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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/TheBonesOfAutumn on 2024-01-18 22:55:06+00:00.
Original Title: In the summer of 1975, three girls, Kandice Smith, 13, Sheri Rottler, 11, and Kathie Rottler, 14, were stabbed and sexually assaulted by a man who offered them a ride to an Indianapolis, Indiana amusement park. Today the person responsible was identified as Thomas Edward Williams.
On August 19, 1975, at 10:45 p.m., Kandice Smith, 13, Sheri Rottler Trick, 11, and Kathie Rottler, 14, had just left a gas station located in the 800 block of Washington Street on the east side of Indianapolis, Indiana. While on their way to a nearby amusement park, a man picked them up in his station wagon.The girls soon realized the man driving had continued to drive past their requested destination. They attempted to escape from the vehicle but found the front passenger door was missing its inside door handle. Eventually, the man stopped near a cornfield in Greenfield.
There, he forced the three girls out of the vehicle at gunpoint and bound two of them. He then proceeded to sexually assault Sheri, then stabbed her three times in the throat, and another 15 times in her chest. He then slashed the throats of Kandice and Kathie, and left them all for dead.Miraculously, the older two girls were able to make it to the road where they flagged down a passing motorist. All three survived the violent attack. Unfortunately, despite giving a detailed description of their attacker, the case went cold.
In 2018, however, an Indianapolis police officer reopened the case and worked to have evidence and DNA analyzed. In 2021, the Marion County crime lab recovered DNA evidence relating to a possible suspect. Finally in 2023, a genetic genealogy profile was completed by DNA Labs International in Florida.
Today, the man responsible has been officially identified as Thomas Edward Williams. Williams died in November of 1983 in a Galveston, Texas prison. At the time of the abduction, he lived near the site of the kidnapping.
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