Ch.40: Vickie Lynn Harrell:Another Jeffrey Hand Victim?

    

   Vickie Lynn Harrell was 25 years old in August 1972. She worked in Bloomington, Indiana.  Bloomington was and still is a fun college town.  It’s the home of Indiana University. Whenever I manage to get there I like to enjoy lunch at the Trojan Horse and order the flaming cheese. Mama Bear’s pizza is also a delicious place to have lunch. It’s a town of bookstores, restaurants and so many cultural offerings. I’m sure Vickie Lynn enjoyed living there in 1972. 

   (The movie, “Breaking Away” is set in Bloomington in the mid to late 1970’s and shows many views of this college town and the campus of Indiana University. You also get to see the rural settings outside town. It’s a really good movie in my opinion.)

   Vickie worked as a clerk in a department store. She shared an apartment with a roommate.  She was 25 and enjoying life in a vibrant college town.

   She was last seen alive getting into her car at K-Mart. 

   She was found face down on August 12th, 1972 in a puddle of water by the side of the road near McCormick’s Creek State Park outside Bloomington. There were initials carved on her nude body. They appeared to be K N.  Her neck showed signs of strangulation. 

  

   One of the prime suspects is Jeffrey Lynn Hand. Vickie was murdered in August and Pamela Milam was murdered in September. Both taken from college towns. These towns are only about a 90 minute drive apart. I’d like to know where Vickie’s car was found or if it was found. 

   One thing we know about Hand is that he drove around quite a bit.  In 1973 he was driving from Terre Haute south to Gibson county when abducted the Thomases. He had just been fired from his job in Gibson county.  What was he doing driving to Terre Haute and back? He first attempted to rob Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. I wonder if he committed armed robberies too. He had a couple of handguns and knives. He would need money.  He had a wife and two children living in Washington, Indiana.

   We know he murdered Pamela Milam in September of 1972 because DNA matched him to the crime decades later in 2019. 

   We know he attempted to abduct Susan Matlock in 1978. He shot at police, wounding one, and was subsequently shot and killed by police officers. 

   I think there are a lot of crimes that should be looked at with Jeffrey Hand in mind.  They have his DNA. Hopefully evidence was saved so that comparisons can be made. 

   

   Steven Judy can’t be a suspect in this one. He was only 12 and couldn’t drive. He was not even 13 yet but already in custody for a brutal rape and hatchet attack. 

  

   It could be someone else though.  Police in the 70’s were looking at a couple of other similar murders in  1969 and 1970 in Pennsylvania and Maryland where initials were also carved in the victims.  

   Vickie Lynn Harrell was only 25. What would her future have been? She deserved so much more.