Judith Falkenstein:1982, Jeffersonville, Indiana

   


   Sometimes friends or acquaintances bring up a murder case that they remembered from their childhood. They ask if I have heard of it or if I have written about it. Just the other evening someone asked about a woman from maybe 1977 to 1983 who was murdered in her house in Jeffersonville. This friend went to school with the victim’s daughter, Jenny.


  My friend said that after this tragedy, her own Mom was very serious about always locking the doors. Even during the day her mother was checking those locks. She said it was a “before and after” moment in her life. I imagine it was the same all over Jeffersonville for many households.

  

  My friend was able to ask her Mom for the name. I wasn’t finding this case very quickly in the archives. I hadn’t come across it yet. Luckily, her Mom remembered. 


  Judith Falkenstein was a wife and mother living in Jeffersonville in 1982. In the weeks before her murder her home had been burglarized. 


  Then on August 27th, 1982, someone entered the Falkenstein home and sexually assaulted and murdered Judith. She was found hanging by a belt. 

  

 Adding additional tragedy to this case was the fact  that her daughter, Jennifer, found her murdered. Jenny was returning home from school. She ran to a neighbor’s house for help. 

   

   A suspect was identified fairly quickly. Russell E. Boyd was arrested, tried and convicted. He admitted to the prior burglary. He said he was in the house on the day of the murder but that he did not murder her. The jury did not believe his story. He was initially sentenced to death but that was later commuted to life in prison after the Supreme Court overturned the death penalty in the United States. 


  In 1986, in prison, Russell Boyd and James Ray Wallace used sharpened broomstick handles to take several guards and administrators hostage. 14 other death row inmates participated too. (Indiana residents will probably remember James Ray Wallace as the killer of the Patrick Gilligan family in Evansville.) 



  Judith Falkenstein’s killer, Russell E. Boyd was released in 2019.  Even after time was added for the prison riot and he had originally been sentenced to death…The state felt he had served his time. I haven’t found a notice of his death so I assume he’s still alive. 




  In talking with my friend I was reminded of Lisa Drake’s unsolved murder case.  Lisa Drake was also sexually assaulted and strangled. She went missing on August 24th, 1982. Hers was one of the first cases I wrote about on my blog. 


  These two cases might not be related but these two women were killed only three days apart in the same town. They were both strangled. I think they might both be the work of Russell E. Boyd. 


   Judith Falkenstein was born Judith Elaine Stricker on January 28th, 1952. She grew up in Charlestown, Indiana. (That is also in Clark County, just like Jeffersonville.) 

Judith in high school. 


  Judith Stricker married Anthony M. Falkenstein on June 5th, 1971. Their daughter, Jennifer, came along the following year. The family had a second daughter named Roberta as well. 


   Judith should have gotten to see her daughters grow up. She should be here today enjoying her family and her retirement years.

   


   Rest in Peace, Judith.

    

    

   


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