Butch Recalls Montgomery County ‘Cold Case’ Murders

    If you watch the news on an Indy channel, you know that murders occur almost daily in Marion County. Our county has much less crime, including violent crime, compared to many other Indiana counties. Homicides are rare here … but they do happen. Just five years ago, a man was convicted of shooting his wife, decapitating her, and burying the head in his basement. In 2016, a woman was convicted of murdering her two children, and then stabbing herself, after her husband had filed for divorce. And who can forget Arthur Baird, who in 1985, strangled his pregnant wife and then cut the throats of his mother and father? Arthur and his wife lived just a mile from my house, and I knew both of them. As a deputy sheriff, I was at the scene. I had covered some pretty gruesome accidents, but I had never seen that much blood in my life. When Arthur was arrested after fleeing to southern Indiana, I transported him back here and booked him in. He literally still had blood on his hands.

   But what of the murder cases that are unsolved? Before I joined the Sheriff’s department, in October of 1978, neighbors discovered 84-year-old Leota Parker of rural Wingate unconscious, naked and covered in blood on her bathroom floor. She had been tied up and severely beaten. Barely still alive, she was transported to the hospital, but later died of her injuries. Mrs. Parker’s house had been ransacked, but nothing appeared to have been taken. No arrests were ever made, and the case remains unsolved.

  Late one night in 1986 the Crawfordsville Fire Department responded to a house fire four miles east of town. The residence was engulfed in flames, and later on, inside a bedroom, they found the charred remains of Linda Beshaw, a Crawfordsville teacher. It was later determined that she had been murdered, and her house set on fire. As a deputy, I drove out to the scene, but was not involved in the case. The detectives came up with possible suspects, but no arrests were ever made, and the case is still unsolved.

   Many people also remember the 2012 murder of 94-year-old Sam Kessler of Ladoga. I knew Mr. Kessler, as he was a former county councilman and commissioner. I had already retired from the Sheriff’s department, but I kept up on the happenings. Local police and state police followed leads and put in countless hours, but that homicide is also still unsolved.

   There are a couple of other suspicious deaths, which may have been homicides, that have occurred in our county in the last 25 years. But the evidence and leads were few, and time tends to blur the memories of possible witnesses. Sadly, those cases are also likely to never be solved.

   Thankfully, during the time I was Sheriff, there were no murders in our county, but I badly wanted to solve the homicides of Leota Parker and Linda Beshaw from years past. Although there was very little information on the Parker case, a suspect in an unrelated burglary case gave me the name of who he believed killed her. I knew the man, a convicted burglar and thief who had no conscience whatsoever.

   I also read over and over again the police reports, the interviews, witness statements and autopsy reports from the Beshaw case. In my mind, I believe I know who the two men were who murdered these two women. However, in court a person charged with a crime must be proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and there was just not enough evidence to get a conviction in either case.

   It is my hope that these homicide cases will be solved some day. If not, my only solace is knowing that the persons responsible for the deaths of Leota Parker, Linda Beshaw and Sam Kessler will eventually answer to the highest court … the court of Almighty God … after their last days here on earth.

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 36 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.