Maria Elizabeth Ridulph
She was high strung and afraid of the dark. She was a second grade honor student, and received awards for perfect attendance in Sunday school at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John.
She was born on March 12th, 1950 in Sycamore, DeKalb County, Illinois to Frances Ivy Fenner and Michael Ridulph. Her father worked at one of Sycamore's few factories and her mother was a homemaker. Maria was the youngest of four children, and had two sisters and a brother.
In 1957, 7-year-old Maria and her family lived at 616 Archie Place. It was December 3rd, the family finished dinner at about 5:30 p.m. It was the first snowfall of the year.
Maria had asked her mom early in the day if she could play outside after dark with her best friend Kathy Sigman.
Maria had played with Kathy for years. They got along well together with only the minor arguments. When they played at the Sigman house, they were not permitted in the house and must remain in the unheated garage. Mrs. Sigman didn't want her home dirtied by the children. As a result, the two girls usually play at the Ridluph home when they play indoors.
Frances and Michael were casually acquainted with the rest of the Sigman family and were on a first name basis but did not have social contact. There is no animosity between the 2 families and Frances regards the Sigman family as people of good reputation.
Maria appeared unusually eager to go out. She normally did not play out after supper during the winter because it was dark and cold. After supper she asked again if she could go out and her mom said yes. Maria then rushed to the telephone and called Kathy to tell her she could go.
Before she went outside, Maria asked her mom if she must wear her shabby tan overcoat, which was a hand me down from her brother, Charles. Frances insisted that Maria wear it so that she would not wear out her newer coats.
At about 6:00 or so, Frances and her 15-year old daughter Kay, left the house to drive Kay to her music lesson. They both saw Maria on the sidewalk in front of the house with Katy, headed towards the corner of Archie Place and Center Cross Street. The two playmates were playing “duck the cars" as an oil truck was delivering oil to the Cliffe house at the corner.
"We would go around the pole until a car would come up the street and then ... you had to ... get behind a tree before the car lights hit you," Kathy said in an interview in 2017.
About 6:15 p.m, Frances returned home and saw Kathy and Maria still playing on the corner by the big tree and that Maria called and waved to her as she drove by. There was no other person with them at that time.
Maria and Kathy were outside Maria’s house running back and forth trying to avoid the headlights of oncoming cars in the street. They were approached by a man in his early 20's and tall with a slender chin, light hair, a gap in the teeth, and wearing a colorful sweater. He called himself "Johnny." He told the girls that he was 24 and not married. He asked if they liked dolls, and if they liked piggyback rides. Maria got a piggyback ride, then went back home and got a doll to show.
About 6:40 p.m., Frances was in her first floor bedroom reading the newspaper, Maria came into the bedroom and said she wanted a new, good doll. She refused to allow Maria to take the doll outside for fear of damaging it and suggested she get an older one. Maria then left the room and went into the living room where Maria's father had been reading the paper and watching TV. Michael saw Maria go to her corner, where she kept her toys, and then went outside.
After Maria came back, Kathy ran back home to get her mittens. At this time Maria's sister, Patricia, was in the dining room doing her homework and Charles was listening to records in the den at the rear of the house with his friend from next door, Randy Strombom.
When Kathy returned, Maria and the man were gone. It was 6:45 p.m. and Kathy went to to the side door of Maria's house and asked Charles where Maria was. Charles went to Frances' bedroom door and told her that Kathy couldn’t find Maria. Kathy then left after being told that Maria was not in the house.
A few minutes later Kathy came back and told Charles that Maria was lost. Again, Charles went and told his mother and she went into the living room and told her husband. Michael went out on the side porch and called Maria's name. A moment later, Frances put on her coat and joined her husband outside. They walked to the corner and called for Maria again. Out on the sidewalk they encountered Kathy and her 11-year old brother Edward. They asked the children children where Maria was and the two children said they did not know before heading west on Archie Place toward their home.
Michael and Frances then looked in the backyard and at the corner and continued to call for Maria.
