Jessica Roach:1993, Perrysville, Vermillion County, IN
Jessica Roach was born on November 27th, 1977. She was the daughter of Terry and Charles Roach. Jessica attended Ridge Farm High School in Georgetown, Illinois. She was a good student, well liked and outgoing.
On September 20, 1993, 15 year old Jessica Roach was abducted on a rural road around 3:30 p.m. Jessica was wearing a white shirt, black jeans and black tennis shoes. She had gone out for a bike ride.
Her bike was found on the road but there was no sign of Jessica.
In 1993, enough people had seen enough news stories about other missing children. They didn’t dismiss Jessica’s disappearance. She wasn’t considered a runaway. The community jumped into action searching for Jessica. The scoured the area around Georgetown, Illinois.
People thought that they had seen her. These sightings were reported and investigated. Weeks dragged on while Jessica’s parents and friends agonized over Jessica’s disappearance.
Jessica wasn’t found in Illinois. She was found on November 8th, 1993 in a field near Perrysville, Indiana. The spot was about a half mile from State Road 63 on C.R. 1300 North.
Not long after she was found; locals felt that Jessica’s murder and another young woman’s murder were connected.
Holly Ann Anderson was abducted from Illinois and murdered on January 8th 1992 in Indiana. I could find nothing written about her abduction and murder in the newspapers in 1992. It isn’t until Jessica Roach was murdered that Holly Ann Anderson’s murder began to be discussed in the press.
Holly was found incredibly close to where Jessica would be found in 1993.
Both Jessica and Holly lived near Danville, Illinois. Hall frequently drove through the area on trips to Springfield, Illinois to visit sites related to Abraham Lincoln and American Civil War history. He was active in reenactment events of that era and also Revolutionary War history events.
Holly Ann Anderson’s murder is an unsolved cold case as I write this in 2025. Jessica’s murder, however, was solved.
In October 1994, police in Gas City, Indiana pulled over a van. A concerned parent had called the police and given them the plate number of the van that day. The driver had been approaching children and trying to lure them into his van.
Police noticed items in his van that concerned them. Articles and handwritten notes that mentioned several recent murders and missing girls. Items were in the van that looked an awful lot like an abduction kit. They relayed this information to investigators working on cases of missing and murdered women and girls.
Larry Dewayne Hall was questioned by the FBI later in his hometown of Wabash, Indiana, about the abduction and murder of Jessica Roach. He said he grabbed her as she was bike riding. He said he killed her by strangling her with a belt. All of the details that he confessed to were nearly identical to the fate that befell Jessica Roach.
Hall later recanted that confession. He claimed he was under pressure. He claimed he was just a people pleaser and wanted to tell police whatever they wanted to hear.
The FBI tried another tactic. They offered an inmate a chance at freedom if he would try to get information for them. The prisoner was serving a ten year sentence on a drug charge. This man, James Keene, agreed. He was placed in a cell with Larry Dewayne Hall and over time gained his confidence. The two men talked about their lives. Hall discussed his travels, his hobbies and his criminal activity.
Serial killer Larry Dewayne Hall was arrested, tried and finally convicted in June of 1995 of Jessica Roach’s abduction and murder. He is serving life without the possibility of parole in a federal penitentiary in Butner, North Carolina. He is still being investigated in the deaths of many more women and girls.
Jessica Roach was only 15. Her whole life was stolen from her on that day in the Fall of 1993.
Rest in peace, Jessica.
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