September 11, 2025 • 26 mins
Right now in true crime: Donna Adelson verdict
Anne Harmeier was a 20 year-old college student at the University of Indiana when her life was tragically taken when she was on her way back to college from a visit home. Let's talk about her case, where it stands today and how you can help in getting the word out about the still unsolved case of Ann Harmeier.
sources for episode:
https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=1e68b918-88af-4e7a-946e-f1699ffa383e
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna104170
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2022/09/16/who-killed-iu-student-ann-harmeier-5-things-to-know-about-1977-murder/67922139007/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72657832/ann_louise-harmeier
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/indiana-state-police-asking-for-help-solving-murder-of-iu-student-in-1977-indiana-university-martinsville/531-c0fd8ba9-57c3-44cc-9152-0cd999a76bca
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Judy
https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2021/09/13/ann-harmeier-1977-murder-still-unsoved/8317057002/
FB page: https://www.facebook.com/share/16oz8weGgu/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Anne Harmeier was a 20 year-old college student at the University of Indiana when her life was tragically taken when she was on her way back to college from a visit home. Let's talk about her case, where it stands today and how you can help in getting the word out about the still unsolved case of Ann Harmeier.
sources for episode:
https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=1e68b918-88af-4e7a-946e-f1699ffa383e
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna104170
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2022/09/16/who-killed-iu-student-ann-harmeier-5-things-to-know-about-1977-murder/67922139007/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72657832/ann_louise-harmeier
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/indiana-state-police-asking-for-help-solving-murder-of-iu-student-in-1977-indiana-university-martinsville/531-c0fd8ba9-57c3-44cc-9152-0cd999a76bca
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Judy
https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2021/09/13/ann-harmeier-1977-murder-still-unsoved/8317057002/
FB page: https://www.facebook.com/share/16oz8weGgu/?mibextid=wwXIfr
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well
as talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. All witnesses, suspects,
and persons of interest are considered innocent until proven guilty
in a court of law. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm
your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime,
and then together we are going to work on warming
(00:20):
up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to
another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. I am coming
to you back officially from Crime Con. I have so
much to talk about regarding crime and Con. I'm going
to be doing that in a separate episode on its own.
I did want to do a little right now in
True Crime to catch up. Thursday of last week, we
(00:44):
officially got the verdict for Donna Adelson and they found
her guilty on all counts. Guilty of first degree murder,
guilty of conspiracy, guilty, guilty, guilty as it should be.
I'm going to talk about that more on my Crime
Con episode because I was actually at Crime Con. I
(01:06):
had just gotten there when the verdict came out. So
I'm going to discuss that because there is a story
behind it. For sure that I need to share with
you guys because you're true crime fans, and it was
the craziest thing in the world where I heard the verdict,
how I heard the verdict. So I'm going to be
sharing all of that in my crime Con episode. We
(01:27):
are going to keep this a little short and sweet
today for right now. In True Crime. That was really
the main thing I wanted to talk about. And everything else.
Any other updates I will discuss in the next episode
that I released next week. But I wanted to talk
a little bit about Donna, and I am going to
get that crime Con recap out for you guys pretty soon.
(01:50):
And I met so many people and learned about so
many cases that desperately need our attention, and I am
going to be bringing you all of those stories because
this is so so important to get these stories out.
It really makes you realize when you're a crime con,
that we do this for a reason, Like, yes, there
is a entertainment aspect to true crime. People enjoy it,
(02:14):
people like to consume it, but there is a purpose
behind it. It's not just storytelling. It's not that the
story ends after the podcast episode is over, or after
the Netflix documentary ends, or after the sixty minute Dayline
episode ends. These are real people that have real stories,
and their stories continue no matter if we're listening to
(02:36):
them or not, we're sharing about them or not. And
that's why we're here, is to share these stories and
educate and spread awareness and try to get the word out.
That is what it is all about. I'm going to
be talking more about that in my Crime Pun episode,
so keep on the lookout for that, and we are
going to go ahead and get into this week's episode.
It is another case that desperately needs our attention and
(02:59):
it has gone on long enough without answers, and I
think twenty twenty five is the year we get answers. Okay, guys,
we are jumping into a brand new unsolved case today
and I'm going to be telling you about the nineteen
seventy seven unsolved homicide of a twenty year old college
student named Anne Harmier. Anne was a student at the
(03:20):
University of Indiana and was going into her junior year.
She was murdered in Martinsville, Indiana, as she was headed
back to campus. As always, I want to start off
with a little bit about Anne and her background before
we go into the tragic ending of her life. Anne
Louise Harmyer was born on August twenty seventh of nineteen
fifty seven to her parents, Robert and Marjorie. Robert and
(03:43):
Marjorie actually had met at Indiana University, and they were
four years apart, but they were very much in love.
Robert ended up getting his law degree and eventually would
go on to teach at a local school following a
three year stint in the army. Marjorie would go on
to teach music locally. They married in nineteen forty six
(04:03):
and had a home in Cambridge City, Indiana. They had
Anne in nineteen fifty seven, and then four years later,
at the young age of forty four, Robert died of
a brain tumor. Marge never remarried, and Anne became her
whole entire world. She did everything she could so that
Anne could have the life that she deserved. She didn't
(04:24):
let being a single mom hold her back in any way,
shape or form. Anne was a natural born entertainer and
love theater. Given the fact that her mom was a
music teacher, they very much shared this love for entertaining
the masses. Anne eventually would follow in her parents' footsteps
and would go to the University of Indiana Bloomington campus.
