Death of Maria Ridulph

Maria Elizabeth Ridulph was an American girl who was kidnapped on a street corner in Sycamore, Illinois, on December 3, 1957. She was seven years old at the time. Her body was discovered lying in a field five months later. The case went cold for 54 years until Jack McCullough, formerly John Tessier, was arrested in July 2011. McCullough was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and child abduction. He was found guilty on all three counts and sentenced to a life sentence. However, on March 24, 2016, the DeKalb County prosecutor announced that a review of new evidence has undermined "the possibility of guilt" and moved to have McCullough's conviction overturned. The State's Attorney for DeKalb County, Richard Schmack, confirmed that his office would not oppose McCullough's release. Background: Maria Ridulph was born on March 12, 1950, to Michael and Frances Ivy Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois. She was the youngest of four children; two older sisters, Patricia and Kay; one brother, Charles. Although many residents lived or worked on farms in the area, her father, Michael, worked at one of the few factories in Sycamore and her mother, Frances, was a homemaker. At the time of abduction, Maria was a second grader with brown hair and brown eyes. She was 44 inches tall, weighed 53 pounds, was an honor student, and received awards for perfect attendance in Sunday school at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John. According to her mother, Maria was high-strung. "My daughter was a nervous girl and if she got in any trouble would become hysterical." Frances said in a 1957 interview shortly after Maria's abduction. "Someone would probably have to kill her to keep her quiet. I am the only one who could calm her down." Maria was also described as a "screamer" and afraid of the dark. Her best friend was Kathy Sigman, who lived on the same street as her. Crime: On the evening of December 3, 1957, Maria, then seven years old, begged to be allowed to go outside as it had started to snow. After finishing dinner, Maria and her friend Kathy Sigman were playing outside in the dark near Maria's house playing 'duck the cars' - running back and forth trying to avoid the headlights of oncoming cars. According to Kathy, they were approached by a man, whom Kathy later described to police as in his early 20s and tall with a slender chin, light hair, a gap in the teeth, and wearing a colorful sweater. The man, who said his name was 'Johnny', 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. After Maria came back, Kathy ran back home to get her mittens. When she returned, Maria and the man were gone. Kathy went to the Ridulph house to tell them she couldn't find Maria. The family initially thought that Maria was hiding, and sent 11-year-old Charles to look for her. After he was unable to find her, his parents called the police, and within an hour, police and armed civilians began scouring the town for the little girl and the kidnapper. The case received national attention, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower took an interest in the case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the authority of J. Edgar Hoover arrived in Sycamore within two days after the crime to assist the local and state police in the search. 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. On December 22, 1957, Kathy drove with her father and the FBI to the Dane County Sheriff Office in Madison, Wisconsin, to see a lineup of possible suspects. She positively identified thirty-six-year-old Thomas Joseph Rivard, a 36-year-old male described in FBI documents as having blue eyes, dark blond/wavy/bushy hair, yellowish gapped teeth 5’4" and about 156 lbs, with a ruddy complexion. Thomas Rivard, however, had an alibi - 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. When asked about the 1957 lineup, Kathy claimed to not remember picking him out of the lineup. John Tessier, later convicted of the crime some 50 years later, was among the list of suspects because he resembled the general description of the suspect, but the police failed to have Kathy identify him after he provided an alibi for the night of the crime. 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. 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. On April 26, 1958, near Woodbine, Illinois (23 miles east of Galena), two tourists were searching for mushrooms when they discovered the skeleton remains of a small child under a partially fallen tree. The remains were identified as Maria Ridulph based on the clothes she was wearing when she disappeared. She was still wearing her shirt, undershirt, and socks, but her coat, pants, and shoes were never found. The body had been found more than 120 miles from Sycamore, and because the crime occurred within the state of Illinois, the FBI withdrew from the case and the Illinois State Police took over. No photographs were taken of the crime scene (although photos were taken of the general location without showing the body) because the coroner, James Furlong, didn't want photos of the dead child's body leaked to newspapers. The initial autopsy did not determine a cause of death due to the state of decomposition. During a subsequent autopsy done 50 years later, a forensic anthropologist determined that Maria had