Slaughter on North Lasalle

by Robert L. Snow

  On December 25, 1995, Chastain wrote another letter, this one addressed to Christ and Briley, who had interviewed him in Florida. In this letter, he said that he was sorry, but that he had lied to everyone about the North LaSalle Street murders. He said that he made up the part about Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters because the detectives had shown him the picture of a man with a Teamsters jacket on, and so he’d incorporated that detail into his story. He also said that the reason he’d lied was because he hoped that the authorities would bring him to Indianapolis, so he could visit with his family. But more importantly, he said, he wanted to finally meet Carol Schultz because they were in love with each other. (The two of them had only had contact over the telephone and through the mail.)

  In her response to Floyd Chastain’s profession of love, Carol Schultz, according to an article in the May 9, 1996, issue of the Indianapolis Star, told Chastain on the telephone that she loved him, too. However, in an article in the August 11, 1996, issue of the Indianapolis Star, she insisted that she’d meant she loved him as a Christian. Apparently, however, that wasn’t how Chastain had taken it. Chastain told the police he wanted to marry Schultz, and that he had even sent her a ring from prison.

  Carol Schultz, while facing opposition from a Prosecutor’s Office that wouldn’t issue the arrest warrant she wanted, eventually found that some of her former coworkers in the newspaper business were also beginning to question the credibility of her investigation. In the April 11, 1996, issue of the Indianapolis Star, a reporter tells of an interview with a man named Carl E. Kierner, who said he knew Carroll Horton, Mary Cavanaugh, and Floyd Chastain. Although at the time of the interview in 1996 Kierner owned a taxicab company, in the 1970s he had worked in Horton’s garage. He told the reporter that he couldn’t believe it when he heard the news of Horton being accused of the North LaSalle Street murders. Kierner said he was stunned because he was the one who had introduced both Chastain and Cavanaugh to Horton, and that the introductions had taken place long after 1971. Kierner told the reporter that in the mid-1970s Floyd Chastain had come into Horton’s business looking for parts for a car he was working on. He said that he then introduced Chastain to Carroll Horton, who eventually hired Chastain as a mechanic. Reportedly, Chastain and Horton became very close and worked together attempting to design an engine that could run on alcohol and acetylene. The idea didn’t work, and soon afterward Chastain ended up in prison. According to Kierner, though, for some reason Chastain had believed that the idea had actually worked, and that Horton had made a million dollars off of it. Kierner said that Chastain then began calling and threatening Horton, claiming that he had been cheated out of his share of the profits.

  Kierner also said that in the 1970s, he had been dating Mary Cavanaugh, who he recalled had been a very attractive woman, although a heavy drinker. She apparently had a car that needed a new engine, and so he had it towed to Horton’s garage. In January 1974, he told the reporter, he introduced Cavanaugh to Horton. The two of them hit it off right away and developed a very close relationship. Kierner said that Horton helped Cavanaugh financially, and even babysat for her children.

  Along with Carl Kierner’s list of discrepancies in the story Cavanaugh told, however, Carol Schultz herself said that Chastain had first told her that it had been a woman named Diane (Carroll Horton’s ex-wife) who had been in the house on the night of the murders. His story changed later, though, and the woman became Mary Cavanaugh.

  Another news story appeared two weeks later that cast even further doubt on the credibility of Carol Schultz’s investigation. In an April 28, 1996, article in the Indianapolis Star, a reporter tells about interviewing a friend of Carroll Horton’s named Joe Chapman, whose mother-in-law, Verna Fisher, had been murdered. Chapman told the reporter that Schultz contacted him and said that she knew who had killed Verna, and that she was interested in the reward they had offered. Schultz had left her job at the Indianapolis News several years earlier and perhaps needed the money.