(04:44):
She was an honor student and majoring in music and
theater with hopes of becoming an actor or teacher. Although
Anne was an only child and never had any siblings,
she had numerous cousins and those are the people that
remain her champions to this very day. One of her
cousins that I'm going to speak on a lot in
this episode is her second cousin, who is named Scott.
(05:06):
Scott and Anne's grandmothers were sisters. Anne was ten years
older than Scott, putting him at only nine to ten
years old. When Anne was murdered. He told ABC News
that he always looked up to her and thought of
her as the coolest person in his family. Scott said
that Anne was kind and generous and was the real deal,
and he said that she was always interested in what
(05:27):
you were doing and would always ask questions about you.
And Anne truly sounds like a wonderful person, super super talented,
and she was definitely loved by her family. I can't
imagine that them having to try to navigate this tragedy
when they were so young and still to this day
has been easy on them. So we are going to
(05:49):
go ahead and get into the days leading up to
Anne's disappearance. So the weekend of September tenth of nineteen
seventy seven, Anne had come back home to Cambridge City
to visit a family friend that was in the hospital.
Anne had planned on leaving and going back to campus
on Sunday evening, but her mom was kind of concerned
about her traveling alone at night, so she convinced her
(06:12):
to wait until Monday morning. Now, according to Google Maps nowadays,
to take this drive it takes around two hours, so
it's safe to say in nineteen seventy seven it was
probably pretty close to that in distance and time. So
Anne left on Monday, September twelfth of nineteen seventy seven
to head back to campus. She had a class at
(06:34):
ten thirty am that morning, and she was determined to
try to make it. Anne took off in her nineteen
seventy one Pontiac and headed home. Anne was just twenty
minutes away from Bloomington when her car broke down on
State Route thirty seven. Now, this was a road that
Anne was very much familiar with, as she had traveled
it many times since it connected Bloomington to Cambridge City,
(06:56):
Anne missed her ten thirty class, which set off alarm
bells for her classmates. Because Anne was always very responsible
and on time and present for her classes, she also
never called her mom to let her know that she
had made it back home, which was another thing that
set off alarm bells. Later that afternoon, Anne missed a
rehearsal for her theater class, and this was yet another
(07:19):
thing that was very, very odd. Anne's mom, Marge, had
been diligently calling Anne's off campus apartment phone but got
no answer. So this, of course really worried Marge, so
she decided to take herself and a friend to Bloomington
to find out exactly what was going on and look
for Anne. And also, remember this was back in nineteen
(07:40):
seventy seven, so there's no other form of communication other
than house phone to house phone. There's no cell phones,
there's no texting, there's no paging. There's really no technology
at this point in time. So the only way that
Marge could be sure that Anne was safe was to
take herself to Bloomington. So Marge and her friend and
(08:00):
headed towards Bloomington. And this was later on in the
day into the late hours of the evening, so they
headed towards Bloomington, and it was around midnight that they
came across Anne's car abandoned and broken down. The car
was locked, and they noted that they saw her clean
laundry in a laundry basket and school books were in
(08:21):
the backseat of the car. The car was locked and
they couldn't get in, so they went ahead and went
to the police station to report that something was wrong.
As there was no trace of Anne. The Indiana State
Police of the Bloomington District took it seriously and posted
that Anne was missing. After failing to return to the
Bloomington campus. They said her rest colored Pontiac was found
(08:43):
parked on State Road thirty seven with the doors locked
and hazard lights flashing. It was later determined that the
engine was out of water and the car had simply overheated.
Now Anne had known that her car was giving her
some issues, I think, on this trip back home, because
she had apparently stopped at a few different gas stations
(09:04):
along the way, likely to have them look at the car.
The police were able to talk with all of these
people that had had contact with Anne leading up to
that day, and her car breaking down, and they all
seemed to check out and their stories all seemed to
make sense. Anne was having issues with her car. She
stopped several times along the way, but eventually ended up
(09:27):
breaking down. Obviously, somebody stopped to render eight to Anne
and then disappears into thin air. Anne's family and friends
very much rallied around the situation and wanted to do
everything they could to try and find Anne. Anne was
very cautious and she wouldn't have gotten into a car
or gone with anybody that she didn't know. Her cousin
(09:49):
said that he was worried that Anne could have been
so worried and concerned about getting to class that morning
that she just accepted a ride from somebody, which typically,
like I said, she would not do. But if she
was concerned about missing class, this is very possible that
she was willing to take that chance. They did everything
they could to search for Anne, and law enforcement also
(10:11):
went back to the site where Anne's car was found,
and they stopped passerby traffic to see if anybody that
traveled that route regularly had seen anything. Family and friends
made and distributed flyers, and as days went by, hope
dwindled more and more that Anne would be found alive.
