing DNA
with April's killer, build their trees, and try to find patterns, overlaps, consistencies in those trees, and then
identify common ancestors. Then, build those common ancestors' descendants toward the present and try to find who in the world
would be related to all of these top matches. So the people that were sharing the most significant amounts
of DNA with April's killer. If I could figure out how all those pieces fit together,
how all of those people at the top of the list could fit into one person's family tree,
then I would know who the killer was. BRIAN MARTIN: CeCe starts telling me that she's getting strong triangulation on the case.
Triangulation ultimately meant we were getting hits on the mother and the father's side of our sample, which
is good because then she can start building the family tree out. You know, we'd been on a lot of roller coaster rides
with this case, so I felt we were at a high point. And then I was, like, trying to prepare myself
for the bottom to drop out. CeCe says one afternoon, I need you to see if you can give me a call.
CLINT HETRICK: So Detective Martin and I are sitting in an office with our bosses
and CeCe sends us a presentation that she had put together. CECE MOORE: In this case, we didn't
have any really strong matches. Our top match looked like it might be a third cousin,
but the good news is we had a lot of supporting matches. So we had quite a number of matches
that were around third cousins. BRIAN MARTIN: CeCe said, you know, Brian, we've been talking a lot.
We had some strong triangulation. We went from thinking second cousin twice removed to [INAUDIBLE] possibly a great grandparent.
She goes, but I have to tell you we were not able to do that. And I think all of us just kind of looked at each other
and just like, there it is, there's the bottom dropping out again. You know, we were climbing, climbing.
We felt so optimistic, and then just have our legs kicked out from under us again.
CECE MOORE: And I was able to build four different sets of matches, or genetic networks
is what I call them. And then I knew that the suspect had to descend from all four
of those sets of common ancestors for each of the genetic networks. When you have that much data to work with,
it allows you to really narrow down to very few people. And it allowed me to narrow to just one immediate family
who had three sons. She paused for several seconds and she goes, but I got it narrowed down between two brothers.
And I think we all had some choice words that we blurted out. I get goose bumps as we're talking about it.
It's just-- I can't explain the enormous feeling you have thinking, oh my gosh, we may be, we may be having
something here, you know? CECE MOORE: At that point, my genetic genealogy work stops.
I can't tell the difference between two full brothers because they have the exact family tree.
So through genetic genealogy, once you get to that set of siblings, my work is done,
and law enforcement then has to determine which of those brothers is the suspect.
BRIAN MARTIN: Our very next question, I think we all said at the same time, are they alive?
She said, yes, they're both alive. She goes, I cannot tell you which brother it is,
but it's narrowed down between two brothers. She said there were actually three brothers but one
was deceased and is excluded because of the timing with the letters and when that individual passed away.
Clint Hetrick and I began digging into the computer database. We realized that one brother, being John Miller,
had had some involvements in 2002, 2003 where he was making rude, inappropriate comments to women and children
in the parking lots of a grocery store. And we felt that this was the kind of activity
that we thought somebody like this would do-- taunting letters, message on a barn, a predator.
CLINT HETRICK: One of the things we actually did was pulled his driver's license signature.
And we noticed that his signature was very similar to the writing on the notes and to the writing on the barn.
KAREN RICHARDS: So we focused our attention on John Miller and set up surveillance within about an hour of the phone call
with CeCe Moore. And we had two other detectives begin surveillance on the other individual, his brother.
CECE MOORE: When you're able to connect the family trees of the matches to a person of interest, mother's
and father's side and multiple grandparent lines, I feel very confident at that point
because I know that there's very unlikely to be anyone else in the whole world that has that same set
of unique ancestors. NANCY GRACE: 30 long years after 8-year-old little April Tinsley
is viciously raped and murdered, police finally have a suspect, his name, John Miller.
As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," investigators now need Miller's DNA to close this case.
Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2018. Police now have a solid suspect in the 1988 murder of an 8-year-old little girl, April Tinsley.
But now, they must obtain his DNA and try to match it to DNA found on little April.
KAREN RICHARDS: They had a plan and their plan worked. They wanted to surveil him, figure out where he worked,
what he did every day. BRIAN MARTIN: John Miller lived in a trailer home in Grabill, Indiana.
And he was working at a Walmart supermarket in Kendallville, Indiana, which was approximately
