by Mike Riley
Was a mental illness or hallucination the reason two innocent girls had been killed so brutally, and why so many bullets had been fired? For both girls, multiple shots could have been the cause of death. Sweat was adamant that he had never seen two girls on the dirt road that afternoon, only monsters.
Current Status:
In 2014, Sweat pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. In return for waiving his right to a jury trial, the prosecution did not seek the death penalty. Instead, a judge would decide the verdict and sentencing.
Court documents suggest that Sweat may have held a grudge for unknown reasons against Paschal-Placker’s family. However, because of his guilty plea, this information was not made public. The only known motive for murdering Taylor was that he didn’t want to marry her.
Was that all it was, or had she discovered that he’d killed the two girls years before? Did he want her out of the way, or perhaps Sweat simply had an unpredictable violent streak that erupted twice with deadly consequences?
In October of 2014, Sweat attacked one of his lawyers while meeting in the judge’s chambers. He cut the man across the neck with a razor blade. The man survived, but after the incident no longer represented Sweat.
Sweat then tried to withdraw his guilty plea, but it was rejected. The judge sentenced Sweat, who was then twenty-eight, to three life sentences without the possibility of parole.
A memorial to Whitaker and Paschal-Placker remains on the side of the road where they were tragically killed. An angel statue stands surrounded by flowers, toys, and a music box.
Thankfully, the Whitaker and Paschal-Placker families did not have to wait decades for justice for their daughters.
Led Astray
Victim: Jessica Lyn Keen
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Suspect: Marvin Lee Smith, Jr.
Date of Crime: March 17, 1991
Date of Conviction: February 7th, 2009
Backstory:
Jessica Lyn Keen was a fifteen-year-old girl from Columbus, Ohio. She was a model student, on the honor roll and also a cheerleader.
When she met Shawn Thompson, an eighteen-year-old young man from central Ohio, her life seemed to change. After she starting seeing Thompson, she quit cheerleading and her grades dropped. She reportedly skipped school frequently to see him.
Her parents objected to her relationship with Thompson, and in March 1991 they placed her in a home for troubled teens. Called Huckleberry House, it was a safe house and crisis center for runaways and troubled teens in Columbus, Ohio.
On The Day In Question:
On March 15, 1991 Keen left Huckleberry House after having a fight with her boyfriend. She had said she was going to the mall. She never returned, and the last time anyone had seen her alive was at a bus stop.
On March 17, Keen’s body was found at the back of Foster Chapel Cemetery. The cemetery was located twenty miles away from Huckleberry House.
Her body had been badly beaten, and she had been raped. She was dressed only in a single sock and a torn, dirty bra. Although she still had on her ring and watch, a pendant had been taken.
Investigation:
Police were immediately suspicious of her boyfriend, Thompson. However, DNA evidence cleared him of any involvement.
Evidence at the crime scene suggested that she had run from her attacker and tried to hide in the cemetery. Her other sock was found elsewhere on the grounds, and the imprint of knees in the mud behind a gravestone were also found nearby. Her body lay near a fence, where presumably her attacker had caught up with her.
With no further suspects to test the DNA evidence against, and not much other evidence to go on, the case grew cold. It would stay that way for over a decade.
Meanwhile, Marvin Lee Smith, Jr. was serving a nine-year sentence for two unrelated attempted assaults, both against women and in the Columbus area. During his prison term, a law was passed and went into effect that required inmates to submit their DNA to a statewide database.
As technology improved, in 2008 the DNA from Keen’s case was run, and it matched the sample from Smith. By that time, Smith had been released from prison, and was living in Burlington, North Carolina. North Carolina police arrested him and charged him with unlawful sexual conduct with Keen, taking another fresh DNA sample to verify the match.
With the DNA match verified, an extradition hearing was set for April 30, 2008. Smith appeared in court in Madison County and admitted that he had raped and murdered Keen.
He told the court that he had abducted her from the bus stop in his car. Keen escaped from his car and ran into the cemetery, where she collided with a fence poll and fell over. He beat Keen to death with a gravestone, later discarding it over a fence.
Current Status:
By confessing, Smith avoided the death penalty. He pled guilty to one count of aggravated murder, with specifications of rape. He was sentenced to thirty years to life in prison.
When he was arrested, Keen’s sister was quoted as saying “Everything in my life is measured against her loss. Time is marked before and after her death.”
The Body in the Side Table
Victim: Cynthia Epps
Location: Buffalo, New York
Suspect: James Fountain
Date of Crime: June 30, 1994
Date Convicted: July 13, 2012
Backstory:
Cynthia Epps was a twenty-nine year old woman who lived in Buffalo, New York. She was born on August 21, 1964 and had two young daughters. She lived at 25 Colfax Street in Buffalo, which is 1.7 miles from 142 Montana Street where her body was found.