They clung to hope for a total of five weeks
(10:31):
until on October nineteenth, a local farmer was walking through
a cornfield when he stumbled upon a body. He immediately
called nine to one one. The body was, in fact
that of Anne Harmier. She was wearing a Indiana University
T shirt and her purse was found nearby. The scene
was brutal. One of her shoelaces was used to tie
(10:54):
her hands around her back and the other was tied
around her neck, and her hair brush was used to
tighten the knot, which is just terrible. She was also
sexually assaulted. Marge, of course, was devastated and very much
lost her will for anything after Anne's murder. She could
hardly function day to day knowing that what happened to
(11:16):
her daughter happened to her daughter. The loss was just
too much for her. Marge ended up passing away due
to brain cancer in nineteen eighty three. Now I'm going
to talk about Scott. Now, Scott is a cousin of
Ann's and he was only, like I said, between nine
and ten at the time of Anne's murder, and he
grew up not knowing the details of what happened to Anne,
(11:40):
but he in present day has become one of the
biggest advocates for solving her crime. He recalls her funeral
being very crowded and very sad. He said all of
the people at the funeral were devastated by what had
happened to Anne. Scott later said that the family was
led to believe that Ann's caller had been caught and
(12:01):
that the killer was no longer alive. They had believed
that Anne's killer was a man named Stephen Judy, So
we are going to go into the Stephen Judy rabbit
hole a little bit and talk about him and why
they thought that he was connected, because I do think
that this is an important part of this story in
the grand scheme of things, and once I get into
(12:23):
the detail of some of Steven Judy's other crimes, it's
going to make sense as to why they thought that
he was possibly responsible for Ann's death as well. Stephen
Timothy Judy is an American serial killer who is known
to have committed several homicides between the years of nineteen
seventy three and nineteen seventy nine around Indiana. He was
(12:44):
convicted on four homicides and confess to seven, and there
are ten plus that he is suspected in. I'm going
to get a little bit into the crimes that he
was convicted of first, because it very much has a
striggling resemblance to Anne's, which is why I think they
thought that he was also responsible for her death. So
(13:06):
on Saturday, April twenty eighth of nineteen seventy nine, a
woman named Terry Lee Shastein was on her way to
drop off her kids at a babysitter's house before she
would go on to head to work. While she was
headed there, Steven Judy passed by her car and basically
signaled to her that she needed to pull over. So
(13:29):
she did pull over, assuming that there was something wrong
with her car that maybe she didn't realize or know about,
and Steven saw it, and she just thought he was
a good samaritan and she accepted help from him. He
told her that there was something wrong with her tire
and said that he would fix it for her. So
while he was looking at this tire, he ended up
(13:52):
disabling the car and ended up offering Terry and her
three kids a ride, and he ended up driving them
to White Liane Creek. Once they got to their destination,
Stephen directed the three kids towards a path and they
were basically walking ahead of he and Terry, So the
kids were pretty far ahead of them, and then Steven
(14:15):
Judy attacked Terry, tied up her hands and feet, and
began choking her. He also sexually assaulted her. She of
course began screaming for help, and her children ended up
running back to them. Later that day, investigators discovered the
bodies of Terry and her three children, Misty who was five,
(14:38):
Stephen who was four, and Mark, who was two. Evidence
was found that Terry had died from strangulation and her
children had been drowned. This guy is a piece of shit.
Let me just say. There were several witnesses that came
forward eventually to help the investigators kind of piece everything
(14:58):
together and figure out who the murderer was. Steve and
Judy ended up being executed in nineteen eighty one, but
in the week before he was executed, he confessed to
his foster mother, who was a woman named Mary Carr,
that he had raped and murdered other women in multiple
different states. He told his foster mother that he killed
(15:21):
more women than he could even remember. He confessed to
the nineteen seventy three slayings of two women in Louisiana,
and that occurred while he was staying in New Orleans.
He also confessed to a murder in November of nineteen
seventy eight, and that was the homicide of a disco
(15:41):
dance instructor in Indianapolis. He also confessed to another possible
murder of another woman in Louisiana, who he said he
raped and kidnapped. He said he ended up throwing her
in the swamp and he didn't know if she survived
or not. There were also two other potential murders that
he committed in Indianapolis. He also admitted to raping two
(16:04):
women in two separate incidents, and he said one of
them was a victim in nineteen seventy eight, he assaulted
her and then tied her to a tree in a
heavily wooded area, and he didn't know if she had survived.
So obviously, Stephen Judy is a pos He is a scumbag.
He is the actual worst. But he did deny having
(16:27):
anything to do with Anne's death. He did not recall
her at all, So if we're going to believe him.
That is the story and he is sticking to it. Now.
Anne's mom, Marge, very much did believe that Steven Judy
was responsible for her daughter's murder, but later on it
was revealed that Stephen was in prison in Marion County
(16:48):
the day of Anne's disappearance, so there's no possible way
that he could have been involved. But it very much
does mirror Terry because Terry was driving with her kids,
she was flagged down, somebody offered to help, and then
she was taken from the scene and assaulted and murdered
(17:11):
along with her children. So that whole mo o very
much does fit. So I can kind of see why
investigators went in this direction, But little did they know
it would come back that Stephen Judy was incarcerated at
the time. So Anne's case is still open, but unfortunately
it's gone cold. Her cousin very much believes that Stephen
(17:32):
didn't have anything to do with Anne's death. So now
we're going to get into present day. Scott has always
had his cousin's case on his mind, but it wasn't
until twenty eighteen when he heard a new story about
the Golden State Killer being arrested that it kind of
brought this case back to the forefront of his mind.
