250 - The Murder of Janet Shirar

Sunday, May 25th, 1980 -- Kokomo, Indiana.  Twenty-nine year old special education teacher Janet Shirar doesn't show up for a pre-planned family gathering and birthday party for her nephew.  After multiple calls to her apartment go unanswered, her mother, stepfather and friend arrive to check on her.  They find her car in the parking lot, the door slightly ajar and her apartment cloaked in darkness.

Entering, they notice several concerning details and items out of place.  A small, bloody handprint is clearly visible on the wall beside her bedroom door.  As they approached the bedroom, their eyes were drawn to the open bathroom door and there, lying face down on the cold tile floor, they discovered Janet's lifeless body.  She had been the victim of a vicious knife attack.

Over the course of the next sixteen months, investigators commit all of their time and energy to tracking an unidentified woman who has made bizarre statements about the crime and, possibly, her involvement it.  However, when the case becomes a political issue, a debate between the prosecutor's office and detectives leaves the family with neither answers nor justice.  More than forty-five years later, the truth remains obscured and Janet's killer continues to walk free.

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Music Courtesy of:

"Lost Time"  Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Echoes of Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Galactic Rap" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
The desperate trio came upon the car, parked exactly where
it always was. The orange red sheen of the small
vehicle almost seemed to flicker and glow, like the dull
flame of a dying fire captured in the misty disorientation
of the thick, sticky spring night. Just beyond the pavement,
across a small patch of poorly manicured grass, a dark

(00:31):
void lie behind the towering windows of the apartment building,
with no hint of light within. Together, the three approached
the windows and peered into the darkness, able to make
out only the edges and shapes of objects as they
captured faint reflections emanating from the dusky bulbs atop the
few functioning light poles in the parking lot. Shining a

(00:53):
flashlight into the darkened apartment, they watched with hesitation as
the beam moved along the back wall, sliding down onto
the arm of the couch, dipping down into the obscured
ocean of the carpet. There, the flashlight captured an out
of place object in its refracted glow. They quickly identified
it as Janet's purse, but they could not determine just

(01:16):
where the twenty nine year old was herself. Deploying a
key acquired from the manager's office, The three swung open
the door and stepped softly into the blackness. Lost fingers
slid along the wall in pursuit of light switches, who
responded to contact by snapping up into their powered on positions,
but there came no illumination. It was then that their

(01:38):
breath caught in their throats as the pale glow of
the flashlight delve deeper into the apartment. Across from the door,
the light came to rest on what appeared to be
the bloody print of a woman's hand smeared onto the
wall just outside of Janet's bedroom. Stepping further inside, the
flashlight moved from left to right, examining the floor and

(02:00):
walls of the hall until the beam passed through an
open doorway. It was there that the brutal scene was discovered.
Lying on the cold tile floor in a bloody heap
was the body of Janet Shearer, and it was immediately
clear that she was dead. Blood now coagulating, had pooled
around the body, which lay face down, the crown of

(02:20):
her head towards the door. The bloody scene spanned multiple rooms,
telling the horrifying story of Janet's last moments. The attack
initiated in the bedroom before the twenty nine year old
tried to escape her killer, fleeing towards the bathroom, the
only other room with a door that could be locked,
But by then it was already too late. She was

(02:43):
losing blood fast from the surprise attack, which appeared to
have roused her from her sleep. By the time she
made it into the bathroom in desperate pursuit of some
measure of protection, her body had already begun to weaken
as she grew woozy with blood loss. It was there
on the bathroom floor that her killer brutally lashed out,

(03:03):
stabbing and slashing at her back, neck, and legs. The
fact that Janet had already expired neither slowed nor stopped
the assailant, who was thought to have been fully enveloped
in some kind of homicidal frenzy. Somehow, despite the proximity
of other tenants in the small apartment complex, Janet had
been brutally murdered, and no one had heard a sound

(03:27):
or saw a thing. The killer vanished into that sticky
night without leaving behind a clue, not so much as
a hair. It was as though some vengeful spirit had
come in the night to wreak havoc. But why target
the beloved special education teacher? That is a question among
many which remains unanswered more than forty years later. This

