Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. On a morning in 2002, a man in Indianapolis, Indiana, woke up in a cold sweat.
His hands shook as he tried to block out the images he'd just seen in his sleep.
But he knew these horrific images would not just go away on their own.
They would keep haunting him until he did something about it.
So he got out of bed, walked to his phone, and dialed 911.
And when the operator picked up, he said he needed to speak to a detective because he was having dreams that showed him details of a horrific murder that happened back in 1989.
The dreams this man claimed to have would help reopen an unsolved murder case that had shocked Indianapolis 13 years earlier.
However, these dreams would not answer the questions police had been wrestling with for years, and it would take them another decade to finally track down their killer.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to come trick-or-treating at your house.
However, when they do, only give them pennies and dental floss.
Okay, let's get into today's story. Are you searching for a romantic summer getaway?
Escape with Rich Girl Summer, the new Audible original from Lily Chu.
The phenomenally talented Philippa Soo returns to narrate her fifth Lily Chu title.
This time, Philippa is joined by her real-life husband, Steven Pasquale.
Set in Toronto's wealthy cottage country, aka the Hamptons of Canada, Rich Girl Summer follows the story of Valerie, a down-on-her-luck event planner posing as a socialite's long-lost daughter while piecing together the secrets surrounding a mysterious family. and falling deeper and deeper in love with the impossibly hard-to-read and infuriatingly handsome family assistant, Nico.
Caught between pretending to belong and unexpectedly finding where she truly fits in, Valerie learns her summer is about to get far more complicated than she ever planned.
She's in over her head and head over heels.
Listen to Rich Girl Summer now on Audible.
Go to audible.com slash richgirlsummer. If you're anything like me, you love a good story that has twists and turns and moments that make you stop and think, like, how is the story even real?
That's why I want to recommend the podcast Crime Junkie.
Every week, amazing host Ashley Flowers unravels stories about missing people, murders, and mysterious deaths.
These strange, dark, and mysterious cases range from stories ripped straight from the headlines to cases you really won't hear anywhere else.
It's binge-worthy, true crime storytelling that is thoughtful, well-researched, and always leaves you wanting more.
Discover why Crime Junkie has such a loyal community and dive into your next mystery today.
Search for Crime Junkie wherever you're listening right now.
At 5.30 a.m. on November 13, 1989, 16-year-old Amy Widener woke up coughing in her upstairs bedroom in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Amy's throat burned. She glanced over at the clock on her bedside table and saw how early it still was.
Now, normally she would have slept a bit longer before getting up and getting ready for school, but she just kept on coughing, so she knew she was not going to be able to fall back asleep.
And she knew she needed to stay home sick today.
Amy heard a knock on her bedroom door, and her mother, Gloria, walked inside, holding a two-year-old little girl in her arms.
Her mother said she'd heard Amy coughing, and she wanted to check on her.
But Amy barely even heard what her mother was saying.
Instead, she was smiling at the little girl.
In a big animated voice, Amy said, good morning, and the little girl smiled back, reached out her arms, and said, Mamie, which was her name for Amy.
This little two-year-old girl was Amy's daughter.
The girl's father was a friend of Amy's who was a couple years older than her, but he had never really played a role in the baby's life.
When Amy's daughter was born, Amy had loved her immediately, but she'd also been terrified.
She had no idea how she was going to raise a child on her own, and she thought her life as a normal teenager was basically over.
But Amy's mother, Gloria, had done everything in her power to make sure that didn't happen.
Gloria had played a huge part in raising this little girl.
In fact, Amy's daughter often called Gloria mom.
And Gloria's help, along with the help from some of Amy's teachers, had allowed Amy to not only stay in high school, but to thrive.
Amy got good grades, she was a cheerleader, she played clarinet in the high school band, and she even tutored other students in French, a language she absolutely loved.
She had dreams of going to college someday, and most people who knew her just assumed she would grow up to be a really cool French teacher someday.