  Schultz then met with the family and let them hear an audiotape of a conversation she’d had with Chastain, in which he talked about Fisher’s murder. (Apparently, Chastain had confided to Schultz that Horton killed Verna.) Chapman said he had the feeling, though, that Schultz was actually more interested in solving the North LaSalle Street killings than his mother-in-law’s. Nevertheless, according to the article, Chapman and his wife accompanied Schultz to her home, where Chapman said he was surprised to see that Schultz apparently had some of the original crime scene photos from the North LaSalle Street case. When Schultz had to leave the house for a few minutes, Chapman said he and his wife looked around and found stacks of love letters addressed to Schultz from Chastain. The article tells that in one of the letters from Chastain he said that he was sure Schultz could help get him out of prison. They would then be married.

  Feeling unsure of Carol Schultz now, the Chapmans said they wanted to test her, so they told her that they were going to lay a trap for Carroll Horton by telling him that Floyd Chastain’s sister had some incriminating evidence with his fingerprints on it hidden in her house. However, in fact, they didn’t contact Horton at all.

  The next day, according to the article, Schultz called the Chapmans and said that their trap had worked perfectly. Schultz told them that Chastain’s sister had called her and said that Horton had contacted her and threatened her if she didn’t destroy the incriminating evidence. As far as the Chapmans were concerned, Schultz’s credibility had been shattered.

  Schultz’s credibility with law enforcement also began to falter. The police officers involved in the renewed investigation of the North LaSalle Street murders really weren’t interested in Schultz’s increasingly odd beliefs that the murders had been carried out by Jimmy Hoffa in exchange for executive clemency from President Nixon. In one note Schultz sent to Detective Jon Layton, she told him that Sherriff McAtee didn’t want to hear about Hoffa. Eventually, Detective Layton also wouldn’t want to hear from Schultz. Before then, however, Schultz told Layton that all she wanted to do was to meet with Chuck Colson and play Chastain’s tape about the meeting at Tommy’s Starlight Palladium Bar. She said she wanted to look him in the eye and have him deny it. But Colson continued to refuse to meet with her. Schultz told Detective Layton about an unsuccessful attempt to interview Chuck Colson while he was attending an event in Tennessee, leading her to believe even more in Chastain’s story. She believed it even though she herself later said that she knew Chastain had been reading up on Hoffa in books at the prison library.

  As for Floyd Chastain, despite changing his story several times, recanting his statements, and then recanting his recantation, he wasn’t through yet with his revelations. After telling Schultz about the meeting between White House aide Chuck Colson and Jimmy Hoffa, Chastain later also wrote Schultz a letter in which he claimed he was involved in the murder of Jimmy Hoffa. He even drew her a map of where they had buried Hoffa’s body.

  Despite the changed stories and recantations, through her conversations with Chastain, Carol Schultz became sold on the idea that the North LaSalle Street murders had been part of a much larger national conspiracy. She became convinced that the victims on North LaSalle Street had somehow gotten their hands on top secret microfilm that could damage the Nixon White House. As a result, she believed, the White House had arranged to have them murdered in order to get the microfilm back. She believed this unreservedly.

  Yet still, the Prosecutor’s Office refused to issue arrest warrants, no matter how much she felt they should. But in November 1994, Prosecutor Jeff Modisett lost in the general election and a new prosecutor came into office in January 1995. Schultz was elated and became determined to make this new prosecutor acknowledge the proof she believed she had. She was sure she would get the arrest warrant she wanted, and the case would be closed.

  1 Denotes pseudonym

  2 Denotes pseudonym

  3 Denotes pseudonym

  CHAPTER TEN

  The new prosecutor,
Republican Scott Newman, came into office in Marion County, Indiana, on January 1, 1995, replacing Democrat Jeffrey Modisett. While Modisett had sensed that the case against Carroll Horton was weak at best, and as a result hadn’t allowed it to be prosecuted, Newman apparently didn’t agree. Carol Schultz claimed that when running for office, Newman had pledged to do everything he could to solve the decades-old triple murder. After being elected, he kept his word and sent the case against Horton to the local grand jury for review, which then looked at it for over a year. The grand jurors heard from a number of witnesses, including Floyd Chastain and Mary Cavanaugh. Carol Schultz, who also testified, said that she had additionally prepared a lengthy written report for them to look at.