(03:50):
is Trace Evidence Episode two fifty, The Murder of Janet Shearer.
Welcome to Trace Evidence. I'm your host Stephen Pacheco. In
today's episode, we delve into a horrifying unsolved crime out

(04:12):
of Indiana where in nineteen eighty, twenty nine year old
special education teacher Janet Shearer was brutally murdered in her
Cocomo apartment. More than forty five years later, and this
case remains unsolved. This is episode two fifty, The Murder
of Janet Shearer. Janet Rose Shearer was born on Saturday,

(04:43):
March tenth, nineteen fifty one, in Cocomo, Indiana, to parents
Richard and Rose. Janet was the third of three children
born to the Shearers, having both a brother, Steve, and
a sister, Kathy. Janet was raised in central Howard County,
sixxty miles east of Delphi, in neighboring Carroll County in

(05:04):
the small city of Marion. Friends and family described her
as a smart and insightful young woman with a compassionate
heart and an innate desire to help and assist others.
Janet was fun loving with the warm and welcoming personality,
but as friends could attest to, she had a tendency
to keep a lot of people at arm's length, letting

(05:24):
in only a select few over the years. As one friend,
jan Hinkle would later note, Janet was polite and kind,
but she didn't hesitate to speak her mind, Hankel explained, saying, quote,
Janet wasn't hard to know, but if she didn't like you,
she wouldn't give you the time of day. She wouldn't

(05:44):
cut you out. She just didn't acknowledge you. You knew
where you stood with Janet. However, if you were someone
that Janet invited into her inner circle and personal life,
you were set. She was a dedicated mate who stood
up for her friends even in times where they weren't
strong enough to stand up for themselves. Fearless, passionate, and unwavering,

(06:08):
Janet never made a friend she wouldn't consider a lifelong associate.
Aside from being a friendly and caring young woman, Janet
was also highly intelligent and keenly focused on her academic
goals and achievements. She was a voracious reader who dove
deep into any books she got her hands on. She

(06:28):
attended Sweetzer Elementary School, where she consistently was a member
of the honor roll. In nineteen sixty four, she began
attending Oak Hill High School, located in the town of Converse,
some twenty miles east of Kocomo. There, Janet really blossomed,
taking on new challenges and conquering them with a zest

(06:49):
and desire for higher hills to climb. As a teen,
she was heavily involved in extracurricular activities and belonged to
a wide array of both academic and social clubs, as
well as student government. In her freshman year, she successfully
tried out for the cheer squad, and by her senior year,
she was co captain. Throughout the pages of her senior yearbook,

(07:12):
there are dozens of photos of Janet laughing with friends,
dancing in the hallways, cheering at ballgames, and attending different
groups and gatherings. She graduated from Oak Hill in nineteen
sixty nine at the age of eighteen, and immediately proceeded
to college, attending Indiana University at Kocomo. Much as had

(07:33):
been the case in high school, she was heavily involved
in different groups and organizations while maintaining a high grade
point average. Professors sang her praises and her classmates followed suit,
ultimately electing Janet to be student body president, where she
was later celebrated as being instrumental in creating a student
foundation at the regional campus. While in university, Janet would

(07:57):
truly reveal herself to be a polymath, as her interests
and attention were spread across several different subjects. She entered
her senior year in nineteen seventy two, and during the
next two semesters she majored in political science and psychology simultaneously.
The twenty two year old earned her teaching certificate while
working at Kocomo's Hawthorne High School. Graduating in the spring

(08:21):
of seventy three, Janet showed no signs of slowing down
as she sunk her teeth into her first real job,
accepting a position as a psychiatric attendant at the then
Regional Mental Health Center. Janet thoroughly enjoyed the job, with
her mother Rose later noting that she was thrilled because
quote she was challenged and somebody needed her. A year later,

(08:45):
in nineteen seventy four, Janet accepted an offer to teach
history and social studies at East Aurora High School in Aurora, Illinois,
two hundred miles from the only home she'd ever known.
While teaching was a career which captured her full life,
body and soul, she soon became disenfranchised by the bureaucracy
of school and what one friend described as the petty