He thought if the Golden State killer was active in
(17:54):
the seventies and eighties and was just now apprehended, that
it wasn't too late to catch his as an Ann's killer.
From there, he decided to reach out to the Indian
Estate Police and ended up filing a foil request, which
was denied because the case was still active and open.
Now let me just say sidebar here. If a case
(18:16):
has been cold unsolved for I say twenty years, fifteen
plus years, let the family have some access to the files.
What harm is it going to do. It's sitting on
a shelf, nothing is really moving. Let the family in
on what you have so maybe they can figure something out.
(18:40):
Maybe something will spark. Everybody has kind of a different
outlook on things. Let the family have access to these files.
So they deny his requests. There has been nobody arrested
for Ann's murder, although at this point in time they
still thought that Steven Judy was responsible. Nobody had been
(19:00):
charged in Anne's murder, so it technically was still an
open investigation, and Scott wanted to do as much as
he could to try to investigate his cousin's case without
the reports from the Indian Estate Police. So he got
with some of his work colleagues and they ended up
taking it on together. They started a social media campaign
(19:21):
to bring attention to Ann's murder, but they did it
a bit differently than your typical social media group that
tries to bring attention to a loves one's murder. They
did all of the posts and everything in the group
from Ann's point of view, which they believe makes it
stand out. And I agree, nobody else is doing this.
This is a very interesting approach and I really like it.
(19:44):
So there was a post made shortly before the New Year,
and remember this is from Ann Harmeier's point of view.
So the post reads, my new Year's resolutions aren't that
much different from most twenty year olds. Eat healthier, make
more time for myself, and find the guy who raped
and killed me. Some people, of course, didn't really like
(20:04):
this approach, but it did what they wanted it to do,
which was to get people talking about Anne and her murder,
which is what you really need in a decades long
cold case like this one. I really think that this
is a great idea and I'm going to link the
social media below so you can follow along for yourself.
In a twenty twenty three interview with NBC News and Dateline,
(20:27):
Scott said, quote, this is going to be the forty
sixth anniversary of her murder, and it marks a critical point.
We're forty six years away from the time of her murder,
and many of the individuals who have knowledge about the
case or possible suspects are either dead or in poor
health end quote. Our best bet is to raise awareness
(20:48):
about her death and get people to start talking and
remembering and hopefully coming forward with new information that would
crack the case. Scott did go on to say that
there was DNA collected from the scene and it has
been tested, but no matches have come up yet. He
said the evidence was very well preserved, despite the fact
that it was collected in the nineteen seventies when DNA
(21:10):
testing wasn't exactly a thing. They did say that they
test it from time to time and they are hopeful
that one day they will get a match. Scott told
Dateline that he has two goals now. He said, our
number one goal is to find Ann's killer, finding the
guy who did this, and getting him locked away for good,
if not worse, was my end goal. His other goal
(21:33):
was a bit unexpected, and he said through researching Ann's case,
he came across so many others, particularly women in Indiana
who disappeared or were murdered in the seventies and eighties
whose cases are also unsolved. He said he wants to
raise funds to create a cold case unit to look
into some of these unsolved Indiana cases. And there are many.
(21:57):
We've covered some on this podcast. We have Dara Holts,
we have Brandy Peltz, we have the Burger Chef murders.
There are a lot of notorious unsolved cases in the
seventies and eighties that all took place in Indiana. So Scott
wanting to organize funds and kind of rally to try
(22:17):
to help solve some of these cases. I think is
such a positive thing that can come out of something
so tragic, like in being brutally murdered on her way
back to school. And I think in these cases something
like this where Anne's life was taken, she was only
twenty years old, she was in the prime of her
life and everything was just taken from her instantly, and
(22:41):
decades later her case is still unsolved, but her family
and Scott kind of spearheading everything is taking what happened
to her and turning it into something positive to try
to help others and try to bring a spotlight back
on some of these cold cases from Indiana because he
(23:02):
realizes how much help they really need to keep these
cases out there, and how many unsolved cases there truly
are out of Indiana, And why is that the case.
Is it just that they don't have the evidence? Is
it lack of resources, is it lack of funds. There
are so many different factors that go into why these
(23:23):
cold cases don't really go anywhere, and a lot of it,
unfortunately is smaller police departments and lack of resources and
lack of funding. So Scott kind of taking this upon
himself to try and create this cold case unit is
something that I think is such a great thing to
come out of this horrible tragedy. So, as of right now,
(23:45):
Ann's case, unfortunately is still unsolved, but I do think
the fact that they do have DNA and the fact
that we have advancements in DNA technology on a daily basis,
I do believe that the answers are out there, and
I just hope that when the answers come that the
person responsible for Ann's death is still living and will
(24:06):
be able to be prosecuted to the fullest degree and
spend the rest of their life behind bars. Because I've
said it once, I'll say it again. I don't think
you randomly just wake up on a random Monday and
decide you're going to go commit a murder for the
first time ever, and then you go back to your
regular life and you never do it again. I think
(24:26):
people like this that are capable of something like this
establish patterns, and they have a really hard time if
they've done it once, only doing it that one time.
