The Laura Jean Mitchell Case

Chris discusses the recently solved, 1975 murder of 17-year-old Laura Jean Mitchell. 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
People always want to know whatit's like to be me. How does it
feel to see a dead body? Tell afamily their loved one has been
murdered, talk to a rape victim,catch a killer and get them to
confess hold on time my friends,get ready for the journey and
welcome to murder with Mannina.

(00:23):
Hello everyone and welcome toanother edition of murder with
Mannina. Well, we'll jump rightin and I want to talk about a
case that happenedseveral years ago, but actually
a long time ago was August of1975. So and it was in in small
Indiana town not far from whereI went to college. And about two
hours from where I live rightnow. So

(00:49):
17 year old Laura Jean Mitchellwas reported missing by her
parents on August 6 of 1975. SoI would have been four, okay.
When she didn't return homeafter leaving her job at a
church camp, around 10 o'clockat night.
She was supposed to leave thejob at the church and meet up
with some friends at anAdventure Land kind of amusement

(01:13):
park place, about a half a mileaway. She was supposed to walk
there.
Her body was found the nextmorning in a river in western
Noble County, Indiana. And likeI said, that's about two hours
north of where I'm at. She was17 miles from home. Alongside
her was her class ring with herinitials on it. That's a super

(01:35):
sad, super sad story. So theydid an autopsy that listed her
cause of death as drowning. Youknow, because I like to repeat
always that the autopsy is so soimportant because it gives you
some facts of how, you know thisperson died and kind of what,
what the what the person wentthrough and that type of thing.
So they did an autopsy thatlisted her cause of death as

(01:55):
drowning. But it also statedthat her body showed signs that
she had fought for her life.
That then prompted the IndianaState Police to knit to kind of
call it a homicideinvestigation. So And what's so
interesting about that is whenyou think about autopsies, and
she's reported missing, theyfind her the next morning.

(02:19):
And, you know, it appears atfirst that she just drowned. And
so if they would have juststopped right there, right? And
just said, Hey, she drowned. Youknow, maybe they got some
information that, you know whywhy she would have gone to the
water or whatever, then thatwould have been the end of it.
Right? Because not every case,you have to have an autopsy, you

(02:39):
know, and some families, youknow, don't if there's not
trauma that you can see, rightwhen you get there. Sometimes
you're not always going to doautopsies. And sometimes
families won't request them. Andthen sometimes families will
sometimes they like to requestthem when it's a suicide because
they can't believe that, youknow, their loved one would

(03:01):
commit suicide. But my point is,if they hadn't done an autopsy,
then they wouldn't have beeninvestigated as a homicide
because they would have knownthat, you know, from the autopsy
that she fought for her life. Soshe fought for her life and then
that just turn that drowning.
But Chris, not only that, Imean, was she wearing a bathing
suit? Why would she have been inthe right? Absolutely. Why would

(03:21):
she have been in the river atthat time of day? I mean,
obviously, there was somethingabsolutely so.
Um, okay, so they for the firstdetectives, aside of the case,
had spent 1000s of hours tryingto solve the murder. And I
really have to get give kudosout to Indiana State Police

(03:41):
because from the research that Idid, they really investigated
the hell out of this case. SoIndians, state police said that
they continued to work on thiscase for the next five decades,
while a caring family obviouslyagonized and waited for answers,
as they were investigating it.
You know, her sister, hissister, I'm sorry, her sister

(04:04):
Mitchell sister had alwayswondered what exactly happened
to her and wondered what kind ofperson she would have been
because she wasn't very old. Shehad a loving family. She had
loving parents. And her sisterhas just been, you know,
obviously agonizing over this.
She wanted to know you know, shemissed everything like what most
people talk about when they losea loved one. They miss prom

(04:26):
graduations, getting married,having kids.
Her sister kind of described thetown and I know this is a small
town laid back I mean, a type oftown where you keep your front
doors open, you know, unlockedand laid back town felt safe,
kind of her and her sister kindof came and went as they wanted
to during the summer. Parentsreally never worried about her.

(04:48):
Worried about them. Soinvestigators said
that witnesses and sciencehelped to solve the case. Okay,
so it went cold.
For a long, long time, and thenseveral developments started to
come in. And they, they had,they had some suspects at the
beginning, but they just weren'tstrong enough. And they just

(05:10):
kind of went to a dead end. Butnew developments came in the
last just several months. Sothere was clothing at the scene
where she was, you know, foundin the water. And that was
collected, her shoes werecollected her sweatshirt, her
bra underwear in jeans. So theydid a fantastic job of
collecting all of the evidence.
And again, fantastic job ofstoring it and keeping it.

