Terri Joann Darlington:Mooresville, Indiana 1975

   

  Terri Joann Darlington was 14. She lived in the five points area of Mooresville, Indiana with her Mother and Grandmother. Mooresville is just south of Indianapolis. As you leave Indianapolis and travel into Mooresville it is hard to tell the difference now.  But the businesses and homes that connect the two now were not there then. There would have been a buffer zone of rural wooded land. 

   Terri Darlington went missing from her home on September 16th of 1975.  I did not find any articles discussing her missing status. There were no human interest stories detailing the searches or the anguish of family members. Those sorts of news stories would come along later in the 1980’s. 

   I imagine that it was assumed by police that she had run away. Her family, however, was missing her and they were worried because they officially reported her missing on September 16th.  I’m sure they were searching and were beside themselves despite the no lack of news stories. 

   Weeks and then months went by.  It was almost Thanksgiving before there was any news. It was not good news. 

   A badly decomposed body was found in a cornfield near the old Weir Cook Airport in Indianapolis on November 18th, 1975. Animals has eaten away at the hands. The head was found 41 feet away and animals had eaten some of the flesh from that as well. Clothing and jewelry were found on and near the body. 

  There were several missing girls and women in Indiana and the surrounding states at the time so the remains, clothing and jewelry were compared to those descriptions.  Cheryl Bolin, 11 years old, had disappeared in August from Monrovia, Indiana. This body was not her.  The clothing did not match and the height was wrong.  Cheryl Bolin’s remains would not be found until 1976. She was discarded in a field near Terre Haute. 

   I cannot imagine the feelings of the families when they hear that a body has been found.  Do they hope that it is their child? Do they hope it is not their child?  I imagine they would feel terrible either way.  I don’t know how a parent survives that kind of loss. 

   The family of Terri Joann Darlington positively identified the clothing and jewelry of this victim. Her shirt was said to be white with blue flowers at the neck and cuffs. In the photo that I was able to find of Terry she appears to be wearing that very blouse. She had been wearing a turquoise bracelet and a turquoise ring.  Those were found near the body. 

    Things hadn’t been going well in the years leading up to 1975. Terry had lived in Foster Care. She had attended middle school on the West Side of Indianapolis in the Pike School District.  She had enrolled in high school in Noblesville for a year. Then she had joined her Mother and Grandmother in Mooresville and enrolled in school there. She had only been attending classes for a few days when she disappeared. 

   Terri’s Mother had moved in with Terri’s grandmother before Terri also joined them. What was the family dynamic that prompted Terri and her Mother to flee the family home? Could they have feared a family member? Could this family member have had something to do with Terri’s death? 

   The description of the way the body was found mentions a jacket with one sleeve tied in a knot. Was this possibly used to strangle Terry?  Could it have been left on her neck and come away when animals and decomposition separated the head from the body?  Why is that one sleeve tied in a knot?

   Because Terri disappeared near Mooresville I immediately thought of Steven Judy as a suspect.  Steven Judy raped and murdered Terry Lee Chasteen and murdered her three young children in Mooresville in 1979. He strangled Chasteen to death with her own clothing. (I wrote about her story in a previous blog post.) 

   Could Steven Judy be responsible for this murder as well?  There is no description of the position and condition of Terri Joann’s other clothing so we can only assume rape was a motive here. 

   Terri Joann Darlington and Terry Chasteen looked quite a bit alike in life. Some serial killers have a preferred victim type.  

   It seems like Steven Judy was actually in Joliet at this time.  Jeffrey Lynn Hand, a known rapist and murderer, is also incarcerated in 1975. Who murdered Terri? 

   Thomas Edward Williams is a possible suspect.  He attacked 3 young girls on August 19th 1975 east of Indianapolis.  He stabbed all three and raped the youngest one.  All three survived.  He died in a Texas prison in the 1980’s but DNA proved his guilt on the attack on those three girls. 

   In 1979, John T. Gibson Jr. raped and strangled Tara Renee Meredith. Her shoelace was used in the strangling. He was caught immediately and almost by chance. A deputy on a regular patrol saw his car on a lonely stretch of road and stopped to check it out. He found Tara in a nearby field. She was dead but still warm.  A search began with helicopters and K-9 patrols.  Gibson was arrested, charged and eventually convicted.  He served his sentence and is free now. 

  Did Gibson also rape and strangle Terri? He would have been 23 in 1975 when Terri was murdered. That jacket sleeve tied in a knot makes me think someone used it as a ligature. Perhaps Terri was not wearing footwear with laces. 

   Terri Joann Darlington was only 14.  She deserved to be living the life of a high school freshman.  She deserved to enjoy a long life.  She never got to finish high school, study and explore her own interests. She should still be here with us. Rest in Peace Terri. 

Update: John R. Willoughby is believed to have killed Terri.  He was with her the night she disappeared.  He was questioned at the time and cleared by polygraph. 

  Willoughby was never convicted in Terri’s murder but he was convicted of the 1983 murder of a police officer.  Officer Patricia Ann Alexa’s McCaslin was murdered in 1983 and dumped…near the old airport. (I am looking into exactly where but I imagine it was probably exactly where Terri was left. )  I am working on a blog post about Officer McCaslin’s case.