Bennett Brown : 1976 Lawrence County, Indiana

   

   A body was found in the overgrowth off Silverville-Owensburg Road in Northeast Lawrence County in May 1976. It appeared to be a male college student. He wore blue jeans, a red sweatshirt, Adidas tennis shoes. He had been stabbed to death. His wallet was missing.  He had a set of keys though. Inside his clothes were laundry tags that had the name Bennett Brown. 

   Today I-69 runs through the area but it wasn’t there in 1976. This was as out of the way as you could get. 

    Local police were first trying to find this young man’s family.  Where was he from? 

   A local master locksmith was asked to take a look at the keys. He was able to identify several of the keys and their most common uses.  One key was most likely a dorm room key. 

   They began calling colleges nearby like Indiana University and then widening that circle.  Finally they found a Bennett Brown from Evanston, Illinois.  He had told family and friends that he was going to Wisconsin to work at a boy’s Summer Camp. He had told friends about the job but did not give specifics.  Dental records confirmed this young man’s identity. 

   How did he end up way out there in the woods?  Had he been carjacked, robbed and murdered or had he been hitchhiking? Was the perpetrator someone local? This is a very rural area. This is not like a body found on the side of a major interstate. This place was very remote.  Most outsiders aren’t going to go down twisting, turning gravel roads in overgrown wooded areas. 

   Was the perpetrator from this area and traveling back from the Chicago area? 

He was most likely killed in DeKalb in the upper left corner of the map and taken all the way to the lower left of this map south of Bloomington. 

   Bennett Cary Brown was born August 11, 1957. His family was Jewish. I kind of wondered about the name tags in his clothes.  Anyone who had gone through W.W.2 or had a family history with the Holocaust…well, they would know the value of putting a name tag in one’s clothing. 

   Did the perpetrator know that Bennett was Jewish? Was this a hate crime? 

   His parents were Stanley Brown and Grace Medow.  In 1976 he also had a step-father, Howard Weinstein. They had not reported him missing because they assumed that he was at camp in Wisconsin like he said. 

   He was a college student in his freshman year but his home address was 1703 Madison, Evanston, Illinois 60602. 

   If he was supposed to be heading to Wisconsin; how did he end up here? Was he driving his own car to Wisconsin or riding with someone he knew or hitchhiking with strangers? 

   Investigators believed that he had been killed around May 4th 1976 when classes ended at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. DeKalb is a short drive west of the Chicago suburbs.

   There’s plenty of places closer to dump a body.  Why come to rural central Indiana unless you had a connection there or a reason to go there?  What was the reason to pay for all that gas to go there? Was the killer someone who knew Bennett and they hoped that by taking the body so far away he might never be identified and connected to DeKalb, Illinois? There are so many unanswered questions. 

   Bennett Brown’s murder is still unsolved.

   If you have any information please call the Indiana State Police Cold Case Investigation team at 1-812-332-4411 or 1-800-423-1286.