Connie and Chad Fivecoate: Found near Monterey, Indiana

    If two bodies were found less than a mile from Ted Bundy’s house would you think that Ted Bundy did it? 

   

   On Thursday July 18th 1974, Thirty three year old Connie Jo Fivecoate and her eight year old son, Chad, went to the park. Her husband Clarence was at work. Their teenage daughter, Christine, stayed home.  

  It was hot and humid that day with highs in the mid 80’s which is pretty typical for Summer in Indiana.  

 According to the earliest newspaper articles, Connie and Chad went to Huston Park in Logansport, Indiana. There’s a creek there and nice trails through the woods.  In the July heat it was a good place to cool off and splash around and wade. Connie was 5’2” and 120 pounds.  She and Chad both had blonde hair and might have looked like a couple of kids together rather than a mother and her son since Connie was petite and Chad was growing up. 

   When they did not return home that night, Clarence Fivecoate called the police.  Police found Connie’s car, a 1974 silver colored Lincoln Continental Mark 4, at the park. Connie and Chad were nowhere around.  The park was searched extensively. 

   They had been missing 8 days when an article in the paper offered a $1000 dollar reward for information or their return. A phone number accompanied the article asking for tips.  

   The Fivecoate family had recently sold their waste disposal business. The new company kept Clarence on as a Manager.  The deal had been a windfall for the hardworking family.  The Lincoln Continental might have been purchased to celebrate this bit of luck. It also might have been a graduation gift as Connie had just graduated from the Purdue University Realty course and was embarking upon a real estate career.

   The Howard County Sheriff’s office continued with numerous searches but turned up nothing. 

   Finally an anonymous tip that originated in Howard County was called in to the Starke County Sheriff about where the bodies could be found. Howard County officers also assisted in searching the area. 

   On Wednesday August 14th 1974,  Connie and Chad were found in shallow graves in a wet and marshy wooded area near Culver, Indiana. It was a spot east of Bass Lake in Southeast Starke County. The summer heat and moisture of the mud left them badly decomposed. 

   Connie had been shot 3 times in the back of the head and her son Chad had been shot once, also in the back of the head. A small caliber gun had been used. They were both found wearing their bathing suits. 

  Chad was found in a grave 12-18 inches deep about 50 to 75 yards off the old lane that ran through the woods.  The land had been subdivided but building and construction had not yet begun. Connie was buried a bit further away in a clearing.  Maybe the tree roots made digging too difficult and so she was dragged further away where digging would be easier. 

  Someone had kidnapped them in broad daylight at the park and murdered them both.  But who and why? They didn’t take the expensive brand new Lincoln Continental.  Why not?  Robbery doesn’t seem like the motive here at first glance. 

   Connie and Chad Fivecoate were laid to rest at Sunset Memory Gardens in Kokomo. My heart goes out to their devastated family and friends.  This mother and her son should still be here. 

   I first read about this case a few months ago.  I have been finding quite a few murders in this area that I believe are the work of serial killer Danny Rouse. I put off writing and digging into this one because I saw that some individuals were arrested and charged and convicted. I was still looking for unsolved murders at that time. 

   Who is Danny Rouse? It’s a long story. 

   The first murder that we know Rouse committed was in September of 1974. He shot Nellie Mikesells through the window of her home while she sat in her rocking chair. 

   In 1975 he killed Lela Hildebrandt with a shotgun blast on a deserted stretch of road as she drove by on a dark October night. 

   In October of 1979 he had moved to Wichita, Kansas and attacked a woman, Kathryn Crowley and murdered  her 5 year old son, Jason Learst.  He was sentenced to life in prison in Kansas but was paroled in 2006.  He returned to Indiana and murdered Stephanie Wagner on Halloween night by stabbing and strangling her. 

   I have since found other murders that I believe he committed: George Murphy Jr, June 30th 1974 was killed in almost the exact same spot as Lela Hildebrandt.  He had head trauma that could have been a shotgun blast that went unnoticed. (Coroners were often untrained then.) Murphy was just a young man of little means and poor people don’t always get the best investigations. 

