Posted on 07/03/2011 3:49:17 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
SYCAMORE, Ill. (AP) Charles "Chuck" Ridulph always assumed the person who stole his little sister from the neighborhood corner where she played and dumped her body in a wooded stretch some 100 miles away was a trucker or passing stranger surely not anyone from the hometown he remembers as one big, friendly playground.
And, after more than a half century passed since her death, he assumed the culprit also had died or was in prison for some other crime.
On Saturday, he said he was stunned by the news that a one-time neighbor had been charged in the kidnapping and killing that captured national attention, including that of the president and FBI chief. Prosecutors in bucolic Sycamore, a city of 15,000 that's home to a yearly pumpkin festival, charged a former police officer Friday in the 1957 abduction of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph after an ex-girlfriend's discovery of an unused train ticket blew a hole in his alibi.
Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, has been held in Seattle on $3 million bail. A judge overseeing a Saturday court appearance for him said he had been taken to a regional trauma center but did not elaborate. She rescheduled his bail hearing for 12:30 p.m. Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He went on to be a cop, maybe his father was a cop?
However, the police fail to check the train, fail to check the doctor's office to see if he was there, fail to check the recruiter, fail to check phone records. But over 50 years later, the police do a follow-up interview with the ex-girlfriend for an old picture and the unused train ticket magically falls out of the frame.
Can’t understand why they never showed the picture to the girls friend.
Anyway ,back in the day the way to deal with this would have been to leave a pistol with one bullet in it for the perp.
Today such things don’t happen, but I would see to it that he had access to a nice piece of rope in his cell. Even now he might do the right thing.
Bump for later.
That too... It doesn’t make sense. Too much incompetence for this story to be complete.
Chapman said police never showed her a photo of McCullough in the days and months after Maria was kidnapped.
And the stupid ones don't catch anyone.
Dude, we are talking about Sycamore, Illinois. That’s Barney Fife territory.
The report says this murderer became a cop. One of the Freepers surmised that probably his father was a cop. If that was the case then we know why no checking was done.
hat a one-time neighbor had been charged in the kidnapping and killing that captured national attention, including that of the president and FBI chief. >>
what a story, glad the case was solved, as they say, it’s usually someone the victim knows or someone close to the family.
“Someone important was covering for Johnny Tressier ... pure and simple ... “
I think you hit it. He had a connection someplace that prevented an investigation. Small towns often have a “Boss Hogg” type that could quash something like a murder back then.
Thanks for the info. I guess he’ll die in prison.
That’s why I always burn unused train tickets. Just in case.
Great story. Give hope that the Jack Wheeler case will be solved.
I'v be happier if they had some dna...
This article may answer some of your questions, especially about the dad supposedly picking him up in Rockford that night (he didn’t).
McCullough (he changed his name from Tessier) also has a long history of sex abuse claims against him, one of which cost him a job as a police officer.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/07/02/1730414/police-train-ticket-helps-crack.html
Not enough of a reason as if there was that much evidence, they wouldn't have covered.
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