Michelle Lee Pace:1982, Evansville, Indiana

    

   Michelle Lee Pace was born June 15, 1969 to Wanda and Ed Pace. The family lived in the Southern Indiana town of Evansville.

   Michelle Pace attended Howard Roosa Elementary School. She was a good student and enjoyed school and her friends. She loved her little fluffy white dog named Fonzie too. 

   Her parents had separated by 1982. Her mother, Wanda, was working full time. Michelle was already babysitting sometimes for a little extra money. She was a responsible and level headed girl.  

   On February 2nd, 1982 Wanda came home from work around 11 p.m. and immediately was concerned that Michelle was missing. Fonzie the dog was there. The television was on and so was an electric blanket on the sofa. Ominously, there were cigarette butts in an ashtray that were not Wanda’s brand. She immediately called the police.    

   The police were quick to act. They took this disappearance very seriously. Southern Indiana had been shocked in April of 1981 by the abduction, rape and murder of 11 year old Kathy Kohm from Santa Claus, Indiana. Kathy went missing in April and her body was found later in the Summer. Her murder was in the news almost daily it seemed. A suspect in Kohm’s disappearance was identified fairly quickly. Stanton Gash was suspected of the crime and the investigation was still ongoing when Michelle went missing. People were horrified that another child was missing. Things like this didn’t happen in Indiana.  We thought we lived in an idyllic place. We were fooling ourselves. 

   I lived in Lynnville, Indiana then.  It’s a small town between Evansville and Santa Claus.  I wasn’t the type of child who paid that much attention to the news but Kathy Kohm’s 1981 murder really stuck with me.  Michelle Pace’s 1982 murder was one that, I am ashamed to say, I forgot about over the years.  I remember hearing about it at the time and seeing the articles in the Sunday paper but I honestly think I avoided reading much about it.  I was shocked and scared by the murder of Kathy Kohm.  I think I just did not want to think about another girl being murdered so close to where I lived. These girls were the same age as me. It was terrifying and just so sad. It was the first time that I had contemplated this kind of thing. I hadn’t really thought about grieving parents of murdered little girls. I hadn’t thought about why a grown man would want to harm a little girl.  I think I dissociated in order to cope.  

  People wondered why she let him in the house.  Why had she let him sit there and smoke cigarettes? Think about the power dynamic: He was an adult. He was a friend of her parents. He was her employer as he paid her to babysit his kids. In 1982, it would be hard to find a 12 year old bold enough to say “No, you can’t come in and wait for my Mom to get home.  Come back later.”  That just didn’t happen. She didn’t “let” him. She had no choice. 

  Michelle Lee Pace was missing for 17 days. I remember thinking at the time that at least she had not laid out in the open as long as Kathy. At least they found her faster. Michelle was found in Warrick County not far from the unincorporated community of Yankeetown. 

   That was my county. Her being found so close to us scared my friends and I.  These girls were just like us. This wasn’t far away crime that couldn’t touch us. I think the Pace and Kohm murders made some of us more cautious and less trusting. I know that was one effect it had on me. 

  Harry and Bertha Smith had gone to check on some property they owned on Lerch Road just south of Red Brush Road. They spotted Michelle’s body and the pile of her clothes there along the muddy road.

  It’s a very rural road.  It is paved now and at least one home has been built there. But it is still fairly secluded and out of the way. 

   Michelle was nude. The twelve year old had suffered a blow to the head and had been run over by a vehicle which crushed her neck. It was a cruel and painful death. Her clothing was found nearby. 

 

  Roy Allen Edwards was the father of some children that Michelle occasionally babysat. He was known to her parents. He was trusted. He and his family lived only two blocks away.  But, her parents also had their doubts about him. They expressed those doubts to police investigators. Police began surveilling Roy Edwards hoping he might lead them to Michelle. 

  Soon after Michelle was found, police questioned Roy about the death of Michelle. They asked him to come in for a formal interview. He said that he needed to get some things from his home. They allowed him to go home. He left some personal belongings with the police though. 

  As soon as he arrived home; Roy Allen Edwards walked into a back room and shot himself with a shotgun. He died immediately of massive injuries to the brain. In the packet of belongings back at the police station was a note to his wife. 

   Evidence collected at the site and at Michelle’s home was examined by the FBI. Carpet fibers found in Michelle’s clothing matched the carpet fibers in Roy Allen Edwards car. Cigarette butts found in the ashtray of the Pace home were the same brand that Edwards smoked. Tire tracks from the murder scene also matched the tires on Edwards vehicle. The FBI was convinced that Roy Allen Edwards was indeed Michelle’s killer. 

   Evansville has two main city cemeteries; Locust Hill Cemetery and Oak Hill Cemetery.  Michelle Pace was laid to rest in Locust Hill Cemetery. I wonder if that was a concerted effort by funeral directors at the time so that the victim did not have to be buried in the same place as her killer. It wouldn’t surprise me. Funeral directors are very considerate in that way.  The families would not be bumping into each other in the years to come as they visited the graves. 

   In April of 1982, Roy Allen Edwards’ widow filed an application for a military headstone for his grave at Oak Hill Cemetery. She wrote on the application that Roy had served in the Army in Vietnam. There is no image of his gravestone on Find a Grave but he is listed on the website. That may simply be an oversight or a mistake by the volunteer photographer. 

   Michelle Lee Pace was only twelve.  She was looking forward to turning 13 that Summer. She was looking forward to high school and growing up. She should still be here with us. 

   Her parents reunited because of this terrible tragedy. Sometimes grief tears people apart and sometimes it brings them closer together. 

   People complain sometimes about how parents today are over protective. That vigilance was learned. We don’t watch over our children for no reason. All the Michelle’s and Kathy’s in all the communities across America in the 1970’s and 1980’s taught us that. 

    Rest in Peace Michelle.