  On March 6, 1996, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office held a meeting with Prosecutor Newman, Deputy Prosecutors Sheila Carlisle and Ralph Staples, Wendy Hinson (daughter of victim Robert Hinson), and Ted Gierse. According to notes from the meeting, Newman told the gathering that although he’d sent the case to the grand jury, he didn’t expect them to come back with an indictment. Like Modisett, Newman said he felt that the two main witnesses in the case, Floyd Chastain and Mary Cavanaugh, were totally unreliable.

  Newman pointed out how Chastain had changed his story repeatedly, recanting his previous story, and then recanting his recantation. And in the end, Chastain had admitted that all he’d really wanted was just to come back to Indiana to visit with his family and to meet Carol Schultz face-to-face.

  In addition, according to the meeting notes, Newman said that the Prosecutor’s Office also had problems with Mary Cavanaugh’s story. For over twenty years she hadn’t said anything about North LaSalle Street, yet upon being hypnotized she recalled it all clearly. It seemed highly unlikely. Newman said that as far as he was concerned he didn’t think that either Chastain or Cavanaugh had been in the house that night. Their stories, he insisted, simply didn’t coincide.

  At this meeting, Ted Gierse, naturally disappointed that his brother’s murder was apparently going to stay unsolved, asked that Newman and his staff then look at the possibility that Ted Uland had been involved in the triple murder. The prosecutor, however, didn’t support this idea, pointing out the futility of it since Uland was dead. Ted Gierse then gave the prosecutor several other names to investigate.

  However, just over two weeks later, on March 22, 1996, much to the shock of everyone in the Prosecutor’s Office, the Marion County Grand Jury returned an indictment against Carroll Horton for three counts of murder. After looking at the case for over a year, they felt an arrest should be made. Consequently, in a press release the same day, Prosecutor Scott Newman said: “The Grand Jury has spoken and directed us to prosecute, and we will do so to the best of our ability.”

  This decision by the grand jury should have elated Carol Schultz. She had been trying for years to get this very thing accomplished. However, even though she had been the one to relentlessly pursue these charges against Horton, she felt sorry for him, and close to him, too. They had spoken, she said, almost every day for nearly four years. They had become friends and confidants. She recalled in her book that she cried when she saw the television coverage of him being arrested and taken away in handcuffs.

  On March 26, 1996, Carroll Horton had his initial hearing in Criminal Court 1 in downtown Indianapolis. At an initial hearing the judge must decide if there is enough evidence to hold someone for trial. Judge Lapossa, hearing only limited testimony, felt that there was indeed enough evidence for a trial and so ordered Horton to be held in jail without bond.

  The grand jury, on March 29, 1996, also returned an indictment against Floyd Chastain, but in his case for only one count of murder, that of Robert Hinson, the victim he told Schultz he had been forced to kill. The news media reported that the indictment was based mostly, though not entirely, on Chastain’s own statements.

  As might be imagined, the indictments and arrests in this nearly twenty-five-year-old triple murder case caused a considerable media frenzy, both locally and nationally. On the surface it appeared to be an incredible story: A single mother, working mostly alone, had solved a triple murder case that had baffled the police for a quarter century. Schultz said she received requests to appear on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, while also claiming she tried to stay away from a camera crew filming for Inside Edition. In the April 25, 1996, issue of the Indianapolis Star, an article told of Carol Schultz’s attempts to interest a movie production company, Dream City Films, into producing a movie the article claimed she wanted titled The Carol Schultz Story. Also, according to the article, Schultz had persuaded Chastain to sign a power of attorney document that allowed her to handle his end of the movie deal, and had even sent a contract for Carroll Horton to sign for his part in the proposed film.

  On May 2, 1996, Carroll Horton, now represented by attorney Richard Kammen, petitioned the court to have a bond set for him. His attorney argued that the evidence against his client was so weak that bond was appropriate. At this hearing, Lieutenant Michael Popcheff and retired lieutenant Jim Strode testified. According to news reports, Strode said that during their original investigation in 1971 Carroll Horton had not been their prime suspect. Rather, he said, their key suspect had been Ted Uland.