been stabbed to death, pointing out nicks made by a sharp blade in Maria's sternum and neck vertebrae, consistent with 'at least three' slashes to Maria's throat. Suspect: John Tessier was born John Cherry on November 27, 1939, to Eileen McCullough Cherry. His father had been killed early in World War II. Eileen was serving during the war as one of the first female airplane spotters with the UK’s Royal Air Force when she met Ralph Tessier, who was serving with the United States 8th Army-Air Force at RAF Bovingdon, England. Mrs. Cherry married Ralph Tessier in November 1944, and after the war, she and her son, John, followed Ralph to Sycamore, Illinois. John was 7 years old at the time. The Tessier home was just around the corner from the Ridulph home, less than two blocks away. John was kicked out of school in the 10th grade and made plans to join the U.S. Air Force. His parents told the FBI, who received a tip about Tessier being a potential suspect, that on the night of the kidnapping, Jack was in Rockford, Illinois, to enlist in the Air Force. This was later verified by officers at the recruiting station in Rockford that said they spoke with John from around 7:15 pm that evening. In addition, a collect call was placed from Rockford to the Tessier home at 6:57 pm on December 3, 1957, by someone that gave his name as "John Tassier" as written down by the operator. John was brought to the police station to take a lie detector test, which he passed. Given his seemingly air-tight alibi and the lie detector test result, John was taken off the suspect list, and the FBI closed out his report on December 10, 1957, noting: "No further investigation is being conducted regarding the above suspect." At the time of the crime, he was 18 years old and the police never had Kathy view him in person or view a photo of him. John left Sycamore shortly after, having joined the military. Tessier served in the military for thirteen years and rose to the rank of captain. After leaving the Air Force, he moved to Seattle, Washington, where he subsequently graduated from the King County Law Enforcement Academy in June 1974 and became a police officer in the small town of Lacey near Olympia. His first marriage produced a son and a daughter but soon failed. His second marriage also ended after three years because, John says, "I cheated on her". In 1982, in Tacoma, Washington, Tessier took in a 15-year-old runaway, Michelle Weinman, and her friend, who knew Tessier from his time as a police officer in Milton, Washington. Michelle Weinman testified that within a couple of weeks of living with Tessier, he fondled her and then performed oral sex on her. John Tessier was charged with statutory rape, a felony. After plea negotiations, he eventually pleaded guilty to communication with a minor for immoral purposes, a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to one year of formal probation and was terminated from the Milton Police Department on March 10, 1982. On April 27, 1994, John Tessier legally changed his name to Jack Daniel McCullough, saying that he wanted to honor his late mother. Reopening of case: The case was reopened when Janet Tessier, McCullough's half-sister, believing McCullough was involved, asked the Illinois State Police to look into it. Janet Tessier made the decision to come to the police after spending time as the caretaker to her and John's mother. Janet claims their mother confessed on her deathbed that her son, John Tessier, was the perpetrator. Janet's younger sister, Mary Pat, was in the room with her when their mother confessed, although Mary Pat's testimony conflicted with Janet's as to what they heard their mother say. Janet Tessier made several attempts to get law enforcement to look into her information over the next fourteen years. Investigators declined her first two attempts, saying there was no physical evidence and that the deathbed confession would be inadmissible in court. Finally, in 2008, the Illinois State Police Cold Case Unit took on the case and undertook a lengthy investigation into John Tessier/ Jack McCullough's background and alibi. Hoping to have Kathy (Sigman) Chapman review a photographic lineup, they took five pictures from the 1957 Sycamore High School yearbook. However, as John Tessier had been expelled in the tenth grade, he was not in the yearbook. They contacted a former girlfriend of Tessier to obtain his picture; along with the picture, she found an unused, military-issued train ticket dated December 1957. The investigators took this to suggest that Tessier had not taken the train to Chicago as originally reported, casting doubt on his alibi. They established an alternate timeline of events from December 3, 1957, deciding it was possible that Tessier had driven to Chicago, giving him enough time to have kidnapped Maria, killed her, dumped her body near Woodbine, and returned to Sycamore. They included the photo of Tessier in the lineup given to Chapman, though it stood out from the yearbook pictures, in that the yearbook photos all featured the subjects in suits in front of a light background, looking off to the left, whereas Tessier's photo captures him wearing an open collar in front of a dark background, looking directly at the camera. Chapman identified the picture of Tessier. Afterwards, the Illinois State Police and Seattle Police Department