Back in the bedroom, Amy told her mother there was just no way she could go to school today with her cough.
Her mother agreed and told her that she could still take her baby to the babysitter like she usually did during the week, but Amy said to leave her at home.
It'd be nice to spend the day with her little girl.
Gloria said okay and then put the little girl on the bed next to Amy and then she walked out to get ready for work.
As tired and sick as Amy felt, she couldn't stop smiling.
She loved that her mother had made it possible for her to still just be a teenager most of the time.
However, she missed her daughter a lot when she was at school.
And so a day like today to be alone with her daughter was really special.
While Amy sat and talked to her daughter on the bed, her older brother JP walked in.
The siblings were only a year apart and they were extremely close.
They drove to school together every day and ran in the same circle of friends.
And this close-knit group of high schoolers spent almost all of their free time together.
JP told his sister to get well and said he'd see her when he got home from school.
The house remained loud and full of energy for the next couple of hours while Amy's mom got ready for work and her brother and two younger sisters got ready for school.
But eventually, everybody cleared out and the house became quiet.
Amy continued to sit on her bed and just play with her daughter.
In a house with four school-age kids and a baby, silence was very rare, so this morning felt extra special.
However, that feeling quickly disappeared when Amy heard a door open downstairs.
She figured one of her younger sisters must have just forgotten their backpack or something.
So Amy cleared her throat and coughed a little, and then called out to see who had come home.
A little before noon, a few hours after Amy and the baby had been left alone, Amy's mother, Gloria, pulled her car up to the front of the house.
She had called Amy several times from work, but she hadn't gotten an answer.
She worried that since Amy was sick, she might have fallen asleep, and she just wanted to make sure Amy and the baby were okay.
Gloria got out of her car, rushed up the walkway, unlocked the front door, and walked inside.
She called out for Amy, but she didn't hear anything.
Then, as she walked through the front room and reached the bottom of the stairs, she froze.
Amy's little girl was sitting on the landing at the top of the stairs all by herself, and she was crying. and she had blood on her pajamas.
Gloria instantly ran up the stairs and picked up the baby and held onto her tight, and then she ran through the upstairs hallway and called out for her daughter again, but still didn't get any answer.
Gloria reached Amy's bedroom and opened the door.
She looked over at the bed and immediately began to scream.
That afternoon, not long after Gloria had gotten home, Detective Norman Matthews of the Indianapolis Police Department parked in front of Amy's house and stepped outside.
Police had already taped off the property, and Detective Matthews saw forensics officers scouring the front yard for evidence.
Matthews also saw a woman standing with several uniformed police officers.
The woman was crying, but at the same time, she was gently bouncing a little girl in her arms, doing everything she could to make sure the girl wasn't scared or upset.
Matthews put on gloves, ducked under the crime scene tape, and walked into the house through the front door.
More forensics officers were busy searching both floors of the house, and one of them pointed Matthews upstairs.
Matthews walked up the steps, went down the hall, and into Amy's bedroom.
A camera flashed as a forensic photographer took pictures of the scene in the bedroom, while Matthews just stood there inside the doorway, staring at the bed.
There, he saw Amy Widener's lifeless body.
Her face and her red hair were bloody, she was naked, and there was blood all over the sheets and on the wall above her.
Matthew stepped closer to the body, and he could see cuts and a deep gash on Amy's forehead, and there was bruising on her throat, arms, and legs.
The attack on this young woman looked vicious and uncontrolled, which was horrific enough in and of itself.
But when Detective Matthews had gotten the call to come to this house, he'd been informed that this attack had taken place while the victim's two-year-old daughter was present.
And that information made this crime scene much, much worse.
Detective Matthews met with the forensics officer who was working in the bedroom.
The officer told him that amidst the blood on the wall, they had found what looked like a pretty clear palm print, The officer said the forensics team would carve out that section of the wall to make sure the print was preserved in its entirety, in hopes they could eventually find a match in their databases.