I don't believe whoever this person is, that Ann was
his first victim, and I don't believe that she was
his last. But Ann's story is such an important one
to tell, and I very much wanted to share all
(24:49):
of the good that is coming out of everything that
Scott has now taken on trying to investigate his cousin's
murder and in the process us realizing how many other
cases also need this type of attention, and taking it
upon himself to raise funds so hopefully this cold case
unit can be formed and they can really take a
(25:13):
deep dive into some of these cold cases and hopefully
get them solved so they can mark them as closed,
because that is what we want at the end of
the day, every single cold case to no longer be cold,
justice for the victims, answers for the families, and people
to be held accountable for being heinous humans at the
(25:33):
end of the day. So thank you guys so much
for listening to Ann's story. I'm going to be posting
over on my social media some photos of Anne and
just the kind of girl that Anne was. It really
comes through in her photos. You can tell that she
was a lovely, lovely girl and she had her whole
life ahead of her. Thank you guys so much as
(25:55):
always for listening, and I will see you next week
for a brand new unsolved case. Have a great weekend
and I will see you then. Bye.
Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well
as talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. All witnesses, suspects,
and persons of interest are considered innocent until proven guilty
in a court of law. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm
your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime,
and then together we are going to work on warming
(00:20):
up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to
another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. I am coming
to you back officially from Crime Con. I have so
much to talk about regarding crime and Con. I'm going
to be doing that in a separate episode on its own.
I did want to do a little right now in
True Crime to catch up. Thursday of last week, we
(00:44):
officially got the verdict for Donna Adelson and they found
her guilty on all counts. Guilty of first degree murder,
guilty of conspiracy, guilty, guilty, guilty as it should be.
I'm going to talk about that more on my Crime
Con episode because I was actually at Crime Con. I
(01:06):
had just gotten there when the verdict came out. So
I'm going to discuss that because there is a story
behind it. For sure that I need to share with
you guys because you're true crime fans, and it was
the craziest thing in the world where I heard the verdict,
how I heard the verdict. So I'm going to be
sharing all of that in my crime Con episode. We
(01:27):
are going to keep this a little short and sweet
today for right now. In True Crime. That was really
the main thing I wanted to talk about. And everything else.
Any other updates I will discuss in the next episode
that I released next week. But I wanted to talk
a little bit about Donna, and I am going to
get that crime Con recap out for you guys pretty soon.
(01:50):
And I met so many people and learned about so
many cases that desperately need our attention, and I am
going to be bringing you all of those stories because
this is so so important to get these stories out.
It really makes you realize when you're a crime con,
that we do this for a reason, Like, yes, there
is a entertainment aspect to true crime. People enjoy it,
(02:14):
people like to consume it, but there is a purpose
behind it. It's not just storytelling. It's not that the
story ends after the podcast episode is over, or after
the Netflix documentary ends, or after the sixty minute Dayline
episode ends. These are real people that have real stories,
and their stories continue no matter if we're listening to
(02:36):
them or not, we're sharing about them or not. And
that's why we're here, is to share these stories and
educate and spread awareness and try to get the word out.
That is what it is all about. I'm going to
be talking more about that in my Crime Pun episode,
so keep on the lookout for that, and we are
going to go ahead and get into this week's episode.
It is another case that desperately needs our attention and
(02:59):
it has gone on long enough without answers, and I
think twenty twenty five is the year we get answers. Okay, guys,
we are jumping into a brand new unsolved case today
and I'm going to be telling you about the nineteen
seventy seven unsolved homicide of a twenty year old college
student named Anne Harmier. Anne was a student at the
(03:20):
University of Indiana and was going into her junior year.
She was murdered in Martinsville, Indiana, as she was headed
back to campus. As always, I want to start off
with a little bit about Anne and her background before
we go into the tragic ending of her life. Anne
Louise Harmyer was born on August twenty seventh of nineteen
fifty seven to her parents, Robert and Marjorie. Robert and
(03:43):
Marjorie actually had met at Indiana University, and they were
four years apart, but they were very much in love.
Robert ended up getting his law degree and eventually would
go on to teach at a local school following a
three year stint in the army. Marjorie would go on
to teach music locally. They married in nineteen forty six
(04:03):
and had a home in Cambridge City, Indiana. They had
Anne in nineteen fifty seven, and then four years later,
at the young age of forty four, Robert died of
a brain tumor. Marge never remarried, and Anne became her
whole entire world. She did everything she could so that
Anne could have the life that she deserved. She didn't
(04:24):
let being a single mom hold her back in any way,
shape or form. Anne was a natural born entertainer and
love theater. Given the fact that her mom was a
music teacher, they very much shared this love for entertaining
the masses. Anne eventually would follow in her parents' footsteps
and would go to the University of Indiana Bloomington campus.
(04:44):
She was an honor student and majoring in music and
theater with hopes of becoming an actor or teacher. Although
Anne was an only child and never had any siblings,
she had numerous cousins and those are the people that
remain her champions to this very day. One of her
cousins that I'm going to speak on a lot in
this episode is her second cousin, who is named Scott.
(05:06):
Scott and Anne's grandmothers were sisters. Anne was ten years
older than Scott, putting him at only nine to ten
years old. When Anne was murdered. He told ABC News
that he always looked up to her and thought of
her as the coolest person in his family. Scott said
that Anne was kind and generous and was the real deal,
and he said that she was always interested in what
(05:27):
you were doing and would always ask questions about you.