(05:37):
So this is 1975. So, you know,kudos to them. So a DNA profile
was obtained from testing orclothing, which was saved, you
know, since 1975.
Fast forward to the probablecause, and I'm kind of doing
this a little bit backwards. Butthere's a reason for that the
the probable cause affidavit,which is what the state needs in

(06:00):
order to make an arrest, okay.
The probable cause is the mostimportant thing if the who,
what, when, where, why itanswers all of the questions,
and it is a lot more than justreasonable suspicion, reasonable
suspicion, you can't make anarrest. Reasonable suspicion
allows you to kind ofinvestigate it more, but
reasonable suspicion alone doesnot allow you to make any
arrests. So the probablecause affidavit stated that she

(06:24):
was deliberately drowned andforcibly drowned.
And she was abducted by thesuspects in a 1971 Oldsmobile
and was taken to the river. Now,this is just kind of information
that they are getting a many,many, many years later. Finally,
witnesses came forward who wereteens at the time of the

(06:47):
killing, and they tied two mento the crime scene based on
incriminating comments about herdeath with that were made when
they were teenagers. Okay, sothe police had developed a lot,
there was a witness that saidthat they heard at the time,
right before that she wasmurdered, that they heard kind
of a what they thought was atruck slamming, you know, in a

(07:10):
car, and they thought it soundedlike an older kind of bigger
car, which later they found outwas a 1971 Oldsmobile. So like I
said, they came forward, theytie two people together. So
based on DNA, DNA evidence andpeople coming forward, Fred VND,
Jr, who was 67 from Goshen,Indiana, another small town, but

(07:31):
not too far. And a John WayneLehmann 67, of Auburn, Indiana,
which is another really, reallysmall town kind of close, had
been charged with murder. Theyhad been suspects for many
years. And they both livedwithin driving distance from the
crime scene. So how that looksis you've got this investigation

(07:52):
going, they obviously looked atthese guys, but DNA was a lot
different back then. And Idon't, from what I could tell
they hadn't been interviewed.
They were just people ofinterest at that point. But
not long ago. BND one of thesuspects provided his DNA last

(08:13):
December, this is really recentto the Indiana state police lab,
and it determined that he was 13billion times more likely to be
a contributor of the DNA, oh, myspam on her Chloe.
So 13 billion times more likelyto be contributor than any other

(08:34):
unknown person. Okay. And that'swhat they say it's so
interesting with the DNA and howthey, how they label that. I
mean, DNA is left everywhere,right, like your skin cells and
your and what's so great aboutthis case is that, you know, the
investigators right off the batdid exactly what they needed to
do and stored the clothing andkept everything in a lab and

(08:58):
and if he had said no, theycould have gathered as DNA
anyway, just picked up a cup hedrank out of or is it from the
trash? Right?
Right, right. So the DNA testingcame after three people who were
teens at the time came forward.
The first man in 2014 said thathe had socialized with Vandy in

(09:20):
high school. And that Bandy toldhim that he killed Mitchell and
told him where the body wasfound. Okay, this is all stuff
that was said in high schoolwhile they were in high school,
that why they didn't go forwarddid they say to is was it
anywhere in the story? Why hedid not come for was he worried
about was he concerned for hisown life? I mean, that's not

(09:42):
Yeah, excuse. But what could ithave been? Yeah, I don't know.
That's a great question. And Iwasn't able to figure out like I
would love these types of cases.
You just love to go back and go,Why Why didn't you write it
right? And also, howDid he live with himself this
long knowing that never. Right,so the second person that he

(10:03):
came forward in 2014, the secondperson came forward to 2019.
Five years later told policethat him and the first witness
had had had attended or I'msorry, the first suspect had
attended a high school partywith Bandy. And the second
suspect, so he talks about beingin High School and attended a

(10:23):
party with both suspects. Sothere were two people arrested
with this. And Mitchell's murdercame up and Vandy said that he
in in lemon did the murderer.
Crazy. It's crazy, right? Sowe've got like, as teenagers,
you know, and that's the thing,too, you have to understand
these are still small towns. Butthere wasn't a social media that

(10:45):
wasn't talked about a lot. Inother words, nothing, you know,
just it wasn't being circulatedwhere you would think maybe, you
know, as teenagers with socialmedia now everything is so
circulated and everything,everybody knows about
everything. Well, back then,that just wasn't the case.
Right. And they're teenagers,and things. So that's crazy. The

(11:05):
third personcame forward in contacted, who
now lives in Florida, they movedto the Bay and moved to Florida,
but contacted police in 2013.
And said, this is completelyinteresting that she was 16. And
that she was living in NobleCounty, Indiana, where this
happened, and went out on a datewith Lehman, who was the other

(11:26):
suspect. And as he was driving,hit her home from the date he
admitted to being involved withthe killing with Fred brandy. So
he admitted it to her whilethey're driving home. What from
the day? That's right, exactly.
And so here's somebody thatlives in Florida for a long,
long time that decided to comeforward. But that was in 2013.

