Debbie Dmitruck: Lucky Girl:1973: Hammond, Indiana
Debbie Dmitruck was looking at her watch under a street light in Hammond, Indiana. It was August 28th, 1973.
A blue car was approaching. Debbie and her two friends were stunned when Debbie cried out. A shot had been fired from the blue car. Debbie had been hit in the chest.
Luckily for Debbie; the wound was only a minor one.
Who would shoot Debbie? Was this an accident? Was this intentional? Why would anyone want to harm Debbie and her friends?
Could it have been the budding serial killer at O.P. Morton High School who was a couple grades older than Debbie?
Danny Rouse lived in Hammond and went to school with Debbie. He graduated in 1974 and moved a bit further south to Monterrey, Indiana. That Fall he would shoot and kill Nellie Mikesell for absolutely no reason it seemed. He stood outside her home at night and shot her sniper style through the window with a .22 caliber weapon.
The following year he shot and killed Lela Hildebrandt one night in October as she drove by on a rural road. She was killed by the shotgun blast to the side of her face and neck. Both of this murders were cold cases for decades.
In 1979, in Witchita, Kansas, he murdered Jason Learst and nearly killed Jason’s Mother, Kathryn Crowley. He cut 5 year old Jason’s throat. He beat and stabbed Kathryn but she was able to make it to the neighbors for help. Danny got caught for that. He spent a couple of decades in a Kansas prison.
But, Kansas felt Danny Rouse had been a good inmate and paroled him in 2006 on the condition that a relative take him in. His brother in Indiana did just that. He even drove all the way to Kansas to bring Danny back.
In October 2006, Danny murdered Stephanie Wagner. The two worked together. He stabbed and strangled her because “something came over him”. He went to work the next day as if it were any other day.
Indiana had the death penalty in 2006. Danny Rouse and his lawyers offered to help close two old cold cases if it meant he would only receive life in prison. So, Danny confessed to killing Nellie Mikesell in 1974 and Lela Hildebrandt in 1975.
Was he also the person who shot at Debbie Dmitruck in 1973? We don’t know. I would say the odds are good that he was indeed the shooter in the blue car.
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