Frances then returned to the house where she telephoned Mrs. Sigman to ask if Maria was there. Mrs. Sigman said she was not there but her own children were. After she hung up the phone, Frances went to the front of the house and conferred with her husband while Charles and his friend Randy took a flashlight and went out to look for Maria.
Frances went across the street to the William Lindstrom house to to see if they had seen Maria, but they had no seen her either. So, Frances returned home and telephoned Mrs. Sigman again. Mrs. Sigman now told her a man had been playing with Kathy and Maria.
Frances backed the family car out, picked up her husband and drove to Roosevelt Court. Roosevelt Court was a dead end street parallel to Archie Place and immediately to the north. In the past, Maria had occasionally played with a kid named John Tessier who lived on this street.
Michael got out of the car with his whistle for Maria. He looked in the window of the John's house but said he saw only two ladies watching television. Michael got back in the car and the couple drove west on Dekalb Avenue. They encountered their Patricia and Charles and Randy, somewhere in the vicinity of Dekalb Avenue and Fair Street. They took them in the car and circled the block and returned home.
By now, the neighbors were aware of Maria's disappearances and were out looking for her as well.
About 7:25 p.m., Kay returned from her music lesson and was told of Maria’s disappearance.
After 7:30 p.m., Frances called Mrs. Sigman to find out from Kathy what Maria had taken outside and was told it was a doll. Mrs. Sigman at this time mentioned something about a man giving the girls piggy-back rides.
Many articles state that Maria's family then call the police. The FBI report of the interview with her parents, Maria's mother traveled to the police station with Patricia to report her missing.
It was about 7:50 p.m. and Frances and Patricia were on their way, to go to the police station to report Maria missing. Frances wanted to report Maria missing earlier, but Michael insisted that they wait. He thought that maybe they'd find Maria close by and didn't want to feel foolish if the police came and she wasn't missing after all.
Frances and Patricia drove past a creek on Mill Street on the chance that Maria might be playing near it. They then drove through a lumber yard on Grant Street since she to see if she was playing among the piles of lumber. Maria didn't frequent these places, but they thought that it was worth a try. There was still no sign of Maria, so they drove straight to the police station and reported her missing. The police then dispatched cars to Maria's house. And they joined an already frantic search for Maria and the man who called himself Johnny.
On the way home Frances and Patricia drove to Elmwood Cemetery in the event Maria had wandered up there as she had strayed there a year or so previous and then returned home where the area was being searched by neighbors and authorities.
Armed citizens walked the streets with shotguns, rifles and handguns tucked in their waistband, knocking on doors. Two neighbors reported hearing a scream around 7 p.m. In an alley not far from where Maria disappeared, her doll was found by Mrs. Strombom. She found it between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 pm, between the fence and a garage which was set back on Center Cross Street. Other searchers who had previously searched in the same area, had not seen doll.
Roadblocks were also set up and they stopped every car and searched every trunk. However, nothing was found.
Police interviewed the driver of the oil truck. Tom Braddy was the Standard Oil Bulk dealer in Sycamore. He stated that he was delivering oil to Mrs. Cliff’s home on the corner of Archie and Center cross that evening, left the area at 6:15 p.m., passed a service station clock at 6:20 p.m. on the way back to his bulk station, and left the tank truck at the bulk station and proceeded home in his pickup truck. While eating his dinner he got up to answer the phone at no later than 7:10 p.m. The call was from Mrs. Cliff asking him if he saw a stranger with Maria when he was making the delivery. Braddy said that he he had seen the girls but no stranger, and offered to come down and join the search.