20 minutes from his home. We learned that John lived alone. The first time we saw John, we were kind of in disbelief
because he walked out of the trailer and went to get in his vehicle, and he was walking like a broken, old man.
What was very concerning to us, from the front door of John's trailer to a public baseball and softball diamond
and park where children played was about 200 feet. KAREN RICHARDS: In Indiana, once you
put your trash out to be picked up, legally, it's abandoned property. MARK HEFFELFINGER: The detectives picked up the trash,
brought it to a location in Fort Wayne where, at that time, I was a crime scene investigator.
I went through his trash, looking for anything that might have his DNA on it. Initially, I started going through the first bag of trash
and I found a pop can. I was excited. Oh, we got a pop can. As I continue to dig through this dirty bag of trash,
I found a used condom. I went-- I was elated. I was probably yelling and carrying on
and people looked at me funny because I was excited over finding a used condom. But it was-- to me, it was this is it.
CLINT HETRICK: I was surprised, didn't expect to find that in there. And it was almost creepy that the thing that he left
on a girl's bike with a note was going to be the thing that we used to get his DNA.
BRIAN MARTIN: We found out, three days later, that the DNA that we took from the condoms that were in John
Miller's trash was consistent and identified him and positively identified him as the individual who left
the used condoms and the letters in 2004, as well as left the DNA evidence on April's body,
in April's clothing back in 1988. And we knew we had our killer. NANCY GRACE: After 32 years, over three decades,
investigators finally IDed the killer of 8-year-old April Tinsley. Now, police must arrest him and bring him to justice.
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2020. Police close in on the killer of 8-year-old little April
Tinsley. This little girl murdered and sex assaulted 32 years before. Her body, dumped in a ditch off the side of the road.
Now, police are ready to make a bust and arrest a man named John Miller. CLINT HETRICK: It was decided that Detective Martin and I
were going to approach John Miller at his residence when he got home from work from Walmart.
And I believe it was about 7 o'clock in the morning. He pulled up in front of his trailer and Brian
and I were waiting across the street, and we approached him as he was getting out of his car.
BRIAN MARTIN: We introduced ourselves, and we told John that we needed his help and we would like him to come with us
so that we could talk to him. John rode with us. John never once asked us what we needed his help with.
Once we're at the police station, we took John up to an interview room. He was advised of his rights.
KAREN RICHARDS: I was there, my chief deputy was, there the prosecutor from DeKalb County,
and we all sat and watched the interview. I could hardly breathe. BRIAN MARTIN: I asked John if he had any idea what he thought
I wanted to talk to him about. And John looked at me and he said, Tinsley. The hairs on my neck stood up.
I wanted to jump out of my chair, but I knew that I had to remain very emotionless and calm.
And I said, we really need to talk about this. And I was able to get John to tell me
the details of the abduction of April Tinsley. MARK HEFFELFINGER: It really wasn't an interrogation,
it was more of an interview. They ask him a question and he would answer it without hesitation.
He was-- didn't seem to be hiding anything at this point. BRIAN MARTIN: John stated that he drove
the neighborhoods of Fort Wayne all the time, looking for a child to take. And on this particular day, he was down
around April's neighborhood and he had made his mind up that he was going to take a child.
He didn't specifically stalk April, she was a target of opportunity for John. John stated that he was in his blue Mercury
Lynx, not a pickup truck, it's like a small Ford Escort. He said that he saw April walking.
She was walking alone. He passed her. He pulled about a block to two blocks up in front of her,
pulled his car to the curb, got out of his vehicle, was standing next to his vehicle.
He had a letter opener that looked like a knife. He said he approached April, said, get in my car.
And he got April into the car. And he said that he would not hurt her if she did what he asked her to do.
John stated he then drove her to his trailer in Grabill, Indiana where he assaulted her and then ultimately killed her.
CLINT HETRICK: No signs of remorse. His demeanor throughout the interview was pretty well the same throughout the whole thing.
Didn't know what to think. I think there was some relief-- the fact that we finally
knew what happened, we had a confession, the case was going to be closed, April's family
was going to know what happened to her, and then the fact that we're going to be able to put this guy behind bars
for the rest of his life. JANET TINSLEY: And we looked out the window, and I seen a white SUV, then a black SUV,
and another black SUV, there was four of them, come in and stand there and they go, we got
a picture we want to show you. They go, have you ever seen him around the neighborhood, talk
to anybody? And I'm sitting there like, nope. And they go, well, we got some more news,
