Raul Rudy Sotelo: Gary Indiana Murderer

   In a prior post I wrote about a 15 year old girl from Gary. Annie Jean Powell had lived a life of crisis with seemingly no one in her corner.  She was murdered in Gary. Six months later and just a few blocks away another girl was murdered. The difference in how the newspapers covered the two stories is stark. One girl is black and her murder is dismissed because she is poor. One girl is white and her murder was covered extensively. It wasn’t fair. No one would begrudge the victims that got attention and resources. But, every case should have gotten attention and resources. 

   At the same time; police were stretched very thin and nothing in any of their training would prepare them for the huge rise in the numbers of violent crimes that the 1970’s and 1980’s would bring.

   There isn’t anything we can do to change the past.  But we can go forward treating every child better. They all deserve protection. Every child deserves a good school, plenty to eat and safe spaces. 

   Brenda Banaski was 14.  She was bright and ambitious.  She had a summer job as a camp counselor with the Neighborhood Youth Corp at her high school in Gary, Indiana in 1973. 

  She left the house early in the morning to walk to Wirt High School.  She declined a ride from her Dad who had just come home from working the night shift. The weather was great. She thought it was such a beautiful day and wanted to walk instead. 

  Her walk to the school was along South Grand Boulevard, a street mainly surrounded by wooded areas. She would have been walking North and the road changes to North Grand Boulevard.  The school was located at 210 N. Grand Blvd. It was July 25th, 1973 and everything was warm, lush and green. It was only a few blocks really. 

   Gary stretches along the Southern shore of Lake Michigan. It was the original home of the Jackson 5 who were already international superstars by 1973. When I was a kid in the 1970’s that was what I most knew Gary, Indiana for. 

   Gary was a steel mill town, a factory town.  It was a middle class town then of good Union jobs. If you were white it was easy to get a good job. Walking to her school was not unusual or dangerous then.  It shouldn’t have been, anyway. 

   At the end of the day, Brenda did not come home.  Her mother called the school and they informed her that she had never made it that day. The Neighborhood Youth Corp treated their minor counselors like adult employees and not the children that they actually were. So, they didn’t call the house when Brenda did not arrive. 

  Eight hours had passed by. Brenda’s family and friends immediately went into search mode. They called all her friends. They called the police. They walked the route to school.  They searched the woods. Many community groups also aided in the searches. Despite the efforts of so many people; weeks went by. 

   A woman who knew Brenda reported seeing Brenda walking that morning, backing away from a car that was blocking her path. (Sometimes people don’t realize they are witnessing a potential crime.) She appeared to be going in the opposite direction of the school.  Had a man or men driven up to harass her as she walked? Did they grab her?  It seems a likely scenario. Perhaps they had harassed her enough that she decided to turn back toward home. No description of the car is given in the newspaper article. 

   Brenda’s body was eventually found on August 11th 1973 about three miles southwest from her home in a vacant wooded area behind a shopping center.  She lay near the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Tracks. She was not far from County Line Road and U.S. 20 near the Little Calumet River.  It was a random man, not part of the search parties, who happened to find her. This was way in the opposite direction of her route to school. 

  Eighteen days in the heat and humidity of the Summer a few blocks from Lake Michigan had hastened decomposition. She had died from a blow to the left side of her head which fractured her skull. It was said she died instantly. Her family had to identify her by her clothes. The medical examiner used dental records to confirm that this really was Brenda.

  Police got a lead in the case while working on another criminal case. A woman(whose name was withheld in 1973) was brutally raped after a party on July 29th at her home.  She said that her rapist threatened her with “do what I say or you’ll get what the Banaski girl got”.  How did he know what happened to Brenda Banaski on July 29th? She hadn’t been found yet. 

  Dennis Ray Bratton, Douglas Green and Jesse Eckman were arrested in connection with the rape case and questioned about the Banaski case. But this is 1973. Getting a conviction on rape was very rare. Rape was not even considered a violent or serious crime. There’s no such thing as using DNA evidence yet. Police in 1973 will have to wait until 1987 for that technology to come along. They have the word of the rape victim only. And society and jurors did not place much weight on that. 

    What evidence did the police have tying them to Brenda’s murder?  Not nearly enough it appears. 

   And so, the suspects were all released. 

   Did they actually kill Brenda? Was it someone else? We don’t know. Sadly, we may never know. If police saved fingernail clippings and she scratched her attackers there may be DNA under those nails. That is if the clippings were not stored in a plastic bag.  The moisture in a plastic bag would destroy any evidence. 