   Barbara Menzie and Brenda Ginter were both young mothers in the area.  Both were stabbed and strangled in 1975 like Stephanie Wagner would be decades later in 2006. 

   I also think he shot Stella Becker in 1976. Her murder is so similar to Nellie Mikesells that you could just about switch their names in the newspaper articles. 

   William H Nagel was shot in 1977 while driving almost exactly like Lela Hildebrandt had been in 1975.  

   I have written about all of those individuals in my blog and recorded those stories on my YouTube channel. Most of them did not have searchable names before on Google.  They were buried in old news archives.  But, their names are searchable and more accessible now. 

   

 

   Back to the Fivecoate murders:  

   I initially doubted that this was done by Rouse. Three people were convicted of it after all.  And in the murders that we know that Rouse did…he did not move any bodies.  He didn’t kidnap or abduct anyone that we know of either. 

  But, the fact that the bodies were found so close to his home really intrigued me. They were taken from Kokomo and brought so much closer to his home turf.  That seemed significant.  What are the odds that a Mother and son would be abducted and murdered and buried so very close to the home of a serial killer?  But then again this is the 1970’s…violent crime was rising all over the country. 

   But it could have been him. If he did kill Junior Murphy in June of 1974, this murder would come just a few weeks later. 

   

   Police at the time were eager to solve the case.  Who wouldn’t be? The Fivecoate family were good people.  The community was devastated.  People wanted Justice. 

   Three people would be arrested for these heinous murders. 

   Ralph Murphy, 35, worked for the Parks Department. He was arrested walking down the street one day.  He was interviewed without counsel present and so was his wife.  Ralph was told if he took a polygraph that he would be released. Ultimately a 65 page confession would be obtained. 

  Charles Lockert, 21, and his 19 year old girlfriend, Marianne Larsen were also arrested.  Marianne was convinced to become a cooperating witness and testify against the others. 

  The story was that the trio had kidnapped Connie and Chad from their home. Then the kidnappers forced Connie Fivecoate to cash checks, apparently. Then they killed the pair and buried them. 

  Why was the brand new Lincoln left at the park?  If the kidnappers took Connie and Chad from home…why take the car to the park? Maybe it was just a convenient place to park it and distance themselves from it.  But, if robbery was the motivation…why leave the most expensive item just sitting there? 

 The more that I read the newspaper articles the more questions that I have. 

 Did these three really kill Connie and Chad or did they just find Connie’s purse somewhere? Why was her brand new expensive car left at Huston Park?  If robbery was the motive why didn’t they take that shiny new Lincoln? 

   Lockert supposedly led police to the bodies. Lockert said he had been hunting and noticed the graves and he reported the discovery of the bodies. He was hoping to get the $1000 dollar reward. But in the detailed news articles about the discovery and recovery of the bodies there’s no mention of a suspect leading them to the bodies.  They talk about the lights that the fire department had to string through the woods. They talk about Starke County and Howard County officials working together at the scene. They describe the terrain, the mud, the lane that led back into the woods.  But those original newspaper reporters never mention seeing a civilian walking with police and pointing out the graves.  Why not?  Wouldn’t that have been incredibly newsworthy?

  

  Ralph Murphy would be sentenced to death but was not put to death by the state. He’s not listed among those put to death by the State of Indiana.  I also could not find him as currently incarcerated.  I have not found an obituary or anything about parole.  I assume he passed away in prison. 

  Charles Lockert was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 2004. Marianne Larsen was a cooperating witness but plead guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in the Indiana Women’s Prison. 

  But what if they didn’t do it?  What if the serial killer who had lived just down the road from those shallow graves was actually responsible? 

   So many years have gone by.  Perhaps Murphy, Lockert and Larsen really did commit these murders.  But what if they didn’t?  What are the odds that of all the places to conceal two bodies in Indiana…lakes, rivers, woods, fields, 92 counties to choose from and they took these two to a spot so incredibly close to the home of a man that we now know was a serial killer of varied modus operandi in the 1970’s?