Tara Renee Meredith: 1979 , near Greenfield

  


   Tara Meredith was 16 in 1979 and a student at Lawrence North High School.  She lived at 7735 Fall Creek Drive. It’s a lovely wooded area in Lawrence. Tara was the youngest in her family. Her older sisters and brother were all grown and married. 

  Tara had been to school on Monday September 24, 1979 and returned home but left a little while later. She left a note for her parents but never returned. 




   A police officer doing a routine patrol on CR 350 North near Greenfield saw a car on the side of the road between 600W and 700w and stopped to help.  He observed a pile of clothes in the car. He began looking around the car and in the field.  He found Tara’s body there.  She was nude and she had been raped and strangled with her own shoelace. 

   Because her ID was in her purse, her parents were called. Her mother came to the scene and identified her daughter’s body. 


   The police officer and other investigators thought that the killer might still be nearby.  With the help of a part time K9 officer named Ramona and a helicopter, John T Gibson, Jr. , 27, was found hiding in a ditch. 




   When investigators were tracking down the owner of the car they eventually reached the perpetrator’s wife. Gibson had gone out to pick up a pizza but had not returned, his wife said. 


   This seems like the kind of crime that this guy might have done before. This doesn’t seem like a first time thing to me. He’s taking the shoelace out of her shoe in order to strangle her with it.  That seems like a man with a plan. I wonder if he committed any murders before that?

   Ann Harmeier was raped and strangled with her own shoelace and left in a field near Martinsville in September of 1977. Her murder is still unsolved. 


  John T Gibson, Jr. was tried, convicted and sentenced to 40 years. He appealed in 1983 but the appeal was not successful. He has since been discharged from prison. 


   Tara Renee Meredith was only 16.  She didn’t get a long life full of memories of prom, graduation, good times with friends. Her life was stolen from her. 


   Rest in peace, Tara Renee Meredith 


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