On The Day In Question:
On June 30, 1994, a man named James Fountain called police to report a grisly find in his yard. A woman’s badly injured body had been stuffed into a side table next to his garage. Her body was wrapped in a blanket, and when police investigated, they were horrified to find she had been nearly hacked up. Epps had been stabbed many times, and had nearly been decapitated.
Investigation:
An autopsy was done and DNA evidence was collected. Fountain denied ever meeting Epps prior to finding her body, and cooperated with the investigation. He was not charged and neither was anyone else. The case grew cold.
In 2010, Epps’s case was reopened. The two detectives handling the case were Charles Aronica and Lissa Redmond, both of the Buffalo Police Department Cold Case Squad. They worked in conjunction with prosecutor Gary Hackbush. Fountain was looked at again, and this time the investigators made a concerning discovery.
Back in 1977, Fountain had been convicted in Queens County for manslaughter in the second degree. He also had a conviction from 1984 for rape in the first degree, and attempted rape in the first degree in 1996. Clearly, he was a dangerous and violent man.
Fountain was currently living at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, New York, having been placed there on an indefinite civil confinement. State law required that he submit a DNA sample, so his DNA was now available in the state database. Investigators ran it against the vaginal swab taken at Epps’s autopsy, and it matched. Fountain had been no innocent bystander.
Based on the DNA evidence discovery, Fountain was re-questioned by investigators. He still denied ever knowing Epps, and also denied having any contact with her at all before he found her body.
However when he was told of the DNA match he finally gave in, and admitted to having sex with Epps and then brutally stabbing her. He told investigators that he tried to sever her head and leg to make the body easier to get rid of.
James Fountain appeared before a grand jury, and an indictment of murder in the second degree was returned. He pled guilty and on July 13, 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Current Status:
Epps’s sister stated in court that she forgave her sister’s murderer, and did not harbor any ill will towards him.
Fountain’s convictions for manslaughter and rape both occurred before Epps’s murder. You have to wond
er why police did not discover his prior convictions and take a closer look at him when her body was discovered. Instead, her murder remained unsolved for eighteen years.
Young Mom Home Alone
Victim: Amy Weidner
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Suspect: Troy Jackson, Rodney Denk
Date of Crime: November 13, 1989
Date of Conviction: June 14, 2013
Backstory:
Amy Weidner was a sixteen-year-old who lived with her family in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her mother Gloria was raising her and her siblings on her own.
Weidner had three siblings, two sisters and a brother. Her family remembers her as a girl who loved school, who would probably one day be a teacher herself. She helped out around the home, and was much loved by her mother and siblings.
Becoming pregnant at just fourteen years old, Weidner was the proud mother of a two-year-old daughter, named Emily. The father was seventeen years old and a good friend of her older brothers.
Her mother did not want her to stay involved with him, wanting Weidner to concentrate on finishing her education. Emily was born in October 1987, and Weidner returned to school just six days later.
After her daughter was born, family and teachers say that Weidner became more focused and responsible. She still found time to have fun with her friends, her mother helping her out with babysitting.
On The Day In Question:
On November 13, 1989, Weidner woke up feeling unwell. Her mother offered to take Emily to a babysitter for the day, but Weidner said she would keep her at home with her. Leaving for the day, Gloria called the house around 9:30am to check up on Weidner, but there was no answer.
After she didn’t answer a second call, Gloria rang a neighbor and asked her to go and check on Weidner and Emily. The neighbor went around and knocked on the door, but no one answered. She called Gloria back and told her.
Gloria immediately left work and came home, only to discover a horrific scene. Weidner was lying dead on her bed. She had been both beaten and then strangled. Her daughter Emily was still in the house and unharmed.
Gloria removed Emily from the house and called 911.
Investigation:
The news of Weidner’s death spread quickly, and by the time school was done for the day a reporter was at the school asking questions. Perhaps because Weidner was a teenage mother and must have led a stressful life, the first thought of some at the school was that she had committed suicide. It was soon confirmed however that Weidner had been murdered.
Captain Jack Geilker from the Sheriff’s office, one of the first on the scene, said it was one that he won’t forget. Weidner had lacerations to her head, and was lying naked. There were bloody prints across the crime scene, and it was obvious her death had been a violent one. Police discovered that she had also been raped before death. Worse yet, two-year-old Emily had been left on her own with her mother’s dead body.
A police officer specializing in interviewing victims was at the scene, and he talked to Emily. He used finger puppets to help Emily explain what she remembered, the two year old showing how she ran back and forth from her own room to Weidner’s, and then to her grandmother’s bedroom. Emily said that “Mamy was mean”, her word for fighting.