(09:08):
politics that came with her new position. Not only was
the job not quite what she had imagined, this was
also a difficult time in her personal life, as her parents,
Richard and Rose, filed for divorce. Perhaps a friend later
speculated that could be a reason she chose to take
a teaching job so far away, but it wasn't something

(09:28):
Janet would ever admit to if indeed it were true.
She returned to Kocomo in nineteen seventy six and quickly
picked up a completely different job, this time as a
marketing specialist at Universal Steel Incorporated, then located at nine
to ninety East Carter Street in downtown Cocomo, today the
home of omnisource Llc. There isn't much of an answer

(09:52):
as to what led Janet to this job other than
it allowed her to come home and do something entirely
different in essence to Klen her palette of the bad
taste Aurora had left. This same year, Janet decided to
head back to the University of Indiana at Kocomo, where
she took on postgraduate courses for two semesters. Two years later,

(10:14):
in nineteen seventy eight, she left US Steel and once
again changed careers, being hired on as a sales representative
with the Prudential Insurance Company of America. Although it was
a good job with a solid salary, it was a
little too comfortable for a woman who both loved and
to a degree needed the pressure and urgency of a challenge,

(10:37):
whether it was reaping the rewards delivered by hard work
and dedication, or just the hand of fate Deciding to
take a role, Janet was offered a teaching position that
truly excited her. The bitterness of her initial teaching experience
and Aurora had faded out enough that she jumped at
the new position, becoming a special education teacher at bonn

(10:58):
Air Middle School on North Aperson Way in north central Cocomo.
Janet was taking on a very new challenge, but one
for which she was highly trained, as her teaching assignment
would see her instructing emotionally disabled students between the ages
of twelve and fifteen. For someone who loved to teach

(11:19):
and had a strong desire to help others, this seemed
to be a perfect fit. Janet took it seriously, and
from the moment she accepted the position, she began developing
a curriculum and designing a new and focused approach to instruction.
Her mother would later comment about her need to help others,
telling the Cocomo Tribune quote, Janet was a person that

(11:40):
people came to with their problems. She took psychology and
she used it in many ways. She was always trying
to solve people's problems and to give advice. She had
it whether they wanted it or not. Not long after
accepting the new job, Janet moved into apartment number eleven

(12:01):
at the Center Meadow Apartments, then located along South Hardbeck Road,
approximately six miles southeast of bonn Air Middle School. Janet
began teaching at the school in the fall of nineteen
seventy nine, and according to friends and co workers, she
absolutely loved her job. Specifically, she developed a tight bond

(12:21):
with her students. According to friends, Janet began developing her
new social circle at the school, befriending many other teachers
and faculty members. She enjoyed spending time with her friends,
chatting over drinks at local pubs, and while she dated
a little bit, her job and her students always came first.

(12:42):
According to one man who had dated Janet for a
short period of time, it was very usual and almost
typical for her to cancel dates and social events to
instead work on lesson plans and grading papers. Almost everyone
who knew Janet has gone on to describe her, in
one way or another as very physically attractive, with an

(13:03):
alluring smile. It's been said that most of the time
she was so involved in her own thoughts and plans
that she didn't notice the men who lined up to
throw their hats into the ring, and on the rare
occasions when she did, they didn't quite live up to
what she was seeking. She wanted to find someone to
share her life with, to settle down and begin a family,

(13:25):
but she wasn't willing to sacrifice her career or her goals,
let alone, to slow down enough for someone to fully
catch up. There would be time later, she noted tragically,
unaware of how little time she had left. Friends said
she filled much of her free time reading about new
and different teaching methods, seeking out what would best serve

(13:46):
her class. Elaine Langford, who worked as an aide at Bonnair,
got to know Janet well and described her as both
friendly and somewhat closed off, saying quote, she knew everybody.
She was not a very uptight person. She did what
she wanted to do, but she was a very closed
person who wouldn't let anybody get close to her. As

(14:10):
her first year of teaching at bon Air came to
a close in the spring of nineteen eighty, Janet was
twenty nine years old, with her whole life ahead of her.
As was customary for the young brunette, she wasn't planning
on taking her summer off, laying by the pool and
taking it easy. She wanted challenges, and she set goals.
She was determined to assist her stepfather, Alvin, by driving