For reference, in 1989, DNA testing was still very much in its early stages, and so it was not being used as an investigative tool by the Indianapolis Police Department.
Matthew stepped out of Amy's bedroom, and along with several other police officers, started a full search of the house.
The front door had apparently been locked when Gloria had come home to check on Amy and the baby, and there was no sign of forced entry.
But Matthews and his team found that the sliding glass door on the back patio was unlocked.
He also found that Amy's brother's bedroom looked like it had been ransacked.
The dresser drawers were open, and it appeared that some pieces of stereo equipment had been pulled out of the wall and stolen.
And so on the surface, this murder now looked like it could have been the result of a burglary gone wrong.
Maybe someone had shown up to rob the place and heard Amy or the baby upstairs and then just attacked and killed Amy like a target of opportunity.
But as Matthews and his team combed through the rest of the house, something hit him.
No other rooms looked like Amy's brother's room.
There were no signs of robbery anywhere else.
If this was a robbery gone wrong, Matthews figured that whoever did it must have been familiar with the house.
They must have known exactly where that stereo equipment was and had come there specifically to get it.
Matthews knew he did have a witness that might be able to identify the intruder, especially if the intruder was someone who had been to the house before.
But there was a big problem with this, because that witness was just two years old.
After Matthews and his team had completed their initial search of the house, he met with Amy's mother, Gloria, outside.
Gloria was able to confirm that stereo equipment was missing from her son's room.
She also said JP usually kept about $50 in cash in a dresser drawer, but that was gone too.
Matthews told Gloria that this information was extremely helpful, but there was something more important that he needed from her.
He needed her permission for police to question her granddaughter.
The idea of putting her granddaughter through any more stress after what that little girl had been through that day made Gloria feel very uneasy.
But her daughter had just been brutally murdered, and so she needed the killer to be found and brought to justice.
So she agreed to Matthew's request. Gloria and Amy's two-year-old daughter took a seat on the front porch, along with Detective Matthews and a police officer who specialized in working with young kids.
And that officer introduced herself to Amy's little girl and then handed her some finger puppets.
And then she asked the little girl to use these finger puppets to tell everybody what had happened that morning.
And then that officer and the others watched and listened as the little girl used the finger puppets to act out a scene.
She made it look like two of the puppets were fighting for a little while, and then she said later on, Mamie was laying on the bed.
The little girl had said she had tried to lift Mamie up, but then said Mamie was just too heavy.
When Gloria heard her granddaughter say this, she just broke down.
And Matthews and the other officer tried not to show how much this affected them.
The fact that this little girl had clearly seen her mother get murdered was not something they could just shake off.
Eventually, the officer, who specialized in working with young kids, asked the little girl one more question. did she know the person who had come into Mamie's room?
But all the little girl could remember was that the person was strong.
Detective Matthews told the little girl what a great job she'd done, and then he asked Gloria if he could speak to her alone for a minute.
Gloria told her granddaughter to stay with the police officer and she'd be right back.
Then she followed Matthews off the porch.
Matthews told her that the fact her son's room was the only room that had been robbed led him to believe that the killer was very likely another young person who her kids knew.
And very likely, they knew in advance that the stereo equipment and the $50 would be in JP's room.
So, Matthews asked Gloria to come up with a list of names of people who were closest to Amy and JP.
Gloria said that Amy and her brother JP hung out with a small group of friends, but she said there was someone outside that group that Matthews should definitely talk to before anybody else, the father of Amy's child, a young man named Tony Abercrombie.
And sure enough, the day after the murder, Detective Matthews brought Tony into the station for an interview.
Tony was 18 years old, tall with long wavy brown hair, and he wore jeans and a t-shirt.
He looked to Matthews, like almost every other teenager in the area.
The night before, Matthews had seen Tony giving an impromptu interview about Amy's murder on a local news show, and Matthews didn't really know what to think about that.