joined together in the investigation. In July 2011, after a three-year investigation, the Seattle Police Department brought McCullough in for questioning. Now in his early 70s, McCullough was living at a retirement community where he worked as a security guard. Due to his experience as a former police officer, the investigators brought a professional interrogator. During the initial interrogation, McCullough spoke calmly and cooperated with the investigators, but when they began asking him questions about the murder of Maria Ridulph and of his whereabouts on the night of the crime, he became evasive and aggressive. The investigators presented reports from childhood friends who had seen him in Sycamore on December 3, 1957, when he claimed to have been in Rockford, and of how his mother implicated him before she died. After McCullough refused to answer any more questions, he was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Maria Ridulph. Ridulph's body was exhumed that same month, and for the first time investigators determined a probable cause of death: Maria had been stabbed to death in the throat at least three times by a long, sharp blade. News of the arrest in a 54-year-old murder case drew national attention. The lead prosecutor, Clay Campbell, was reluctant to take the case due to its age and the lack of any physical evidence connecting McCullough to the crime. But, after being persuaded by the Ridulph and Tessier families, who all believed that McCullough was guilty, he formally charged McCullough with the kidnapping and murder of Maria. Trial for rape of Jeanne Tessier: The prosecution, wary of the circumstantial evidence in the murder case, decided to charge McCullough with the gang rape of his half-sister, Jeanne Tessier, in 1962. It was alleged that Jeanne, then aged 14, had asked McCullough, then in his early 20s, to give her a ride in his borrowed convertible, after which McCullough had driven her to a location somewhere in Sycamore, raped her, and then offered her to three other young men, two of whom sexually assaulted her. The plan was to try McCullough for the rape case first, and for murder at a later date. In the spring of 2012, the rape trial began with Clay Campbell leading the prosecution. The prosecution presented the police reports from early in the investigation of McCullough's interest in young girls of about seven years old (Maria's age). Jeanne Tessier, now aged 64, was the main witness for the prosecution. Tessier's siblings and Michelle Weinman (the victim in the 1982 statutory rape case) 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. The defense lawyers pointed out that Jeanne had not told anyone about being raped until McCullough was arrested for Maria's murder. McCullough did not testify, 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. Trial for murder of Maria Ridulph: In September 2012, McCullough was tried for the murder of Maria Ridulph. The prosecution contended that McCullough was attracted to Maria and decided to kidnap her, but instead ended up killing her, presenting the new autopsy reports suggesting Maria was stabbed to death. Although the prosecutors suspected McCullough of molesting Maria, they were unable to prove it and never brought it up in court. Numerous witnesses testified for the prosecution, including Maria's family members, neighbors, law enforcement personnel and Kathy Sigman Chapman, who was the star witness and identified McCullough as "Johnny", the man who had walked up to her and Maria 50 years earlier. 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. One inmate said McCullough spoke of strangling Maria with a wire, and another said McCullough accidentally smothered her to stop her from screaming. 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. McCullough did not take the stand in his own defense in order to avoid possible cross-examination about the 1982 incident involving an underage girl. On September 14, 2012, McCullough was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Maria Ridulph and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years. He was 73 years old at the time of sentencing. Appeal: On February 13, 2015, the Second District Appellate Court of Illinois issued their response to Jack Daniel McCullough's appeal of the murder conviction. The court upheld the 2012 murder conviction, but vacated the kidnapping and abduction of an infant charges. On October 13, 2015, the defense for Jack McCullough filed a Motion to Reconsider the Dismissal of Defendant’s Post Conviction Petition, in which they claimed "police and prosecutor misconduct." Conviction Questioned: In March 2016, the DeKalb County prosecutor announced that new evidence cast significant doubt on McCullough's guilt and he called for the conviction to be overturned. The State's Attorney for DeKalb County confirmed that he would not oppose any motion to overturn the conviction. Newly obtained phone records from Illinois Bell showed that McCullough made a collect call to his mother from a pay phone in downtown Rockford, IL, rather than from Sycamore, as alleged in the trial. Rockford is located about 40 miles northwest of Sycamore. A court hearing was held on March 29, 2016, where Circuit Court Judge William Brady considered a number of legal issues. Brady ordered the parties to return to court on April 15.