(11:48):
And so that's still, you know,decades later after that. So
wasn't even like one witnesscame through decades later. All
of these witnesses came throughdecades later, what could have
possibly been three witnessesthat and they all knew they
didn't say anything? None ofthem said, yeah. Well.

(12:12):
So it's both things. So like,you have the people who and you
have to ask the question, likeyou just said, Why the hell
didn't you come forward sooner.
And also, these are people thatwere, you know, when the
investigators first got thecase, if these were some people
that were person of interest,and I don't know exactly, when
these two guys that wereeventually arrested, were a

(12:33):
person of interest. I don't knowif it had been many years,
because you have to wonder ifthey were Person of Interest,
pretty early on. And then ofcourse, you would interview
their friends in high school,and, you know, if they're
talking about it, and these guysare high school people, then
rumors get passed. So quickly,you know, so I just have to feel

(12:54):
like, you know, while it hadbeen many, many years before,
you know, they had developed orfigured out that he was assessed
back. So on that day, he alsotold the girl details consistent
with police findings when thebody was found,
in kind of how the body waspositioned. So that's crazy to

(13:14):
like, it's so crazy. And all theinformation later, you know,
days or weeks, or months, veryearly on. So I had been 47
years. What's interesting isthat it was Lehmann that
volunteered to give did he haveto volunteer to give his DNA or
was he forced asked, he wasasked, and he did it? But he
said Yes, I know.

(13:38):
He wants to be famous at thislate age. He's not even getting
sick. He's not even reallygetting very much.
Press. He's got like onearticle. And I tell you, I found
out about this case, because oneof our listeners
messaged me and said, Hey, willyou will you talk about this on
the on the podcast? Fabulous. Soyeah.

(13:59):
And what's so crazy is NobleCounty is where my very best
friend's husband, Dave, whoyou've met is where he's from
there. Yeah, he's that's wherehe patrolled. That's where he
worked. So that's crazy, too.
But anyway, so if it hadn'tbeen, you know, 47 years later,
they finally make an arrest. Andif that had been for the people
coming forward, they would havenot had the names to get DNA. So

(14:21):
those people came forward, toldthem the specific information,
gave them the names. And thenthey got DNA. They were able to
get DNA and they were able tocompare it to so they tied the
two men. They tied to the twomen to her based on DNA, and it
was kind of a done deal. Sothere's so many things as far as

(14:42):
like when we talk about geneticgenealogy, and what's that
doing? So what DNA investigatorsdo their job right at the
scenes, you know, and theypreserve it, which means that
you collect it you do everythingright you
collected the right way. And Iimagined in 1975, they then may

(15:04):
or may not have had a crime labunit, you know, when I worked in
homicide, we have specificpeople there their crime lab
people, and all they do. And Idon't mean all they do, but what
they do is come out and preserveand collect the evidence, and
you just want them to do it,because that's all they do,
they're trained in it, you don'twant another detective picking

(15:24):
something up, because then thatbecomes an issue in court. And
how many people have touched inDNA, you know, you have to keep
really, really specific recordsof who picked this piece of
evidence up, what did they dowith it, they backed it after
they, after they backed it, theysealed it, then you've got to
put the case report number onit, then you've got to put the

(15:47):
time in the day. And if they'rereally good, they'll put, you
know, a description of what wasthe weather like in those types
of things. So the train peoplethat do that, and those are the
ones that say this case. But aswe've talked about before
genealogy, and all of that stuffhas become so popular, and in
his solves so many cases, andthen on the flip side is gotten

(16:09):
people out of prison, that ahave maybe been on death row or
two that had been in prison formany, many, many, many, many
years, and are getting left outbecause DNA is emerging. So the
listener that he wanted me to alittle bit to talk a little bit
about the genealogy thing. Andit's kind of an interesting
thing. But it really what itdoes is it helps to construct

(16:31):
the family tree. And it helps usto, to you've got DNA, and Gene
genealogy and those things. Soif you decide that you want to
do and this is how it happens,right? It started out and I
don't know the the name of thecompanies, but you see the
commercials, right? And then youlearn the ancestry of, you know,
your seventh cousin, you know,you're trying to get all that