The reporter had most likely shown up at Tony's house unannounced, and it could be difficult for a young man like Tony to tell a reporter to leave him alone, but there was also the possibility that Tony craved the attention.
There were plenty of homicide cases throughout history where the killer went out of their way to get their name in the news.
However, Matthews was not ready to jump to any conclusions like that.
And now, looking at Tony across the table, he could tell this kid seemed very upset and maybe even a bit scared.
Matthews told Tony he was not in any kind of trouble, the police just needed to know some things about his relationship with Amy.
Tony nodded and told Matthews he'd been good friends with Amy's brother JP, that's how he had met Amy.
He said they'd gone out a few times and then ended up sleeping together and Amy got pregnant.
Tony admitted that the idea of becoming a father at his age scared him and he was not looking forward to the birth of the baby.
However, when the baby was born, Amy and Gloria had basically raised her without him.
So Tony said he hadn't talked much to Amy since then or had anything to do with his child.
He told Matthews he'd gotten a phone call from Amy's friend that Amy had been killed on the morning it happened.
Tony said he'd felt completely torn up when she had told him and in fact he had to leave work because he was so upset.
Tony said he might not have seen Amy very much lately, but he still cared about her.
And on top of that, she was one of the sweetest people he'd ever met.
It didn't make sense that somebody would want to hurt her.
Shortly after that, Matthews got Tony's work details and then told him police would follow up if they needed more information.
And then he let him go. Matthews needed to see if Tony really had been at work on the morning Amy had been killed.
But, based on this one interview he had just done, Tony did not seem like the type of person who had done that TV interview to draw attention to himself.
Instead, he just seemed like a kid who was very upset that a girl he'd been with and fathered a child with was now gone.
In the days immediately following the murder, the investigative team started to look into a range of Amy's friends and classmates, believing the person who broke in and killed her was most likely someone Amy knew.
But based on what he'd seen at Amy's house, Detective Matthews had also developed a new theory.
Maybe there hadn't been a break-in at all.
Maybe Amy's brother JP had killed her and then ransacked his own room to try to throw off the police.
So, Detective Matthews met with JP multiple times.
And in every meeting, JP made it very clear how angry and upset he was that police would even think he could do something like this to his sister.
He said he loved Amy, maybe more than anybody else in the whole world.
They had been so close ever since they were little kids.
But despite these multiple interviews and Detective Matthews' continued interest in JP, the detective did not find anything linking him directly to the crime.
His fingerprints were all over the house, including inside of Amy's room, but that was expected.
He lived there, so it really didn't mean anything.
And there was nothing JP did in the aftermath of the murder that added more suspicion to him.
In fact, JP just seemed devastated by the loss of his sister.
And then on November 17th, so four days after Amy's murder, when Amy's friends and family all gathered together for her funeral, JP shared countless stories about some of the best times he'd spent with his sister.
He said, because they were so close in age, it was like they weren't just siblings.
They were more like really good friends.
At the funeral, JP, along with JP and Amy's mutual friend, Rodney, and some of Amy's girlfriends, did their best to try to console Amy's younger siblings and her mother, Gloria.
But it felt like an impossible task, because none of them could accept that this had really happened.
Following the funeral, Detective Matthews and his team collected the guest book and made a note of everybody at the service who'd signed the book.
Many of the guests had been Amy's classmates and her teachers.
And so Matthews and his team first met with some of the high school students on the list that they had not already spoken to.
But none of these interviews really led anywhere.
All of them just sort of ended with the students talking about how much they were going to miss their friend.
And at the same time, Matthews still didn't have any real concrete evidence, like any information on the bloody palm print that had been found in Amy's room.
So one afternoon, in the week following the murder, Matthews walked down a long hallway lined with lockers at Amy's high school.
School was already out, so there were only a handful of students who were still there.