And Anne truly sounds like a wonderful person, super super talented,
and she was definitely loved by her family. I can't
imagine that them having to try to navigate this tragedy
when they were so young and still to this day
has been easy on them. So we are going to
(05:49):
go ahead and get into the days leading up to
Anne's disappearance. So the weekend of September tenth of nineteen
seventy seven, Anne had come back home to Cambridge City
to visit a family friend that was in the hospital.
Anne had planned on leaving and going back to campus
on Sunday evening, but her mom was kind of concerned
about her traveling alone at night, so she convinced her
(06:12):
to wait until Monday morning. Now, according to Google Maps nowadays,
to take this drive it takes around two hours, so
it's safe to say in nineteen seventy seven it was
probably pretty close to that in distance and time. So
Anne left on Monday, September twelfth of nineteen seventy seven
to head back to campus. She had a class at
(06:34):
ten thirty am that morning, and she was determined to
try to make it. Anne took off in her nineteen
seventy one Pontiac and headed home. Anne was just twenty
minutes away from Bloomington when her car broke down on
State Route thirty seven. Now, this was a road that
Anne was very much familiar with, as she had traveled
it many times since it connected Bloomington to Cambridge City,
(06:56):
Anne missed her ten thirty class, which set off alarm
bells for her classmates. Because Anne was always very responsible
and on time and present for her classes, she also
never called her mom to let her know that she
had made it back home, which was another thing that
set off alarm bells. Later that afternoon, Anne missed a
rehearsal for her theater class, and this was yet another
(07:19):
thing that was very, very odd. Anne's mom, Marge, had
been diligently calling Anne's off campus apartment phone but got
no answer. So this, of course really worried Marge, so
she decided to take herself and a friend to Bloomington
to find out exactly what was going on and look
for Anne. And also, remember this was back in nineteen
(07:40):
seventy seven, so there's no other form of communication other
than house phone to house phone. There's no cell phones,
there's no texting, there's no paging. There's really no technology
at this point in time. So the only way that
Marge could be sure that Anne was safe was to
take herself to Bloomington. So Marge and her friend and
(08:00):
headed towards Bloomington. And this was later on in the
day into the late hours of the evening, so they
headed towards Bloomington, and it was around midnight that they
came across Anne's car abandoned and broken down. The car
was locked, and they noted that they saw her clean
laundry in a laundry basket and school books were in
(08:21):
the backseat of the car. The car was locked and
they couldn't get in, so they went ahead and went
to the police station to report that something was wrong.
As there was no trace of Anne. The Indiana State
Police of the Bloomington District took it seriously and posted
that Anne was missing. After failing to return to the
Bloomington campus. They said her rest colored Pontiac was found
(08:43):
parked on State Road thirty seven with the doors locked
and hazard lights flashing. It was later determined that the
engine was out of water and the car had simply overheated.
Now Anne had known that her car was giving her
some issues, I think, on this trip back home, because
she had apparently stopped at a few different gas stations
(09:04):
along the way, likely to have them look at the car.
The police were able to talk with all of these
people that had had contact with Anne leading up to
that day, and her car breaking down, and they all
seemed to check out and their stories all seemed to
make sense. Anne was having issues with her car. She
stopped several times along the way, but eventually ended up
(09:27):
breaking down. Obviously, somebody stopped to render eight to Anne
and then disappears into thin air. Anne's family and friends
very much rallied around the situation and wanted to do
everything they could to try and find Anne. Anne was
very cautious and she wouldn't have gotten into a car
or gone with anybody that she didn't know. Her cousin
(09:49):
said that he was worried that Anne could have been
so worried and concerned about getting to class that morning
that she just accepted a ride from somebody, which typically,
like I said, she would not do. But if she
was concerned about missing class, this is very possible that
she was willing to take that chance. They did everything
they could to search for Anne, and law enforcement also
(10:11):
went back to the site where Anne's car was found,
and they stopped passerby traffic to see if anybody that
traveled that route regularly had seen anything. Family and friends
made and distributed flyers, and as days went by, hope
dwindled more and more that Anne would be found alive.