Investigators’ first thoughts were that Weidner’s death was a robbery gone wrong. Stereo equipment and money were both missing from the home, and a back door was found open.
Police questioned many people close to Weidner, including her friends and family. Some of the interviews were accusatory, including the one with her older brother, but no one was arrested or charged with Weidner’s death.
The outpouring of grief over Weidner’s death was large, with many students at the school finding it hard to understand. Attempting to find further leads, detectives attended her funeral. One of the people who came to their attention was Tony Abercrombie, Emily’s father. However, he spoke fondly of Weidner and had an alibi. He had been at work when a friend called him to tell him what had happened.
Attention then turned to another man, Troy Jackson. Jackson lived in the house behind the Weidners, and police discovered that he had known about the stolen stereo equipment already on the day of the murder.
Police photographed his hands, noting that he didn’t have any injuries himself indicative of being involved in a struggle. He also passed a polygraph test. DNA was still in its infancy, but a hair sample he submitted did not match anything found in Weidner’s room. Investigators moved on.
Weeks turned into months and with no arrest. Weidner’s friends and family found themselves wondering if there would forever be an unknown killer in their midst. Police believed that Weidner had known her killer, and with no leads, fear and suspicion grew every day.
In 2002, a call came in to the Indianapolis Police cold case squad. The officer who took the call, Lieutenant Spurgeon, was not personally familiar with Weidner’s case, but the caller seemed to know many details. However, there was not much revealed that couldn’t have been seen in the media of the time.
The call ended up being a dead end, but it sparked Spurgeon’s interest in the case. He read up on the case and investigated a few persons of interest, but nothing new was uncovered. Spurgeon moved on to another area, but the case remained with the cold case unit.
In 2011, in response to a newspaper article, friends of Weidner created a “Remembering Amy Weidner” page on Facebook. No one in the cold case department was overly familiar with Facebook, but they knew someone who understood it intimately, Detective William Carter, who was a nuisance abatement officer. He was asked to go over the memorial page on Facebook, but not knowing anything about the case himself he decided to read the case file as well.
Carter found he could not forget Weidner’s face from her photo, and started working on the case on his own time, re-examining more than two decades worth of evidence. Collating all the old evidence into digital form, he noticed that some original possibilities had been overlooked.
For example, many friends of Weidner’s had been talked to, but none had ever given a DNA sample. Weidner had already been involved with one of her brother’s friends, could she have been in a secret relationship with another? For Officer Carter, the case became personal. He was determined to solve it.
He re-contacted Weidner’s family and friends to see if they had since remembered anything else, and also started collecting DNA from anyone who police had originally investigated. During the original investigation, police had canvassed the neighborhood and recorded the names of everyone who lived there. Carter found that for the most part, people had moved on. So, he started the long process of tracking them down.
One person who Carter found was Joy Haney, who had been a friend of Weidner’s and lived across the street. He asked her if anyone now stuck out in her mind from that date. Most of the names she gave him, he already knew. But one had never been mentioned before. The name was Rodney Denk.
Also a friend of her older brother’s, the family recalled him as being a regular kid. He hung out with Weidner’s brother often, going fishing and riding their bikes around. The family described Denk as being a quiet young man, mostly keeping to himself.
Carter investigated and found him living with his mother. He worked at an auto shop, and was divorced with a son. Carter left his card, and when Denk called him, Carter told him that he wanted to speak to him regarding Weidner. Denk agreed to meet at his house, but when Carter arrived he was nowhere to be seen.
Suspicions raised, Carter ran Denk’s background and found that he had been arrested previously two times, for battery in 1991 and larceny in 1997. Now with interests piqued, he ran the prints from Denk’s arrest against a bloody handprint from Weidner’s wall. Still, he was stunned when it came back as a match. Finally after more than twenty years, they had a suspect.
Likely deciding that the past had finally caught up with him, Denk had disappeared. Using a fugitive task force unit, Carter tracked him with his credit car
d. Denk had used his card to hire a car that happened to have a tracking device installed.
Using that, police found him visiting a friend in Indianapolis. When police approached him, Denk pulled out a knife. Yelling that he didn’t do it, Denk attempted to cut his wrist, but was apprehended by police before he could do any serious damage to himself or others.
Denk was taken to the hospital, and Weidner’s family and friends were stunned when they learned who the police had arrested. Denk had been a good friend to them, and had even attended Weidner’s funeral, signing the guestbook.
Looking through the old notes, Carter made a discovery. Denk had been named as a person of interest to the police before, back when Weidner was originally killed. Despite that, he was never interviewed or investigated, and was not mentioned anywhere else in the case notes. The person who had mentioned him? Tony Abercombie, Emily’s father.