(16:52):
all that information for afamily tree. So you are giving
them your DNA so that you get itback. So that's what's starting
to happen is people were doingit for fun and entertainment
purposes. But now we've got adatabase of DNA. So when you
have these cold cases, and youcan start to develop a family
tree, then you then then thework really starts, right

(17:14):
because you have to start toeliminate and as you dig deeper,
you go, Okay, well, here's,here's a cousin. And then you
have to do some investigation,say, oh, my gosh, this cousin,
or this friend, or this suspectlived in the area where this
murder occurred, right. And youhave to kind of peel back the
layers of everything. But it'san amazing thing

(17:37):
that's happening now. And it'sreally changing the game of of
law enforcement to be able tohave these DNA comparisons. And
because I'm telling you, youleave your DNA everywhere you
leave it everywhere, skin cellsfall off of you, hair falls off
of you. And then of course,touch DNA and touch DNA has

(17:57):
been, it became really, reallypopular, but I didn't have a
lot, I don't think I had anyluck with it, we would test it a
lot. And touch DNAwas used a lot like if I were
able to recover a gun that hadthe magazine in it, and had
bullets in it, because it's it'sa little bit of pressure on your
thumb and your forefinger toload bullets into the magazine

(18:21):
of a gun. And that's where a lotof the touch DNA when we have
guns, that's what we test for tosee if we can get DNA on the
actual bullets. When people arepressing bullets into the
magazine. I haven't had any luckwith it, I I would put in for
testing all the time, but Iliterally never had any luck
with that. But again, it allcomes down to preserving it. So

(18:45):
now fast forward to 2023 when weget to these crime scenes, and
you're thinking that you don'thave any physical evidence, it's
just such a it's such a gamechanger in this world, but it's
specific with thisinvestigation. You know, you
have to wonder were friendsinterviewed, you know, they were

(19:06):
to the to the stretch thatthey learned a lot about her.
And of course, she was very niceand, and you know, she was
working at the church and shewas very, very likable and all
those things, but did it go astep forward into interviewing
all the people that were andfrom what I could tell it's it
sounded like they did a really,really good job of investigating

(19:28):
this. But you know, when peoplehave information and it comes
down to the question of what Ialways say, people do not give
information. Why? Because theywere not asked because they are
not asked.
It's the craziest phenomenonthat I learned. One of the

(19:52):
craziest things as a homicideinvestigator, I can be three or
four hours into it, or I couldhave interviewed you
five or six times. And forwhatever reason, I didn't ask
the question, you know, orwhatever. And I'm like, and it's
a really, and maybe it's myassumption that they should,
that it's obvious or something.
But me, and I've heard it, ifI've heard it once, I've heard

(20:15):
it 50 times, I didn't tell youbecause nobody asked me. And
that goes back to my philosophyof like, turning over every
single rock, talking to everysingle person that you possibly
could think of, you know, to getthat one answer and where it was
it missed. Well, it's, it'sinteresting to like, when you

(20:37):
when you hear about things, orwhen something's happened,
maybe, like an event orsomething and you rewind a
little bit, you're like, oh,yeah, that that kind of didn't
feel right. Not even necessarilybeing a victim of a crime, but
just kind of in your everydaylife, when you're kind of just
muddling through and somethinghappens. And you're like, oh,
yeah, you know, and, you know,we do that all the time. Now,

(21:00):
with this case, I would love tocontact all three of these
witnesses that eventually didthe right thing and go one, why
did it take you too, so on? Whenwere you first interviewed, you
know, and what made you finallyyou know, pull the trigger, and
call and give it because, like Isaid, Oh, my God a million

(21:23):
times, it's always the peoplethat solve it. It's not the
place, it's not the detectives.
It's the people that solve it.
And this is a great example ofthem finally doing that. And so
but, you know, from reading thearticles and things, the
detectives never stopped, and Ilove that attitude of never
stopping, you know, and I, youknow, I can't emphasize enough,

(21:43):
this small town, things likethis didn't happen. It reminds
me a lot of the Delphi case, andI would love to get my hands on
a, the, you know, more of theprobable cause, or go in and
interview the suspects and say,why, you know, why did you do
that? And it also begs thequestion, what other crimes have
they committed, you know, and ofcourse, they're now being

(22:06):
looked, they've got to be, youknow, looked into that. And,
from what I could tell one ofthe other suspects, they didn't
get DNA from him. So I'm feelingthat the first guy where the DNA
was, was found Bandy, heprobably gave up the other guy,
and said that he was a partnerin crime with them. So it's
brand new, this literally justhappened, they arrested them at

