Zetta Mae Warner : 1973 Lawrence, Indiana

   

   Zetta Mae Warner was born in 1915 in Perry County in Southern Indiana. She worked as a secretary in 1973 at Fort Benjamin Harrison and lived in Lawrence, Indiana at 7320 Parkside Drive.  

   Her husband had passed away in 1962. She lived a quiet life. 

  On Wednesday September 12th, 1973 she had gone to the grocery store. When she returned home she was beaten, raped and strangled with a phone cord and her apron strings. 

  A neighbor had become concerned when she could not reach Zetta and peered in the front window sometime around 11 p.m. She saw Zetta on the floor and called the police. 

   Bobbie Lewis Barnett is an available suspect for this assault and murder. He worked for Indiana Bell and could have knocked on a door at just about any hour and people would have let the uniform in. He could have followed Zetta home from the store. He killed Betty Burns May 18,1974. He abducted her from a grocery store and assaulted and murdered her at a pet cemetery east of Indianapolis. He would serve about a decade and a half for Betty’s murder.  He would attempt the murder of another woman and is currently incarcerated in Indiana as of 2024. 

   Steven Timothy Judy is potentially available as well.  Judy spent some time in Louisiana but could be back in Indy then. He did have a history of entering victims’ homes.  He conned his way into a home when he was 12 and raped and nearly killed a woman with a hatchet. 

   His last murder would also be a mother.  I have a theory about Judy and mother types. In 1979 he killed Terry Lee Chasteen and her three young children in Mooresville. I think he picked her because she was a mother. He would ask for the death penalty at his sentencing and he received it in 1981. Before his execution he talked with reporters and with his foster Mom.  She said that he claimed that there were many more victims out there.  He claimed to have killed Linda Unverzagt of Indianapolis. She was also a mother. 

    He strangled Terry Lee Chasteen with things she had on.  The fact that Zetta is strangled with a phone cord and her own apron strings really stands out here. 

    Can we place Judy in that neighborhood? Possibly. He worked for Beacon Vans driving a delivery truck and also worked construction jobs.  That side of the city was busy with construction and growth in 1973. 

   

   I wonder if any DNA labs are working on a profile of Steven Timothy Judy’s DNA.  He had biological brothers and sisters. In 2019 Parabon Nanolabs developed a DNA profile of Jeffrey Lynn Hand, because of the generous help of his sons, and solved the nearly 50 year old murder of Pamela Milam in Terre Haute. 

   

   This is a very cold case but there’s always hope of solving it.  If they saved evidence in this case and it can still be located; there’s hope.  Two very likely suspects are Bobbie Lewis Barnett and Steven Timothy Judy. 

   

Patricia A. Anderson’s home. 

Zetta Mae Warner’s home. 

   (Anthony Wayne Hall and Jeffrey Lynn Hand were not available for this assault and murder as they were both incarcerated at the time.) 

   Zetta Mae Warner is buried in the Dale, Indiana Cemetery. She rests near where she started off life.  She deserved a peaceful and long life. 

Rest in peace Zetta Mae Warner.