Matthews turned down a different hallway with classroom doors on either side and found the French classroom.
He walked in and saw Amy's French teacher, Jody George, waiting for him.
Matthews had heard from several people that Jody was Amy's favorite teacher, and so he told Jody this, and this immediately made Jody break down into tears.
She told the detective that Amy had always been a great student, but the real reason that she and Amy had connected was actually because they both had been raising babies at the same time.
Jodi's child was born not too long after Amy's daughter had been born, and so Amy and the teacher shared parenting tips with each other and bonded over being new mothers.
Matthew's hope was that in meeting with Jodi, that perhaps she could point him towards other students who were maybe Amy's friends, but who didn't attend the funeral.
Detective Matthews ended up getting a list of students that Amy had tutored in French, and he asked Jody if any of these kids might have had a problem with Amy.
But Jody said no, not that she knew of. And then over the next several days, as Matthews went down this new list of students, it didn't really go anywhere.
Because once again, all these students could say was just that they really liked Amy, and they couldn't believe she was gone.
You know that person in your life who just can't stand mayo?
Call them traumatized. Call them close-minded.
We get it. They're stuck in their ways. But here's the thing.
They just haven't tried Hellman's flavored mayo.
We're talking bold flavors that will flip even the biggest skeptics.
Spicy mayo that adds the perfect kick to your burger.
Garlic aioli that transforms ordinary fries into something extraordinary.
Chipotle mayo that turns your basic wrap into a smoky sensation.
So to all the mayo haters out there, yes, we're looking at you, it's time to eat your words.
Because with mayo this flavorful, any hater is just a mayo lover waiting to be convinced.
Hellman's Flavored Mayo. Get ready to eat your words.
Hey, listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, My show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers.
You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts completely ad-free.
No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, Ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.
To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin.
That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.
By the end of November, about two weeks after the murder, Matthews felt like he had spoken to every high school kid in town and he still wasn't any closer to finding Amy's killer.
Tony Abercrombie, the father of Amy's daughter, looked like he had a solid alibi, as did her brother JP, who was seen in class by multiple people at the time his sister was killed.
And when Matthews finally got the results on that bloody palm print that had been on the wall in Amy's room, it didn't match Tony or JP's prints.
It also did not match any of Amy's friends that police had interviewed, or any prints in any criminal database.
So Matthews felt like he basically had nothing, and now he wondered if he'd just been plain wrong the whole time.
Maybe Amy didn't know her killer, and it was just some random stranger that had broken into the house and killed her.
And if that was the case, it meant the suspect pool could basically include almost anyone.
Matthews and his team continued to follow any potential leads, and they returned to the crime scene to see if there was anything they might have missed.
But as 1990 began and several more months passed, it became clear the police had no real suspects.
Amy's family still got together with Amy's friends and that French teacher Jody to share stories and keep Amy's memory alive, but most of them came to believe that her murder would never be solved.
And as even more time went by with no new leads, some members of the investigative team started to feel the same way.
And eventually, Detective Matthews and the rest of the investigative team had to focus on new cases.
And so Amy's murder case went cold. And it would stay that way for a long, long time.
Fast forward to 2002, so 13 years after Amy's murder.
Detective Roger Spurgeon, the lead cold case detective at the Indianapolis Police Department, got a call at his desk.
And when he answered, he heard a man's voice.
And this man sounded totally afraid. The man told the detective that the previous night he'd had these horrible dreams, dreams about the murder of Amy Widener that had taken place back in 1989.
The man said he worked at the school where Amy had gone, so he had known her, but not very well.
But now he was having these visceral dreams about her death.
And so he felt like he just needed to pass on what he was seeing in these dreams because he believed maybe it could help police solve the murder, which in turn could make these terrible dreams go away.
Detective Spurgeon just sat at his desk, stunned by what he was hearing.
Getting bizarre phone calls about old homicide cases was not totally unheard of.