Cliff and his son, Dale, left his house on Fairplace on Rt. 64 and proceeded to Archie & Centercross, which is about 2 1/2 blocks from his home. They got out to start to search and were joined on the corner by Bud Sigman. Together the three walked South on Centercross and got as far as the Johnson driveway where they noticed footprints. One set of footprints were of adult size and the footprints to the right of the adult’s were those of a child. He compared the adult footprints with his own size and believed it was a size 9. The footprints lead up to the Johnson garage. The last adult print showed a sharp movement to the right, to either throw a doll or pick up the girl. They noticed that the snow was undisturbed except for these prints, which did not return back down the driveway. Braddy instructed Bud Sigman and his son to go around the garage quickly, “and then we’ll have him.” When they didn’t find the offender at this point, Braddy walked over through the back yards and garden area and between a small tractor shed and a plowed area found two more adult footprints in the snow. He searched the tractor shed, went west, searched another barn, continued west out onto Fairplace and by a utility pole at the edge of the street noticed fresh tire tracks in the snow, indicating someone had pulled in sharply and pulled out sharply, going north on Fairplace to Rt. 64. The tracks indicated regular tread and not snow tires.
The F.B.I. got involved and two days after Maria's disappearance, they arrived in Sycamore to assist the local and state police in the search.
They interviewed 18-year-old John Tessier who was born John Cherry. Tessier and his parents told FBI investigators that on December 3rd, he was in Rockford Illinois, approximately 40 miles northwest of Sycamore, to enlist in the Air Force. This story differed from his mother’s previous statement that Tessier had been home all night.
There were records of him arriving at the recruiting station as well as Tessier making a collect phone call to his parents at 6:45 pm., asking his parents to ask for a ride home to Sycamore. After making the call, Tessier then met with officers from the Rockford recruiting station to drop off paperwork relating to his enlistment. The officers confirmed that they spoke with Tessier around 7:15 p.m. that evening.
Besides being questioned, he also took lie detector test, which he passed. Tessier was then taken off the suspect list. Tessier left Sycamore the next day to report for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base.
Kathy was the only witness to the crime and was put into protective custody, as the police and FBI feared that the kidnapper would come back and harm her. The authorities had her look at photos of convicted felons or suspects who bore a resemblance to "Johnny." Photos of Tesser were absent as he was no longer a suspect.
On December 22, 1957, Kathy was taken to the Dane County Sheriff's Office in Madison, Wisconsin to see a lineup of possible suspects. She positively identified 35-year-old Thomas Joseph Rivard. He was approximately 5' 4", 156 pounds, with dark blond bushy hair, yellowish gapped teeth and with a ruddy complexion.
It turns out that he was in prison at the time of the kidnapping. Police suspected someone else in the lineup as the real culprit and Rivard was merely used to fill out the lineup.
The authorities took a close look at people with prior convictions of child molestation within DeKalb County, Illinois, but again, they came up with no leads.
Maria's disappearance received national news coverage, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower took interest.
Three weeks into the investigation, Maria's parents pleaded on television for the kidnapper to release her unharmed and were praying for Maria to come home.
When Christmas came around, Maria was still missing. Her presents were still wrapped under the tree in hopes she was somehow still alive.
Five months after Maria disappeared, on April 26th, 1958, near Woodbine, Illinois, almost 100 miles from Syracuse, her body was found.
This is were i found conflicting reports again. Some say she was found by tourists collecting mushrooms and some claim that she was found by a farmer and his wife. Either way, Maria's skeletal remains were found partially concealed under a downed tree. She was still wearing her shirt, undershirt, and socks, but her coat, pants, and shoes were never found.
No photographs were taken of the crime scene although photos were taken of the general location because the coroner, James Furlong, did not want photos of the child’s body leaked to newspapers.
The initial autopsy did not determine a cause of death due to the state of decomposition. It wasn't until 50 years later, a forensic anthropologist determined that Maria had likely been stabbed several times in the throat. If that was the case the stabbing may have occurred to silence the screaming child.
Maria had not been taken across state lines, the FBI handed the investigation over to the Illinois State Police. Her case went cold fast. But, Kathy never stopped looking for the face that only she had seen.
Fast forward to 1994. Tessier's mom was on her deathbed, dying from cancer and on morphine. She was also about to make a stunning confession about her son. Tessier sisters Janet and Mary were at their mother's bedside.