They clung to hope for a total of five weeks
(10:31):
until on October nineteenth, a local farmer was walking through
a cornfield when he stumbled upon a body. He immediately
called nine to one one. The body was, in fact
that of Anne Harmier. She was wearing a Indiana University
T shirt and her purse was found nearby. The scene
was brutal. One of her shoelaces was used to tie
(10:54):
her hands around her back and the other was tied
around her neck, and her hair brush was used to
tighten the knot, which is just terrible. She was also
sexually assaulted. Marge, of course, was devastated and very much
lost her will for anything after Anne's murder. She could
hardly function day to day knowing that what happened to
(11:16):
her daughter happened to her daughter. The loss was just
too much for her. Marge ended up passing away due
to brain cancer in nineteen eighty three. Now I'm going
to talk about Scott. Now, Scott is a cousin of
Ann's and he was only, like I said, between nine
and ten at the time of Anne's murder, and he
grew up not knowing the details of what happened to Anne,
(11:40):
but he in present day has become one of the
biggest advocates for solving her crime. He recalls her funeral
being very crowded and very sad. He said all of
the people at the funeral were devastated by what had
happened to Anne. Scott later said that the family was
led to believe that Ann's caller had been caught and
(12:01):
that the killer was no longer alive. They had believed
that Anne's killer was a man named Stephen Judy, So
we are going to go into the Stephen Judy rabbit
hole a little bit and talk about him and why
they thought that he was connected, because I do think
that this is an important part of this story in
the grand scheme of things, and once I get into
(12:23):
the detail of some of Steven Judy's other crimes, it's
going to make sense as to why they thought that
he was possibly responsible for Ann's death as well. Stephen
Timothy Judy is an American serial killer who is known
to have committed several homicides between the years of nineteen
seventy three and nineteen seventy nine around Indiana. He was
(12:44):
convicted on four homicides and confess to seven, and there
are ten plus that he is suspected in. I'm going
to get a little bit into the crimes that he
was convicted of first, because it very much has a
striggling resemblance to Anne's, which is why I think they
thought that he was also responsible for her death. So
(13:06):
on Saturday, April twenty eighth of nineteen seventy nine, a
woman named Terry Lee Shastein was on her way to
drop off her kids at a babysitter's house before she
would go on to head to work. While she was
headed there, Steven Judy passed by her car and basically
signaled to her that she needed to pull over. So
(13:29):
she did pull over, assuming that there was something wrong
with her car that maybe she didn't realize or know about,
and Steven saw it, and she just thought he was
a good samaritan and she accepted help from him. He
told her that there was something wrong with her tire
and said that he would fix it for her. So
while he was looking at this tire, he ended up
(13:52):
disabling the car and ended up offering Terry and her
three kids a ride, and he ended up driving them
to White Liane Creek. Once they got to their destination,
Stephen directed the three kids towards a path and they
were basically walking ahead of he and Terry, So the
kids were pretty far ahead of them, and then Steven
(14:15):
Judy attacked Terry, tied up her hands and feet, and
began choking her. He also sexually assaulted her. She of
course began screaming for help, and her children ended up
running back to them. Later that day, investigators discovered the
bodies of Terry and her three children, Misty who was five,
(14:38):
Stephen who was four, and Mark, who was two. Evidence
was found that Terry had died from strangulation and her
children had been drowned. This guy is a piece of shit.
Let me just say. There were several witnesses that came
forward eventually to help the investigators kind of piece everything
(14:58):
together and figure out who the murderer was. Steve and
Judy ended up being executed in nineteen eighty one, but
in the week before he was executed, he confessed to
his foster mother, who was a woman named Mary Carr,
that he had raped and murdered other women in multiple
different states. He told his foster mother that he killed
(15:21):
more women than he could even remember. He confessed to
the nineteen seventy three slayings of two women in Louisiana,
and that occurred while he was staying in New Orleans.
He also confessed to a murder in November of nineteen
seventy eight, and that was the homicide of a disco
(15:41):
dance instructor in Indianapolis. He also confessed to another possible
murder of another woman in Louisiana, who he said he
raped and kidnapped. He said he ended up throwing her
in the swamp and he didn't know if she survived
or not. There were also two other potential murders that
he committed in Indianapolis. He also admitted to raping two
(16:04):
women in two separate incidents, and he said one of
them was a victim in nineteen seventy eight, he assaulted
her and then tied her to a tree in a
heavily wooded area, and he didn't know if she had survived.
So obviously, Stephen Judy is a pos He is a scumbag.
He is the actual worst. But he did deny having
(16:27):
anything to do with Anne's death. He did not recall
her at all, So if we're going to believe him.
That is the story and he is sticking to it. Now.
Anne's mom, Marge, very much did believe that Steven Judy
was responsible for her daughter's murder, but later on it
was revealed that Stephen was in prison in Marion County
(16:48):
the day of Anne's disappearance, so there's no possible way
that he could have been involved. But it very much
does mirror Terry because Terry was driving with her kids,
she was flagged down, somebody offered to help, and then
she was taken from the scene and assaulted and murdered
(17:11):
along with her children. So that whole mo o very
much does fit. So I can kind of see why
investigators went in this direction, But little did they know
it would come back that Stephen Judy was incarcerated at
the time. So Anne's case is still open, but unfortunately
it's gone cold. Her cousin very much believes that Stephen
(17:32):
didn't have anything to do with Anne's death. So now
we're going to get into present day. Scott has always
had his cousin's case on his mind, but it wasn't
until twenty eighteen when he heard a new story about
the Golden State Killer being arrested that it kind of
brought this case back to the forefront of his mind.
He thought if the Golden State killer was active in
(17:54):
the seventies and eighties and was just now apprehended, that
it wasn't too late to catch his as an Ann's killer.
From there, he decided to reach out to the Indian
Estate Police and ended up filing a foil request, which
was denied because the case was still active and open.
Now let me just say sidebar here. If a case
(18:16):
has been cold unsolved for I say twenty years, fifteen
plus years, let the family have some access to the files.
What harm is it going to do. It's sitting on
a shelf, nothing is really moving. Let the family in
on what you have so maybe they can figure something out.
(18:40):
Maybe something will spark. Everybody has kind of a different
outlook on things. Let the family have access to these files.