Usually, they didn't lead to anything. But this man sounded genuinely upset.
And so, operating on a hunch, Spurgeon took down notes on these dreams the caller was having.
And after the call was over, Spurgeon pulled Amy's case file.
The caller's supposed dreams did give a lot of details about Amy's murder.
But for the most part, these details had all been covered in the press at the time of Amy's death or in the years following.
Spurgeon figured this caller was not the most dependable source, but he couldn't just let this go.
After all, this man could have details about the murder, not because he was dreaming it, but because he was involved.
And so the detective dug into this man's background, and he discovered that he did in fact work at Amy's high school, like he had said.
So Spurgeon went to the school and met with several teachers and administrators who knew the caller, and many of them had actually worked at the school when Amy was killed as well.
Now, during these initial few conversations, nothing really stood out to Spurgeon, but then the school's guidance counselor told Spurgeon something that was really strange.
They told him that they knew who the man was who claimed to have these dreams about Amy, and they said this man could not have killed her because on the morning of Amy's murder, that man, the caller, had been working at the school.
And the guidance counselor said on the day of the murder, this person, this man, kind of out of nowhere, had this violent episode where he just started screaming and kicking things.
In fact, his episode had gotten so bad that eventually the counselor had to help the man out of the school and drive him home.
This was definitely a new one for Detective Spurgeon.
He'd gotten some strange calls before, but this man's dreams and now his episode on the morning of the murder were something else.
Spurgeon followed up with the man who had called him about his dreams, and he even re-interviewed several people who'd been connected to the initial murder case.
But just like during the initial investigation, nothing came out of these interviews.
After several months of looking into the case again, the detective had nothing new.
And so Amy's killer remained unknown and free.
And soon her case went cold again. And it would stay that way for almost another decade.
On a morning in 2011, so 22 years after Amy's murder, Sergeant Bill Carter, a nuisance and abatement officer with the Indianapolis police, sat in a small office scrolling through Facebook.
A nuisance and abatement officer is a cop who works directly with the fire inspector to check on venues like restaurants and clubs that might be breaking fire code.
And so Sergeant Carter spent a lot of his time looking at Facebook to see if any events or big parties were being talked about that would potentially violate fire code laws.
Just then, Carter heard a knock on his door.
He said to come on in and he looked up to see a homicide detective standing there.
This was definitely weird because Carter had very little interaction with the homicide department.
The homicide detective said he was heading up cold cases now, and recently he'd found a Facebook page dedicated to the victim of one of the coldest cases they had, the Amy Widener murder from 1989.
Carter said he knew about the case, it had been in the news off and on over the years since it happened, and he'd also grown up in the same part of town as Amy.
But none of this explained why a homicide detective would be coming to see him about this case.
The homicide detective said he wanted to print off everything from this Facebook page dedicated to Amy to add it to the case files and to cross-check some of the people on the page with people mentioned in the original investigation.
The problem was that he and the other homicide detectives didn't know how to print things off of Facebook, so he was hoping Carter could help them.
Carter stifled a laugh and said he'd take care of it.
The homicide detective walked off, and then Carter quickly found the Facebook page called Remembering Amy Widener.
Even though Carter was familiar with the case, seeing photos of Amy as a happy teenager really hit him.
And as he read through the comments on the page, he saw how many people were still deeply affected by this murder.
It just seemed so wrong that her friends and family had gone this long without any kind of closure.
And so Carter printed out everything from the Facebook page for the homicide detective, but before he did, he sort of read through it all.
And as he did, he started to feel like he really needed to do something to help.
Over the next several weeks, in his free time, Sergeant Carter started to look through the old case files for Amy's murder.
Now, normally, homicide detectives would not have wanted an officer from another department anywhere near their files, especially an officer who only dealt with fire codes.
But Amy's case had remained unsolved for so long that they figured whatever Carter was doing couldn't hurt.