(22:26):
their homes, there was no bigdeal. The police had a warrant,
they went in, they didn't fight,they didn't struggle. They're
older guys, now they're close to70, that they've lived complete
lives. I mean, they're in their60s, even late 60s.
Yeah, it's crazy. So hopefully,their lives over, I would be

(22:49):
great to talk to those people inreal life, and maybe with this
podcast being out and in the inthe, if they get much media
attention, as far as the processof the case, we can learn a
little bit more and circle backaround, because it's like, why
did you do it? You know? What'syour life been? Like, since the
night you murdered her? And, youknow, do you have kids? Are you
married, you know, all that typeof stuff would be interesting to

(23:11):
learn. What's interesting aboutthis is the method used in this,
the method used in this DNA andforensics was called standard
genetic identificationtechnology. And it's used in you
know, crime labs, the shorterversion of short tandem report,
or I'm sorry, short tandemrepeat, is the technology that

(23:31):
is developing, it's allowingthis technology that they're
using, they're using is allowingsmaller and smaller particles to
be picked up to be tested forthe DNA. I think what's
happening is the smaller smallerpieces, which was harder to test
for DNA, now they've gottechnology that can test for
really small pieces of DNA. Solike science and everything,

(23:55):
it's getting to the point wherereally, you're not going to be
able eventually to be to be ableto get away with anything,
unless you're in like a fullbody suit. You know, because
because, and that's great. Sothe police in this case, in an
article that I read, said thatthey interviewed over 1000
people, in these past decades,decades to try to get this case

(24:16):
solved. So kudos to thedetectives on exactly. It's just
so wonderful to know, they didnot give up.
And they went obviously whenthey were able to make to make
an arrest. They called Mitchell,sister and brother and told them
that they you know, had made toarrest. They were surprised, but
very, very grateful. And the onething that they said to the law

(24:40):
enforcement officers that calledis that they just wish their
parents were alive, you know, tosee that an arrest had been made
because, you know, 47 theydescribed it, yes, it was 47
years ago, but it feels likeyesterday, so it's just so sad
that the parents saw they had todie not
knowing, you know, that anybodywas held responsible for their

(25:04):
daughter's murder, but man, Ireally love to see these types
of things. And again, this is agreat example of two things.
One, the DNA technology that'sout there, and that is evolving.
And then to just keep in mind toalways, always, always, always,
if you have information, justpass it along. And another thing

(25:25):
too, that I've learned is thatpeople don't give information
because they weren't asked. Butthen people also have
information, but they don'tthink it's relevant. And so I
always tell everybody,everybody, it doesn't matter if
you think it's stupid, orrevelant, just tell me, it's my
job to figure out if it's usefulor not, you know, please just
give it to me. And that happensa lot, too. And I think as time

(25:48):
went on, you know, they probablyforgot about it, or didn't maybe
think it was relevant, or maybeI don't know, but I don't know
how in this case, when they'redescribing then they are
admitting that they did it. Itwouldn't have been relevant. Or
maybe just like, you know, didthey go home and tell mom and
dad, oh, my God, you know, weheard that, you know, I was out

(26:08):
with this guy. And he said thathe did it, you know, I mean,
it's just, it's just crazy,because teenagers talk, right?
You know, that it just didn'tget further and further along
where it did. But kudos to that.
And I'm glad that this case gotsolved. And she's got a brother
and sister that now hopefullycan rest a little bit easier
knowing that two people but ofcourse, now the scab is going to
be ripped off because nowthey're going to have to go

(26:30):
through the trial in court, youknow, and relive all of this
stuff.
You know, as they go forward inthe in the criminal justice.
So alright, guys. Well, thanksagain, for listening or all the
great comments, please share andcomment on our podcast. And
thank you, thanks to thelistener for bringing that story

(26:52):
to your attention, Chris. That'sa very interesting story. What's
the listeners name? Yeah, thatgave me the idea. Absolutely. I
don't even remember but I'llgive a shout out next time when
I go back and look but yes, Iappreciate that because and then
I think next episode, we'regoing to talk about another
Indiana case. So it'sinteresting, you know, my

(27:13):
Indiana listeners know aboutthese cases are intrigued by him
and asked me to talk about himand I absolutely will do that.
So unfortunately, we have coldcases and bad things that happen
still. So again, guys, keep yourhead on a swivel, stay safe. And
we'll see you guys next time onmurder with Medina.

(27:37):
If you have a cold case you'dlike Chris to review, submitted
through our website at murderwith mannina.com. And follow us
on Instagram and Facebook atmurder with Mannina and Twitter
at murder W Mannina. We'll beback next week with a brand new
episode of murder with Mannina.