we arrested him this morning. And it's like, you're standing here and it's, like, it just went over your head.
Your thinking, it's never going to get solved because it's 32 years. It's like, never imagined it's ever going to come.
It's just an accumulation of a tragic set of events, and now you're hearing it firsthand.
It was, it's really-- you just can't imagine the evil that are in some people. CLINT HETRICK: He said he would drive
around and just watch people. And he-- I don't think he was ever had the opportunity, unfortunately,
like with April to take another little girl. I think, given the opportunity, he would have,
but April, unfortunately, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he saw an opportunity
and took it. BRIAN MARTIN: John had made his mind up on that April 1st that he was going out hunting and he was going
to take a child and abduct him, he was going to sexually assault them. Whether he was going to kill them or let them go,
I believe John knew all along that he was going to kill them because he didn't want to be found out.
KAREN RICHARDS: And what I thought was particularly troubling in his own bizarre mind
is that the note on the barn and the four notes from 2004. He did that because nobody was paying
attention to him anymore. I felt that John was disgusting. To tell you what I wanted to have happen to John,
I would never say publicly. But John's a monster. CLINT HETRICK: Detective Martin and I were working on this case
still after the confession, getting everything wrapped up that we needed to. And prosecutor's office, wasn't too long afterwards,
told us that he was going to plead guilty and accept a plea deal. JANET TINSLEY: When they had him and then when
we had to go to court, when I walked in there, I was in the front row. And when he came in, he wouldn't look up at none of us,
he looked at the table. MARK HEFFELFINGER: I know what I feel about the death penalty,
but to me it was entirely in the family's hands what they felt should happen. BRIAN MARTIN: When they told me that he was going to spend
the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, I was fine with that.
KAREN RICHARDS: I mean, I-- this sounds horrible, but I've been doing this for 41 years, I'd pull the switch.
I'd pull a switch tomorrow and I wouldn't have one bad thought about doing it, not one.
BRIAN MARTIN: Using investigative genetic genealogy, we are taking the monsters out of the darkness.
We're taking people who are hiding in plain sight, who think they've gotten away with horrendous crimes,
and we're making them accountable and we're making them pay for what they've done.
KAREN RICHARDS: When I tell you he was hiding in plain sight, he really was. He worked, lived in the same place.
Without the DNA connection, we never would have found him. BRIAN MARTIN: I don't know if there's justice.
There's not closure. I don't believe in the word closure. I don't know, as a parent, how you
can bury your child after being taken in such a violent, senseless way. I don't know that we can ever understand that.
CLINT HETRICK: Every year, Detective Martin and I would attend a memorial service at April's garden.
April's garden is located here in Fort Wayne. It's just a nice memorial to her. JANET TINSLEY: I'll sit there and talk to her,
and tell her that mom is here. And then all of a sudden-- you'll be sitting there and all of a sudden, here
comes a white butterfly, and it'll fly around and it'll come out right in front of me
and it'll sit there and flap it's wings. And everybody keeps telling me that that's April.
They named that butterfly April. There are scarcely words to explain why this world could
lose such a beautiful, innocent little girl to a monster like Miller. But when you listen to Janet Tinsley,
you realize the ultimate power of love. And you realize her daughter April lives on through her.
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here at "Bloodline Detectives."

In 1988 in Fort Wayne, Janet Tinsley reports her 8-year-old daughter April missing after she fails to return home. Three days later, a man out jogging makes a gruesome discovery in a nearby ditch.

A compelling new True Crime series, hosted by preeminent legal analyst and renowned former prosecutor Nancy Grace, that explores the advanced form of familial DNA testing.

Brief Summary

The murder of April Tinsley is solved after 30 years when DNA links John Miller to the crime.

Key points

The Discovery of April Tinsley. The body of 8-year-old April Tinsley is discovered by a jogger, shocking the community.
The Barn Message. A chilling message is found on a barn, taunting police and hinting at the killer's identity.
DNA Evidence Links to the Past. In 2004, DNA evidence connects the killer to the crime, reigniting the investigation.
DNA Leads to Suspect. After decades, police identify John Miller as the suspect in April Tinsley's murder.
Finding the Evidence. Detectives find crucial DNA evidence in John Miller's trash, linking him to the crime.
The Confession. John Miller confesses to the details of April's abduction and murder during an interview.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was just an accumulation of a tragic set of events.

Nancy Grace describes the circumstances surrounding the case.

0:38WatchJun 1, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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