2 men arrested in the 1975 drowning in Indiana of a 17-year-old church camp worker who ‘fought for her life’

By Emma Tucker and Michelle Watson, CNN

Two Indiana men have been arrested for the murder of a 17-year-old girl whose 1975 drowning death remained a cold case until evidence linked the suspects to the victim in a decades-long investigation, police said.

Fred Bandy Jr., 67, of Goshen, and John Wayne Lehman, 67, of Auburn, have each been charged with one count of murder in connection with the death of Laurel Jean Mitchell, the Indiana State Police said in a news release Tuesday.

Mitchell’s parents reported her missing on August 6, 1975, when she didn’t return home after leaving her job at the Epworth Forrest Church camp around 10:00 p.m., police said. The teen’s body was found the next morning in a river in western Noble County, about 17 miles from her home, the ISP said.

Her cause of death was listed as drowning, but an autopsy report “showed signs that she had fought for her life,” leading police to initiate a homicide investigation, according to police.

On Monday, more than 47 years after Mitchell’s death, Bandy Jr. and Lehman were taken into custody “without incident” at their homes by officers with the Indiana State Police and the Noble County Sheriff’s Department, police said.

The two suspects are currently being held without bond at the Noble County Jail, the release said. Both men had an initial court hearing and will be assigned a public defender, James Abbs, the Chief Public Defender of Noble County, told CNN in a statement.

“It was just such a waste,” Mitchell’s sister, Sarah Knisley, told CNN affiliate WPTA. “I just always wondered, you know, how she would have turned out. She missed prom, she missed graduation, she missed getting married and having kids and all that stuff.”

The new developments in the investigation came in the last couple of months after workers with the Indiana State Police laboratory tested evidence to make a correlation between the two suspects and the victim, the release said.

“This case is a culmination of a decades long investigation… and science finally gave us the answers we needed,” Indiana State Police Captain Kevin Smith said in a statement. “Playing a significant role in charges being filed was the Indiana State Police Laboratory Division. We simply could not have solved this case without them.”

Smith also said the public came forward with “valuable information,” over the course of the investigation, which was key to solving the case.

Police said DNA testing of Mitchell’s clothing eventually led officers to arrest the two men, according to CNN affiliate WPTA.

Genetic genealogy, which combines DNA evidence and traditional genealogy to find biological connections among people, has “changed the game” for police investigations in recent years, Smith said during a news conference this week.

The first detectives assigned to the case spent thousands of hours trying to solve Mitchell’s murder, state police said, and the investigation continued over the next five decades while her family waited for answers.

“I hope this brings them at least a little peace at this point,” Smith said of Mitchell’s family. “I cannot imagine having dealt with that for 47 years, wondering what happened.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.