Danny Rouse:Serial Killer, Homegrown in Indiana

  

   I think he liked seeing the damage he had inflicted. I think that might be a central reason why he killed.   

   After he strangled and stabbed his co-worker, Stephanie Wagner, in 2006; he went to work the very next day. He walked right into that restaurant like nothing was wrong.  I think he wanted to be there to witness the reactions people would have when the calls started coming asking if anyone had seen Stephanie. I think he liked seeing the devastation. 

  After he shot Nellie Mikesells through her window in the fall of 1974, he broke into her home. He didn’t steal anything. Police theorized at the time that he broke in to see what his bullet had done. 

  He shot Lela Hildebrandt as she drove by one night in October 1975. The shot to the left side of her face would cause her to veer off the road and total her car. Her injuries were first thought to be caused simply from the car accident.  Someone looked a little closer and saw the gun shot wound. A shotgun had been used. 

   Danny Rouse confessed to the Mikesells and Hildebrandt murders after he was caught for the Stephanie Wagner murder in 2006.  To avoid the death penalty he and his lawyers offered to help close those old cases. 

   Where was Danny Rouse between 1974 and 2006? Are there other murders? What else was he up to?

    He moved to Wichita, Kansas.  We know that he was living there in October of 1979 when he attacked Kathryn Crowley and murdered her young son Jason Learst.  Kathryn lived despite severe stab wounds.  Danny Rouse was caught trying to flee eastward. He might have been headed back to Indiana.

   Rouse was tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Kansas.  However, Kansas paroled him in 2006 after only 26 years.  That left him free to kill Stephanie Wagner. He is serving life in prison in Indiana now. 

   But what about other murders?  There is no such thing as a part time serial killer. Once they start killing that is all they think about. 

   Let’s look at proximity and similarity.  

   Junior Murphy was murdered in 1974 in the exact spot where Lela Hildebrandt would be murdered the following year.  It’s a lonely little rural road.  Junior Murphy suffered head injuries. There is not a lot of detail available about his head injuries.  I am wondering if he was shot with a shotgun like Lela was. Maybe in this case the gunshot wound went unrecognized as Lela’s almost did. 

   William H. Nagel was driving along near Wolcott, Indiana in March 1977 when he was shot and then wrecked his car just like Lela Hildebrandt in 1975. 

   In February of 1975, Barbara Sue Menzie was strangled and stabbed in her apartment. Her husband discovered her after he got off work.  (He was a laborer but I haven’t found where he worked.) Barbara and Kenneth’s two year old daughter was in her crib, unharmed. 

   Brenda Ginter was a single Mom who worked at Arrowhead Engineering in 1975. Someone entered her apartment and strangled and stabbed her to death in the summer of 1975.  Her young son, not yet two years old, was unharmed. 

  The Menzie and Ginter murders are similar to Stephanie Wagner’s in 2006 and there are some similarities to the attack on Kathryn Crowley and murder of her young son in 1979. 

   I am wondering if Kenneth Menzie worked at Arrowhead Engineering like Brenda Ginter did.  I am also wondering if Danny Rouse worked there too. Remember that Rouse loved seeing the devastation. Imagine him showing up at work after those 1975 murders. Imagine the way co-workers react when they hear that a man’s wife was murdered.  Imagine how they talk about the woman that they worked with who was murdered. 

  Two innocent co-workers of Brenda Ginter were held for months suspected of her murder.  After no evidence in her apartment could tie them to the murder; they were released.  Imagine the daily gossip in the break room. 

   Did Danny Rouse kill Junior Murphy, William H. Nagel, Barbara Menzie and Brenda Ginter?  Only testing will tell.  He is already incarcerated.  But, don’t these families deserve Justice? Don’t these victims deserve Justice?  They do.  I think they do. 

   I don’t like to publish any photos of the killers.  I like to center my writing on the victims.  But, the cases I keep finding like Junior Murphy, William Nagel, Brenda Ginter and Barbara Menzie pushed me toward making this post.  

   Some of these cases are solvable if the evidence is still stored an available.  Science has come a long way. 

*UPDATE: I just found the murder of Stella Becker.  1976.  It is eerily similar to Nellie Mikesells.  

  I also think they should consider testing Rouse’s DNA in the murders of Lori Ann Brickley (Markle, IN. 1974) and Debra Dusing (1973, Southeast of Ft. Wayne, off Hartzell Rd).