Sergeant Carter regularly checked the Facebook page dedicated to Amy, made notes on the pages he'd printed, and tried to see if he could connect anything to something in the original case files.
He even reached out to several of Amy's friends and family members who'd been interviewed in the past to see if they had any new information to offer.
For months, Carter's efforts weren't much different from the detectives who'd worked the case in the past.
No new leads, no new evidence. Carter stuck with it, continuing to work Amy's case whenever he had the time.
And on a day in June of 2012, now closing in on 23 years after Amy's murder, Sergeant Carter caught something in the case files that seemed to have gone overlooked for decades.
At first, Carter thought he had to be wrong.
Maybe he'd been spending so much time with the case looking at countless pieces of paper and file folders that he'd just gotten confused, or he was delirious or something. but when he looked at what he'd found in the case file again and checked it with the Facebook page and the notes he'd taken from the interviews he'd conducted, he was sure he had found something huge, something that apparently no other investigator had noticed.
Sergeant Carter looked through the files one more time, found a phone number, grabbed his cell phone, and made a call.
And he told the person who answered that he needed to speak to them as soon as possible about Amy's murder.
On June 27th, Carter headed over to this person's house to meet them.
But when he got there, the person was gone and nobody seemed to know where they went.
Soon, Carter found this person had emptied all their bank accounts, quit their job, and just disappeared without a word to anybody.
Sergeant Carter couldn't believe it. For the first time in over 20 years, Indianapolis police thought they might be getting closer to solving Amy's murder.
But now the person they needed to talk to had fled.
And for all Carter knew, this fugitive could be halfway around the world already.
A little over a week later, in early July, Carter was at the station with other officers from several departments.
A team of Indianapolis police had been working with different agencies to try to track down the fugitive that they believed might be connected to Amy's murder.
And now they were waiting to hear something, anything, that might help with their investigation.
And luckily for Carter, it didn't take long for him to get what he wanted.
And that day, a very excited officer approached Carter and the others.
And he said, using credit card data, investigators had discovered that the fugitive had rented a car in town.
And using that rented car's OnStar security service, they now knew exactly where that car was parked.
Carter asked where it was, half expecting it to be on the other side of the country or somewhere across the border.
But the officer said that was not the case at all.
The rental car was at a house right here in Indianapolis.
Minutes later, police cruisers roared down a residential street and pulled up to a house.
Carter and the other officers got out of their cars and quickly approached the front door.
Right there in the driveway was the fugitive's rental car.
As Carter prepared to knock on the door, several other officers around them put their hands on their holsters, ready to draw their weapons.
They didn't know if the fugitive was even inside, but they had to be prepared for anything.
Once they were ready, Carter knocked on the door.
Moments later, a man answered. Carter told the man who they were looking for, and as soon as he did, suddenly there was a scream coming from inside the house.
Carter and several other officers bolted inside, and they found the fugitive standing there in the kitchen, and there was blood running down from the slash on their wrist, and they were holding a knife to their own throat, threatening to kill themselves if the cops came any closer.
Carter and the other officers took a breath and tried to keep everybody calm.
Several officers talked to the fugitive, urging them to put the knife down and to get medical help.
And slowly, the tension in the room eased a bit and the fugitive did drop the knife.
At that point, officers rushed the fugitive trying to stop the bleeding from their wrist while making sure the fugitive couldn't hurt themselves or any of the officers or try to make a run for it.
An ambulance soon arrived and paramedics sped the fugitive to the hospital with police following closely behind.
And luckily, the fugitive got medical help just in time.
And later that day, after Carter and other investigators got to meet with the fugitive in the hospital, they finally figured out, after more than 20 years, who had killed Amy Widener.
Based on information from the fugitive statements, evidence found at the murder scene, and interviews conducted over the course of multiple investigations, the following is what police believe happened to Amy Widener on the morning of November 13th, 1989.
On that day, just after 7.30 a.m., the killer walked through the first floor of Amy's house.
