April Tinsley’s case
By: Mariana Bula 10ºB
We all know that the world can be really scary sometimes, and that not everything is as good as we think it is. This is why I will be writing about a really horrifying case that happened back in April the 1st, 1988 when April Tinsley was just an 8-year-old. Even though it may be too much and possibly triggering, I wanted to share this case to prove that with dedication and the intention to make things the right way, problems can be solved.
It was a common day. April was playing 3 blocks away from her house with two of her friends, when she suddenly remembered that she had left her umbrella at one of the other houses. Therefore, she goes back to get it because it was really cloudy outside, but sadly, that was the last time she was seen. As time passed by, her mom Janet Tinsley began to worry because April hadn't come home, so she decided to call one of April’s friends´ mom hoping to hear some good news from her. Instead, she told Janet that April left around 3pm to go grab her umbrella and never came back, so they thought she would’ve been home by that time. Clearly Janet panicked and began to look for her around the neighborhood with the help of her husband and some other neighbors. Sadly, they didn’t have much luck. Thus, at around 6pm they decided to report her as missing to the police.
Janet gave April's picture to the police and described to them what she was wearing. She had on a blue crew neck, a red and pink jacket, some blue pants with three hearts on the left leg, and pink shoes. Looking for her took about 3 days, around 250 policemen, and 50 volunteers. Finally, one morning a man that had gone on his daily run, found April's body at the end of a ditch. Even though when they found her she was completely dressed, she was still missing a pink shoe; and later on, the autopsy revealed she had been suffocated and raped. The authorities determined that she had been dead for around 1 to 2 days prior to being found, and that she had been placed in the ditch 4 hours before finding her.
As expected, April’s family wanted to find the culprit immediately. Due to the area where they found her corpse, authorities began to suspect that the responsible had to be someone from town. However, they were confused because she was so close from the road, making it seem like the murderer wanted her to be found. Also, right after her funeral, a witness called the police and told them that he had seen a little blonde girl wearing blue pants with three hearts on the left leg trying to cross the road; but before she could do it, a blue truck parked next to her and she got in calmly. With this statement, the police did the first spoken portrait of how they thought the responsible would look like. Nevertheless, after the portrait was released, lots of witnesses called and instead of giving valuable information; they made the research a lot harder, up to the point where the police had around 600 suspects.
Even though the authorities did everything they could to find the criminal, the DNA tests didn’t match any suspect. This is when finding the killer took a lot more time than what was expected. 2 years later they found a very disturbing message on the walls of a farm that said, “I killed 8-year-old April Marie Tinsley, I will kill again”, but still, they couldn't find any valid proof that could lead to the responsible. The case stood by for around 15 years without any answers. Meanwhile in 2004, four letters in a Ziploc bag were found in a mailbox, next to used condoms and polaroid pictures of a man’s private parts. Three other pictures of the same version were also attached to the wheels of little girls’ bicycles. These letters were basically a form of threat to the girls, telling them that he had been watching them for some time, and that they were about to become his next victim. Additionally, he also stated that if the girls didn’t say anything about the letters, or see them posted on the news, he would set their houses on fire. This made the authorities think the responsible for April’s murder was intentionally wanting to be caught.
The condoms found with the letters, matched the DNA of a possible suspect; however, the case remained unsolved. Time kept passing by, and in 2015 a company called Parabon Snapshot, which had helped solving a lot of different cases, released a portrait of what the suspect would look like according to his DNA. But since a lot of time had passed, it was more likely that the killer would be a lot older and changed; so, in 2016 they released a new portrait, but still, nothing happened. Finally, in May 2018, a detective sent the DNA test from the suspect to a company called Parabon Nanolabs. Here they helped to reduce the suspects list to 2 brothers, including John D. Miller (59 years old) from Indiana. The police gathered some used condoms from his trash and recollected DNA that matched with the suspects DNA.
On July 15, 2018, the investigators went to his house and asked him to go to the station to talk. After they explained his rights, they asked him if he knew what he was there for, according to the police he said “April Tinsley”. During the interrogatory he admitted that he had raped, suffocated and killed her. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, 50 for murder and 30 for child abuse. The nearest date he’ll be put out is scheduled for July 15, 2058 when he’s 99 years old. And this is how finally the case ends, 30 years later.