April Marie Tinsley
She was a member of the children's choir at the Faith United Methodist Church, and a first-grader attending Fairfield Elementary School.
She was born March 18, 1980.
April 1, 1988, she was playing with two of her friends and they were moving between houses.
Around 3:00 p.m., Tinsley went back to get her umbrella and then disappeared.
Her mother reported her missing to the police when she did not arrive home for dinner that night.
125 A witness later reported seeing a white man in his 30s forcing a girl believed to be Tinsley into his blue pickup truck.
A jogger found her body on April 4, 1988 in a ditch just west of Spencerville, Indiana.
Investigators found one of Tinsley's shoes, and a sex toy in a shopping bag.
A motorist later reported seeing a blue pickup truck near this site.
Tinsley's autopsy report suggested she had been sexually assaulted and then strangled to death.
The report determined that she had been dead for about one or two days before she was discovered.
It also stated that she had been placed in the ditch four hours before this discovery.
Tinsley's memorial service was held on April 8, 1988 at the Faith United Methodist Church.
The police investigation led authorities to a 34-year-old suspect, who was charged with child molestation in a separate case.
125 A witness later reported seeing a white man in his 30s forcing a girl believed to be Tinsley into his blue pickup truck.
A jogger found her body on April 4, 1988 in a ditch just west of Spencerville, Indiana.
Investigators found one of Tinsley's shoes, and a sex toy in a shopping bag.
A motorist later reported seeing a blue pickup truck near this site.
Tinsley's autopsy report suggested she had been sexually assaulted and then strangled to death.
The report determined that she had been dead for about one or two days before she was discovered.
It also stated that she had been placed in the ditch four hours before this discovery.
Tinsley's memorial service was held on April 8, 1988 at the Faith United Methodist Church.
The police investigation led authorities to a 34-year-old suspect, who was charged with child molestation in a separate case.
He was acquitted of those charges the next month.
May 21, 1990, police found a message on a St. Joseph Township barn saying "I kill 8 year old April M Tinsley. Did you find the other shoe haha I will kill again."
May 21, 1990, police found a message on a St. Joseph Township barn saying "I kill 8 year old April M Tinsley. Did you find the other shoe haha I will kill again."
The message was written with crayons which were found near the barn.
Memorial Day weekend in 2004, four notes were found in the Fort Wayne area that are believed to have written by Tinsley's murderer.
Three of the notes were left on girls' bicycles, and another one was left in a mailbox.
They were placed in bags along with Polaroid pictures of what was believed to be the killer's lower body, and used condoms with DNA.
The DNA from the condoms matched the DNA found on Tinsley's underwear.
One of these notes read, "Hi honey... I been watching you....I am the same person that kidnapped an rape an kill april tinsley, ... You are my next victim....if you don't report this to police an if I don't see this in the paper tomorrow or on the local news...I will blow up your house."
Soon after the murder, police released a composite sketch of the suspect based on the account of a person who said they saw Tinsley's kidnapper.
The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit described the murder as a "Preferential Child Sex Offender", that he has a long-term and persistent sexual desire for children.
The murder profile was described as a white male, then in his 40s through 50s, living or working in northeast Fort Wayne/Allen County with a low to medium income.
May 2018, Police Department detective sent a sample of the suspect's DNA to the forensics company Parabon Nanolabs,
It used the genealogy website GEDmatch to identify the suspect's relatives.
July 2, 2018, the genealogist CeCe Moore narrowed down the list of suspects to two brothers, including John D. Miller of Grabill, Indiana.
His neighbors described him as secluded and often angry.
The police found used condoms in Miller's trash, and collected DNA that matched the suspect's DNA.
July 15, 2018, detectives asked him to come talk with them at the police office.
July 15, 2018, detectives asked him to come talk with them at the police office.
After advising him on his rights, investigators asked him if he knew why they wanted to talk to him.
He replied "April Tinsley".
At the police office, he allegedly confessed to the murder during the interview.
He said that he abducted Tinsley, raped her, choked her to death in his trailer, sodomized her body, and dumped it.
He is charged with murder, child molestation, and confinement; and plead not guilty in a court hearing on July 19, 2018.
He is scheduled to go on trial on February 11, 2019.
Investigators working on the Delphi case are now looking at every tactic available to track down Williams' and German’s killer.
The police said that they are using information from the 1988 Tinsley case to help solve any other cases that they have.
“Are we using it in this specific case?
I’m not going to say one way or another,”
Indiana State Police Sgt. Kim Riley stated.
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