They moved slowly and in their hand they gripped a metal pipe.
The killer stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened.
They thought they heard someone coughing and maybe some laughter coming from the second floor.
The killer walked up the stairs as slowly and quietly as they could and then crept down a hallway towards Amy's bedroom where they heard the noises.
Once they reached the door, they threw it open and they saw Amy sitting up in bed with her little girl.
Amy screamed and put her baby down on the floor.
Then she climbed out of bed and leapt at the killer.
Amy threw her fists at the killer and fought back as hard as she could as the little girl ran out of the bedroom.
The killer wrapped their arms around Amy and shoved her back onto the bed.
Amy kept fighting, but the killer raised the metal pipe and struck Amy on the arms and chest, stunning her.
And the killer took off Amy's clothes and sexually assaulted her.
But through it all, Amy continued to fight back, constantly slashing at the killer until the killer was bloodied.
But at some point, the killer managed to steady themselves against the wall, they raised their metal pipe again, and they slammed it directly into Amy's forehead.
At that point, Amy stopped moving. The strike in her head had killed her. but the killer wanted to be sure she really was dead.
So after that, they wrapped their hands around Amy's throat and they strangled her until they knew she had stopped breathing.
Then the killer got up and ran out of the room and down the hall, right past Amy's young daughter.
Once the killer was back downstairs, they went into JP's room, threw open the dresser drawers, and grabbed the $50 out of one of them.
After pocketing the money, they picked up some stereo equipment and then ran out of the house through the sliding door that led onto the back porch.
As the killer ran away, they just hoped nobody had seen them and that maybe they would get away with the horrific act they had just committed against their best friend's sister.
Rodney Denk, who was JP's best friend and who would remain close to the family following Amy's murder, had been Amy's killer.
It turned out he was able to get away with his crime for over 20 years simply because of an oversight.
Initially, the police had Rodney listed as one of Amy's close friends that they would need to interview.
But for some reason, nobody ever spoke to him.
Rodney did not get questioned in the initial investigation or in the secondary investigation when that man had called in to tell police about his dreams.
This oversight was what Sergeant Carter, the nuisance and abatement officer, noticed when he started digging into Amy's case in his spare time.
He saw Rodney's name listed in the guestbook from Amy's funeral, and then he found Rodney mentioned in other notes from the investigation.
But he didn't see any record of Rodney ever being interviewed.
So Carter tracked Rodney down and set up a meeting with him.
At the time, Carter did not have any idea if Rodney had a connection to the murder or if he could even offer any information.
He just wanted to speak to Rodney because nobody ever had.
But when Carter went to meet Rodney and realized he had fled, that immediately made Rodney the first major suspect the police had in the case in two decades.
After police finally caught up to Rodney, they discovered that his palm print matched the bloody print found in Amy's room.
And while Rodney was recovering in the hospital, he would confess to what he did to Amy.
However, in his confession, he did not make it clear if he had gone to the house with that intent, or if he had simply gone there to rob his best friend JP, and then she had been a target of opportunity.
It was also never clear if the man who had called the police in 2002 really experienced those dreams that supposedly showed Amy's murder.
And police also don't know what caused that man's violent episode on the day Amy died.
However, they do know that that particular man who called in about his dreams had absolutely no involvement in Amy's death.
Ultimately, Rodney Dank was sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Sergeant Carter was named Investigator of the Year by the Indianapolis Police Department based on his work on this case.
As for Amy's daughter, she was raised by Amy's mother, Gloria.
And when she reached high school, she actually had Jody George, Amy's favorite teacher, for French.
And when she graduated, Jody would tell her, "'I just remember so many things about your mother and how your mother felt about you.'" and I know your mother would be so proud of you right now.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts.
This podcast, the Mr. Ballin Podcast, and also Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Full, and Redacted.
Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts to find all of these shows.
To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin.
So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.
Until next time, see ya. Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