(14:33):
a dump truck around the site of the family's new
home being built in neighboring Carroll County. Alvin had recently
taught her out to handle big trucks, and she couldn't
wait to show him what she could do. Initially, when
Alvin and Rose got together, Janet wasn't quick to accept
her new stepfather, but over the years they grew very close,
with Alvin later saying quote, if she'd been my own daughter,

(14:56):
I couldn't love her anymore. She was over here almost
every day, According to friends, she had a lot of
other plans as well. She wanted to cut her hair short,
drop her cigarette habit, return to school in pursuit of
her master's degree, and she was planning to start a diet.
All of her friends were quick to note that she

(15:17):
was extremely athletic and in great shape a diet was unnecessary.
But once she'd made up her mind about something, there
was no changing it. As one friend later jokingly noted, quote,
you couldn't tell her anything. Always very upfront and opinionated.
As she reached the end of her twenties, Janet was

(15:38):
more willing to offer up advice than she was to
accept it. However, the bright, loving and inspiring teacher who
moved heaven and earth to support her students to the
best of her ability, would sadly never make it out
of her twenties, The school year was nearly complete, and
Janet locked in plans for how she'd keep busy over
the summer before beginning her second year at bonn Air.

(16:01):
Friday May twenty fifth, nineteen eighty marked the beginning of
a busy Memorial Day weekend for the twenty nine year old.
As had become family tradition, Memorial Day weekend always involved
a large picnic, which doubled as somewhat of a family reunion,
and it was also when they would celebrate her nephew's birthday.
According to coworker Jan Hinkel, Janet was last seen alive

(16:25):
at approximately four thirty pm that afternoon, as the two
women were leaving school grounds to begin their weekend. Hinkel
was looking to share the good news she had just
been offered a full time special education contract at the school,
and she invited Janet out for a few drinks to celebrate,
but Janet declined, noting that she needed to pick up

(16:45):
a cake for her nephew's birthday as well as the present.
The two said they're goodbyes and agreed to catch up
at the beginning of the week. Neither realized that this
would be the last time they would ever Speakanett's movements
throughout the early evening have never been reported, if indeed
they are known, but police confirm that she arrived safely

(17:07):
to her apartment within two hours of leaving work. Her mother, Rose,
called the apartment twice that night and chatted with her daughter.
The two discussed the purchase of the birthday cake as
well as the present. They had gotten a pair of
boxing gloves for the nephew, who was turning twelve. According
to Rose, her daughter was in good spirits during their

(17:28):
discussions and expressed no concerns or worries about anything. Their
conversation was completely normal and Rose had no reason to
believe anything could be wrong. The final time anyone spoke
with Janet occurred at approximately midnight, when an unnamed friend
called to talk for just a few minutes. This is

(17:48):
the last time anyone was able to confirm that Janet
was alive. Saturday quickly came and went without anyone hearing
from or seeing Janet. Multiple calls placed to the apartment,
there was no answer. She was supposed to get together
with her family, and when she didn't show up, they
couldn't figure out why. On the one hand, it was

(18:11):
very unlike Janet to miss the gathering, but on the
other it wasn't entirely impossible that she'd gotten caught up
in something work related and lost track of time. She
had that kind of dedication to her job. However, by
Sunday night, the family had grown very concerned. Once again,
dozens of calls to the apartment went unanswered, and finally

(18:33):
her mother and stepfather decided they needed to go and
check for themselves. Not in possession of a key, before leaving,
Rose picked up the phone and contacted a male friend
of Janet's and asked him to get a pass key
from the apartment manager to meet them there. The fifteen
minute drive heading southeast of Kocomo seemed to stretch on

(18:53):
for hours, as Rose and Alvin alternated between different benign
scenarios that could explain away Janet's absence and the aching
silence that suggested the possibility of something far worse. Rose
hoped for the former, but she couldn't deny a growing
knot in her stomach, which made her fearful of the latter.
Arriving at the small complex, Janet's parents met up with

(19:16):
the friend and got a copy of the key. This
friend of Janet's out of fear, requested that his identity
not be shared, and to this day, more than forty
years later, it never has been. Arriving at the building,
the three quickly identified Janet's car, a red orange Dotson
B two ten, parked in her normal spot, not far

(19:37):
from the main entrance. While at first glance, everything with
the car appeared to be normal, the group of three
soon discovered that while the vehicle was locked, the driver's
side door was slightly a jar. It was very unlike
Janet to leave the vehicle unsecured in that way, especially
considering her apartment was not in the greatest part of town.