"Janet." Mrs Tessier strongly grabbed Janet's wrist and said, "Those two little girls and the one disappeared. John did it. John did it. And you have to tell someone."
Janet promised her mother she'd take care of it.
Weeks after her confession, Mrs. Tessier passed away. Tessier, who allegedly had once threatened to kill Janet with a gun and sexually molested his half-sister Jeanne when she was a minor, was estranged from the family by the time of Mrs. Tessier's death. He was told not to attend her funeral.
Janet didn't trust didn't trust her father to be honest about her mother's claims, so she made it her mission to find the truth. So Janet called the FBI and the Sycamore Police Department, but her brother appeared to have an alibi. And with Tessier even passing a polygraph, both agencies chose not to investigate and Jan gave up. Years later, a friend got Janet thinking again...about the promise she made to her mother.
Janet emailed the Illinois State Police. After she did so, she looked up at the sky and said, "Mom, listen, you and God better get something rolling here because I can't keep doin' this."
Two days later, she received a phone call from Special Agent Brion Hanley wanting to hear more.
Jeanne Tessier didn't hold back when Hanley interviewed her, starting with the lie she says her mother told the FBI about her brother. She told Hanley that her mom lied to the FBI when she claimed that Tessier was home all night on the night that Maria disappeared. She also told Hanley about her brother abusing her as well as her father and that her mother knew and did nothing.
Another woman alleged that Tessier had given her a piggyback ride as a child and refused to put her down until her father intervened.
Mr. Tessier had passed away by this point, so the only one who can possibly identify Tessier as Maria's murderer or not was Kathy. Hoping to have her review a photographic lineup, police took five pictures from the 1957 Sycamore High School yearbook, but Tessier's picture was not in the yearbook as he had been expelled. Police obtained a contemporary photo of him from his former girlfriend.
By then Kathy was a 61-year-old grandmother when Hanley showed her a photo lineup. When she got to to Tessier's photo, she immediately knew it was him that she saw all those years ago giving her and Maria piggy back rides.
Besides the photo, Tessier’s former girlfriend provided an unused, military-issued train ticket from Rockford to Chicago dated December 1957. The investigators took this to suggest that instead of taking the train, Tessier had driven his car, meaning that he could have driven back to Sycamore after noon on December 3rd, kidnapped Maria, and driven to Rockford. The police located a high school friend of Tessier’s who recalled seeing Tessier’s distinctively painted car in Sycamore that afternoon, and said that Tessier did not let anyone else drive his car.
In July of 2011, Agent Hanley tracked 71-year-old Tessier to Seattle, Washington, living at a retirement community where he worked as a security guard. He had changed his name to Jack McCullough. He says he took his late mother's maiden name in April of 1994, to honor her family.
McCullough had served in the U.S. military for thirteen years and became a captain. After leaving the service, he moved to Seattle, Washington, where graduated from the King County Law Enforcement Academy. He then became a police officer in the small town of Lacey near Olympia. Later he joined the police department in Milton, where the chief of police had attempted to fire him and documented a long list of complaints about his work and conduct. In 1982, in Tacoma, McCullough took in a 15-year-old runaway, Michelle Weinman, and her friend, who knew McCullough as a police officer. Weinman later testified that shortly after she began living with McCullough, he fondled her and then performed oral sex on her. McCullough was charged with statutory rape. He eventually pleaded guilty to communication with a minor for immoral purposes. He was sentenced to one year of formal probation and was terminated from the Milton Police Department on March 10th, 1982.
McCullough spoke calmly and cooperated with the police, but he soon became agitated the more questions the investigators asked him about Maria's murder and his possible involvement.
"I did not kidnap that little girl. ... look in my eyes. ... She was loved in the neighborhood. She was a little ... girl with big brown eyes. And she was sweet as could be, hardly said a word to anybody. And everyone loved her," McCullough told detectives.
Eventually McCullough refused to answer any more questions and he was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Maria Ridulph and extradited to Illinois. Maria’s body was exhumed that same month to check for DNA evidence, but none could be found.