So they deny his requests. There has been nobody arrested
for Ann's murder, although at this point in time they
still thought that Steven Judy was responsible. Nobody had been
(19:00):
charged in Anne's murder, so it technically was still an
open investigation, and Scott wanted to do as much as
he could to try to investigate his cousin's case without
the reports from the Indian Estate Police. So he got
with some of his work colleagues and they ended up
taking it on together. They started a social media campaign
(19:21):
to bring attention to Ann's murder, but they did it
a bit differently than your typical social media group that
tries to bring attention to a loves one's murder. They
did all of the posts and everything in the group
from Ann's point of view, which they believe makes it
stand out. And I agree, nobody else is doing this.
This is a very interesting approach and I really like it.
(19:44):
So there was a post made shortly before the New Year,
and remember this is from Ann Harmeier's point of view.
So the post reads, my new Year's resolutions aren't that
much different from most twenty year olds. Eat healthier, make
more time for myself, and find the guy who raped
and killed me. Some people, of course, didn't really like
(20:04):
this approach, but it did what they wanted it to do,
which was to get people talking about Anne and her murder,
which is what you really need in a decades long
cold case like this one. I really think that this
is a great idea and I'm going to link the
social media below so you can follow along for yourself.
In a twenty twenty three interview with NBC News and Dateline,
(20:27):
Scott said, quote, this is going to be the forty
sixth anniversary of her murder, and it marks a critical point.
We're forty six years away from the time of her murder,
and many of the individuals who have knowledge about the
case or possible suspects are either dead or in poor
health end quote. Our best bet is to raise awareness
(20:48):
about her death and get people to start talking and
remembering and hopefully coming forward with new information that would
crack the case. Scott did go on to say that
there was DNA collected from the scene and it has
been tested, but no matches have come up yet. He
said the evidence was very well preserved, despite the fact
that it was collected in the nineteen seventies when DNA
(21:10):
testing wasn't exactly a thing. They did say that they
test it from time to time and they are hopeful
that one day they will get a match. Scott told
Dateline that he has two goals now. He said, our
number one goal is to find Ann's killer, finding the
guy who did this, and getting him locked away for good,
if not worse, was my end goal. His other goal
(21:33):
was a bit unexpected, and he said through researching Ann's case,
he came across so many others, particularly women in Indiana
who disappeared or were murdered in the seventies and eighties
whose cases are also unsolved. He said he wants to
raise funds to create a cold case unit to look
into some of these unsolved Indiana cases. And there are many.
(21:57):
We've covered some on this podcast. We have Dara Holts,
we have Brandy Peltz, we have the Burger Chef murders.
There are a lot of notorious unsolved cases in the
seventies and eighties that all took place in Indiana. So Scott
wanting to organize funds and kind of rally to try
(22:17):
to help solve some of these cases. I think is
such a positive thing that can come out of something
so tragic, like in being brutally murdered on her way
back to school. And I think in these cases something
like this where Anne's life was taken, she was only
twenty years old, she was in the prime of her
life and everything was just taken from her instantly, and
(22:41):
decades later her case is still unsolved, but her family
and Scott kind of spearheading everything is taking what happened
to her and turning it into something positive to try
to help others and try to bring a spotlight back
on some of these cold cases from Indiana because he
(23:02):
realizes how much help they really need to keep these
cases out there, and how many unsolved cases there truly
are out of Indiana, And why is that the case.
Is it just that they don't have the evidence? Is
it lack of resources, is it lack of funds. There
are so many different factors that go into why these
(23:23):
cold cases don't really go anywhere, and a lot of it,
unfortunately is smaller police departments and lack of resources and
lack of funding. So Scott kind of taking this upon
himself to try and create this cold case unit is
something that I think is such a great thing to
come out of this horrible tragedy. So, as of right now,
(23:45):
Ann's case, unfortunately is still unsolved, but I do think
the fact that they do have DNA and the fact
that we have advancements in DNA technology on a daily basis,
I do believe that the answers are out there, and
I just hope that when the answers come that the
person responsible for Ann's death is still living and will
(24:06):
be able to be prosecuted to the fullest degree and
spend the rest of their life behind bars. Because I've
said it once, I'll say it again. I don't think
you randomly just wake up on a random Monday and
decide you're going to go commit a murder for the
first time ever, and then you go back to your
regular life and you never do it again. I think
(24:26):
people like this that are capable of something like this
establish patterns, and they have a really hard time if
they've done it once, only doing it that one time.
I don't believe whoever this person is, that Ann was
his first victim, and I don't believe that she was
his last. But Ann's story is such an important one
to tell, and I very much wanted to share all
(24:49):
of the good that is coming out of everything that
Scott has now taken on trying to investigate his cousin's
murder and in the process us realizing how many other
cases also need this type of attention, and taking it
upon himself to raise funds so hopefully this cold case
unit can be formed and they can really take a
(25:13):
deep dive into some of these cold cases and hopefully
get them solved so they can mark them as closed,
because that is what we want at the end of
the day, every single cold case to no longer be cold,
justice for the victims, answers for the families, and people
to be held accountable for being heinous humans at the
(25:33):
end of the day. So thank you guys so much
for listening to Ann's story. I'm going to be posting
over on my social media some photos of Anne and
just the kind of girl that Anne was. It really
comes through in her photos. You can tell that she
was a lovely, lovely girl and she had her whole
life ahead of her. Thank you guys so much as
(25:55):
always for listening, and I will see you next week
for a brand new unsolved case. Have a great weekend
and I will see you then. Bye.
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