(19:59):
There had been in previous months several attempted break ins,
and all of the tenants were very safety conscious. Approaching
the building, the three cup their hands around their faces
as they peered through the windows into the foreboding darkness
of the apartment, though they couldn't make out much of anything.
Pulling out a flashlight, Rose shined it through the glass

(20:20):
and began moving it around the room, illuminating small sections
of the living room inch by inch. At one point,
the beam stopped when Rose spotted her daughter's purse sitting
in the middle of the living room floor, hanging open
and appearing somewhat disheveled. The three quickly proceeded onto the
front door, where the unidentified friend tried the knob, finding

(20:43):
it locked, before sliding the key in. As the tumblers
clicked into place, the door swung open, and all three
stood in the dim light of the parking lot, staring
into the darkened apartment. The friend, familiar with the layout
of this one bedroom unit, swung his hand up to
the lights which is and clicked them on, but nothing happened,
and that was enough to give him pause. As he'd

(21:05):
later tell the Tribune quote, the lights didn't come on
that sent shivers up me. A few steps into the apartment,
the friend felt his foot catch on some fabric. Reaching down,
he picked up what appeared to be a faded yellow
towel smeared with blood. Freaked out, he dropped it onto

(21:26):
the couch and proceeded deeper into the living room, with
Rose and Alvin trailing behind. Moving the flashlight around, he
soon discovered some out of place items. Janet's telephone normally
sat on an old whiskey barrel butted up against the
side of the couch. Across from the doors to the
bedroom and bathroom. Now, however, the phone was on the

(21:47):
other side of the room, far from the bedroom and bathroom,
with its line pulled taut. The friend thought to himself
that it appeared someone wanted to make a call and
didn't want anyone in the bedroom or bathroom to be
able to hear the conversation. Either that, or perhaps someone
had moved it as far away as possible to make
it difficult to reach the phone. In a timely manner,

(22:11):
moving around the couch and avoiding the phone line, he
lifted up the flashlight and cast the beam towards the
bedroom and bathroom doors. There, on a wall besides the
bedroom door was a partially dried, bloody handprint that appeared
to have come from a woman's left hand. A second
bloody partial handprint would later be discovered by police officers

(22:33):
examining the scene. That second print was located on a
wall near the kitchen, approximately waist high off the floor.
It was theorized that this print was left behind accidentally
by the killer during an attempt to clean up the
grizzly scene. The three moved deeper into the apartment, heading
towards the bedroom door beside the bloody handprint, But the

(22:55):
friend leading the group had his attention captured by the
open bathroom door, and as he approached the threshold, the
flashlight pierced the darkness and unveiled a hideously gruesome sight,
Janet's nude, lifeless body lying face down on the bathroom floor.
The top of Janet's head was facing towards the door,

(23:16):
her feet to the window. Her face was pointed straight
down at the cold tile floor, and her arms were
perfectly straight down along her sides, as though she were
lying at attention. Oddly, the friend noticed, while her arms
were straight, her hands were rotated palms up towards the ceiling,
and it appeared that her hands had been wiped clean.

(23:38):
It seemed clear that Janet had been placed into that position,
as there was nothing natural about it. Just a few
inches from the body lie the presumed murder weapon, a
four inch long steel light brand pairing knife, which had
previously belonged to Janet's grandmother. The friend didn't go any
deeper into the bathroom as it was very apparent that

(23:59):
Janet was deceased. Quickly looking over the horrible sight, the
flashlight moved up and down Janet's body, revealing multiple slash
and stab wounds across her back and the backs of
her legs. Alvin stepped into the room next and gasped,
quickly turning and ushering Rose out of the apartment before
she could see what had been done to her daughter,