   If they did not clip the nails…there’s a slim chance that DNA could still be under her nails. Exhuming her body would be a way to collect that possible evidence. But, moisture is the enemy of evidence under these circumstances too. 

   Can the eyewitness tell us more about the car they saw blocking Brenda’s path? Are there other eyewitnesses? Did anyone see anything?  Maybe they didn’t know what they were looking at at the time. 

   Did anyone talk in the years since? Was there someone close to the perpetrator who knows something? Maybe they felt loyal once but they no longer do. 

   Can the suspects from 1973 be questioned again?  Some may have already passed away. 

   Jesse Eckman knew the victim. He had been her neighbor for 6 years when the family had formerly lived in a housing project. Does he know anything? Can he be questioned again? Did he have a solid alibi for the day of Brenda’s disappearance? 

   We do know that Dennis Ray Bratton died of a stroke in 1997. 

    What about Douglas Green? Can he still be contacted and questioned? 

    (I keep thinking about the Stephanie Wagner case of 2006 in Winamac.  The perpetrator was caught pretty much red handed.  To avoid the death penalty he confessed to two other murders (Lela Hildebrandt and Nellie Mikesells) in order to close those cases.  He provided enough details that only the killer would know in order to save himself from the death penalty.  Maybe the perpetrator in Brenda’s case will find themselves in a similar predicament. I have never been a huge supporter of the death penalty but it made a difference in that instance.) 

  As happens in many of these cases; I start researching one and I find more victims mentioned in news articles. 

   In September of 1973, Carrie Louise Duncan was murdered only a few miles from the site of Brenda Banaski’s murder.  Carrie was 12.  She was found in a pile of discarded flowers, brush and clippings at an out of the way part of Ridgelawn Cemetery. (Very close to Fern Oaks where Annie Jean Powell is buried. Coincidentally, Carrie was buried at Fern Oaks too but unlike poor Annie Jean, she has a marker.) Carrie had been beaten and had massive head injuries. Her death certificate does not say whether the injury is to the left or right side of her head or both. But, it is interesting that two young girls are killed only miles apart in almost the same way. 

   Raul Rudy Sotelo was convicted of her murder in 1974.  One of the biggest pieces of evidence against him was that Carrie’s blood was still present on the underside of his car when he was arrested. Many people had seen him with her right before she disappeared and was later found dead. He also confessed to the murder at the time. 

   His confession is odd. He paints Carrie as sexually aggressive. He said she propositioned him for sex and demanded money.  He said she threatened to tell his wife and the police and he panicked and killed her by running over her. I think he killed her but I don’t think it happened that way.  I think he attempted to rape her in the car.  I think she managed to get out and try to run away even though she was nearly naked. I think he then hit her multiple times with the car to prevent her from running away.  She wouldn’t have demanded money for sex. She was only 12 years old.  

   In October 1974, Sotelo was sentenced to life in prison.

   He later appealed the conviction in 1976. He did not succeed in this appeal. 

   In December of 1981, Sotelo escaped from the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. How could he escape? Despite having a violent background and a life sentence for murder, Soltelo was designated as a “trusty”.  Meaning he could leave prison everyday for work.  Convicted of a brutal murder and he was allowed to leave prison to work. One day he just skipped out. I did not find an article saying when he had been recaptured. 

   Apparently he was recaptured because in 1988 he again appeals his conviction. This time the basis of his appeal is that he was young and naive when he was first convicted in 1973 as an 18 year old and that he  had ineffective counsel. He loses this appeal as well. 

   In 2022, he was still incarcerated in State Prison at Peru, Indiana when he slashed a correctional officer across the face with a homemade knife. The correctional officer lived, thankfully. Soltelo was given another 38 years for this attack. 

   This is another moment where I am incredibly frustrated talking about what happened to the perpetrators. They had lives. Some of them had long lives.  

   But, these victims never even got to finish high school. They probably never even got to travel outside Indiana. They never got to grow up and pursue their dreams.  Annie, Brenda and Carrie deserved better. 

   I think Raul Rudy Soltelo could have murdered Brenda Banaski. He had a history of violence. He was convicted of murdering 12 year old Carrie Duncan. He worked at U.S. Steel in 1973 which is only a couple of miles from Wirt High School. It seems entirely possible. 

   For that matter, I think he could have murdered 15 year old Annie Jean Powell.  Soltelo lived at 1125 Dallas Street when he was arrested in 1973. The nearest cross streets are Colfax and 11th.  Annie Jean was found near Colfax and 15th in December of 1972.

  It seems like it is worth looking into. 

The proximity and similarities in these murders is noteworthy.