The prosecution, wary of the circumstantial evidence in the murder case, decided to charge McCullough with the gang rape of Jeanne first, and for Maria's murder at a later date.
It was alleged that when Jeanne was 14, she had asked a 20 year old McCullough to give her a ride in his borrowed convertible. McCullough then had driven her to a location somewhere in Sycamore, raped her, and then offered her to three other men, two of whom sexually assaulted her.
On April 10th, 2012, Jeanne took the stand as the main witness for the prosecution.
"It was terrible. Because I had no control over the story. ... I had to only answer the questions that I was given. In a room full of strangers, except for the -- the man who had done this to me." said Jeanne about testifying.
Jeanne's siblings and Michelle Weinman also testified for the prosecution.
The defense argued that no one could corroborate Jeanne's story and there was no physical evidence to even suggest that any rape took place.
McCullough did not testify. The trial lasted four days and after one day of deliberations, the judge acquitted him of the rape and related charges, citing that the prosecution failed to prove that a rape had occurred and the victim waited too long to report what had happened.
Jeanne deep down knew what the verdict would be. "He'd gotten away with everything he'd done his whole life, including what he did to Michelle." she said.
She left before the verdict was read. "I was several hours towards home -- driving home," she explained. "I didn't wanna be there to hear it."
The trial for Maria's murder began that September. The prosecution contended that McCullough was attracted to Maria and decided to kidnap her, but instead ended up killing her. Although the prosecutors suspected McCullough of molesting Maria, they were unable to prove it and never brought it up in court.
Maria's family members, neighbors, law enforcement personnel and Kathy all testified for the prosecution. Another childhood friend of Maria's testified that she had also been offered a piggyback ride from "Johnny" and identified him as McCullough. Three inmates who were jailed with McCullough testified that he talked about killing Maria. However, their stories were both inconsistent and failed to match the evidence indicating Maria had been stabbed.
The defense argued that the prosecutors and police were pressured by the Ridulph and Tessier families to solve the case and implicate McCullough, although there was no physical evidence, motive, or indication that McCullough was in the area when Maria was kidnapped.
Again, McCullough did not take the stand in his own defense on the advice of his attorneys.
When both sides rested, the judge announced he would take the night to review the evidence, but that he already had his decision.
On September 14th, 2012, the Ridulph and Tessier families gathered at the courthouse to hear the verdict. The place exploded when the judge convicted the now 73-year-old McCullough of the kidnapping and murder. He received a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Since McCullough was now a convicted child killer as well as an ex-cop, for his own safety he was locked up in a tiny cell 23 hours a day.
McCullough appealed his conviction for murder, but it was upheld. However, on February 13th, 2015, the Illinois Appellate Court vacated his convictions for kidnapping and abduction of an infant as being outside the three-year statute of limitations.
On October 13th, 2015, the defense for McCullough filed a Motion to Reconsider the Dismissal of Defendant’s Post Conviction Petition, in which they claimed "police and prosecutor misconduct."
On April 15, 2016, at a hearing inside a packed Illinois courtroom, Judge William P. Brady vacated McCullough’s original conviction and sentence and ordered a new trial.
After DeKalb County’s top prosecutor reviewed the evidence and determined that McCullough could not have committed the crime based on the evidence. In April 2017, Judge Bradley officially declared Jack McCullough innocent of Maria's murder.
As of 2017, Maria's case is now a reopened and active investigation being conducted by the Illinois State Police.
There was another suspect had been seriously considered for Maria's murder. William Henry Redmond, a former truck driver and carnival worker from Nebraska who had died in 1992. Redmond had been charged in 1988 with the 1951 murder of an 8-year-old Pennsylvania girl, although that case was dismissed when a police officer refused to reveal the name of a confidential informant. Redmond was also a suspect in the 1951 disappearance of 10-year-old Beverly Potts in Ohio. Redmond allegedly told a fellow inmate that he committed a crime similar to the Maria's abduction and murder.
The ropes used in the murder helped establish a partial DNA profile. That helped establish it was one male suspect involved.