  On May 3, 1996, during a continuation of the bond hearing, Floyd Chastain admitted to the court that he had been given information about the North LaSalle Street case by several people, including Carol Schultz. And while he had told five different versions about what had supposedly happened that night, he said that he had recanted his recantation, not because it wasn’t true, but as reverse psychology, believing that it would make the detectives work harder. According to newspaper accounts, one of the detectives who interviewed Chastain in Florida, Charles Briley, said he had found that a number of the original crime scene photographs were missing. He suspected that Carol Schultz had them and had shown them to Chastain.

  In Indiana, usually there is no bond for murder. A murder suspect must remain in jail until trial. Only in cases in which a judge finds that the state’s case is extremely weak can a bond for a murder suspect be set. Judge Lapossa apparently felt that this case fit that exception. After hearing testimony from both sides, Judge Lapossa, on May 6, 1996, ordered Horton released on a $5,000 surety bond. According to an article in that day’s issue of the Indianapolis Star, Judge Lapossa had reportedly even seriously considered releasing Horton on his own recognizance. One of the reasons Judge Lapossa set this very low bail, the newspaper said, was that Detective Jon Layton had apparently found some evidence important to the case in a shed at his home. Layton had earlier testified that this evidence had been turned over to the grand jury. Another reason was that the judge felt that the two main witnesses for the prosecution, Floyd Chastain and Mary Cavanaugh, were not credible at all.

  Judge Lapossa was also extremely critical of the credibility of Carol Schultz. She stated, “The court finds that the investigation was compromised by the meddling of Carol Schultz, who is a very biased former investigative reporter.”

  On the same day, following Judge Lapossa’s release of Horton on bail, Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman called a press conference. At this meeting with the news media, he announced that his office was dropping all charges in the North LaSalle Street case. Newman said that the case had been hurt by Floyd Chastain changing his story over and over, by Carol Schultz being allowed to have access to key police evidence, by the question of the credibility of Mary Cavanaugh, and by the fact that Detective Layton had found the box of evidence in a shed at his house, evidence the grand jury should have seen before making its decision. He felt that all of these circumstances made the case no longer prosecutable. Newman told the media, “There is absolutely no hope of conviction.”

  After this announcement, Ted Gierse told the news media that he felt very disappointed by the events. He said that he was angry with the police but also felt that he had been duped by Carol Schultz. It had be
en twenty-five years since his brother’s murder, and the police were no closer to solving it than they had been in 1971.

  Before the case collapsed, the media frenzy it had caused, including the possibility of a movie deal and all of the national talk shows and news programs requesting interviews with her, had no doubt excited Schultz. It was an incredible amount of attention. However, media interest can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Due to her investigation and the resulting indictments, Schultz had naturally taken part in a number of local news media interviews. One of these interviews with a local television station took place in her home, where the cameraman filmed the notebooks and diaries she had kept of her investigation.

  Later, Carol Schultz said that she was both shocked and appalled when a judge ordered her to turn over her notebooks and diaries to the prosecutor so that copies could be made and given to Carroll Horton’s defense attorney. This attorney had seen the documents during the Schultz television interview, and afterward petitioned the court to have access to them. The attorney argued that under the rules of discovery (the legal right of a defense attorney to have access to the prosecution’s evidence) his client had a right to view the notebooks and diaries.

  The court agreed and issued a subpoena for Schultz to produce them. This upset Schultz because she said she felt it to be an invasion of her privacy. Her notebooks, she said, held her most intimate thoughts about Horton and the case, as well as details about very personal parts of her private life. She felt certain they would be copied and passed around for everyone to read and enjoy. Schultz also said later that she felt a part of the reason that her notebooks and diaries had been subpoenaed and taken away was because certain officials were jealous of her fame. According to Schultz, she, not the police, had solved the twenty-five-year-old murders; they were trying to get even with her.