(24:21):
closing the door behind them. The friend rushed to the
apartment across the hall and banged on the door, calling
for the tenant to cut an ambulance and the police.
It was just after eleven PM when the call came
into the switchboard at the Howard County Sheriff's Department, and
multiple units were dispatched to the Center Meadow Apartments, just
outside of the Kocomo Police Department's jurisdiction. Arriving at the complex,

(24:45):
investigators entered the apartment and quickly began making notes of
their observations in the bathroom where Janet's body was found.
They described a horrifying scene that was so vicious and brutal.
One investigator referred to the murder as a hate killing.
Police noted more than a dozen stab wounds and slashes
in Janet's back, torso, thighs, and even her head. Exploring

(25:10):
more of the apartment. Police entered the victim's bedroom, where
they found evidence indicating that that was likely the room
in which the attack had begun. There was a thick
spray of blood jutting across the dresser and mirror what
appeared to the officers to have been the result of
a major vein or artery being severed. While Janet was
nude when her body was found, police discovered her clothes

(25:33):
that she had been wearing before the attack, folded neatly
and stacked in her closet, which stood out to them
as strange and out of place. It was theorized at
the time that Janet, nude and in bed, had been
surprised by the attack and fled to the bathroom in
an attempt to escape the killer, but the blood loss
had been so extensive that she was already growing fate

(25:54):
by the time she got there. After a thorough sweeped
through the apartment, Janet's body removed to the coroner's office,
where an autopsy was scheduled for the following morning. Fingerprints
were located and removed from multiple items in the apartment
in hopes that they might lead to the killer's identity,
but according to investigators, they didn't have a lot to

(26:15):
work with in regard to what may or may not
belong to the killer. They didn't really find anything inside
the apartment that didn't appear to belong there. At the
same time, they didn't note anything which should have been
there and was now missing. In fact, despite a thorough
examination of the scene, they could find no sign of
a robbery and no real indication of a struggle. Instead,

(26:38):
it appeared that someone within the apartment had attacked Janet
without warning, and there wasn't time for the twenty nine
year old to do more than try and escape. Looking
over the front door in the windows, police found no
evidence of forest entry and were left to presume that
Janet either didn't lock her door, something which seemed unlikely,
or perhaps that she knew the killer and had let

(27:01):
him into the apartment. Whether or not the murder was
premeditated or came as the result of some kind of
clash between the two, no one could say for sure
at that time. The following day, Monday, May twenty sixth,
Deputy coroner John Cardwell began the autopsy while investigators returned
to the complex. At the time, Center Meadows was a

(27:24):
thirty two unit low cost apartment building. Investigators believed that,
given the thin walls and multiple neighbors within close proximity,
that they had a good chance someone had heard or
seen something the night of the crime. They began canvassing,
but kept running into dead ends as they couldn't find
any tenant who had seen or heard anything. Surely, they

(27:47):
imagined Janet must have screamed out at least during the
beginning of the attack, but if she had, no one
had heard it. Ultimately, detectives managed to find only one
neighbor who had anything to report. According to the soul witness,
around three point thirty in the morning on Sunday, nearly
twenty hours before the body was found, this person heard

(28:10):
what they thought to be a woman's scream, followed by
the sound of a car door closing and a small
engine starting up and driving away. The witness did not
get out of bed to see what the vehicle was
nor who was driving. While this helped establish a possible
ending time for the crime, it did little to assist
the main investigation. Back at the office of the coroner,

(28:33):
John Cardwell completed the autopsy and was able to make
several different determinations. He determined that the first stab had
been the fatal blow, penetrating Janet's back and severing the
subclavian vein, which is located beneath the clavicle and is
responsible for draining blood from the upper limbs into the heart.
This is a major vein, and when she was stabbed,

(28:55):
blood would have forcefully spurret it out, leaving the trail
found across ther and Dresser. Likely, it was presumed the
killer would have also been sprayed by her blood. According
to card Well, the severity of the wound resulted in
Janet bleeding out collapsing in the bathroom after she tried
to escape. Reportedly, the dozen or so stabs and slashes

(29:19):
carried out by the killer were done while Janet was
bleeding out and continued even after the fatal wound had
stopped bleeding. Ultimately, Janet's cause of death was determined to
have been exsanguination, or in Layman's terms, she bled to death,
and in total it had taken less than three minutes.

(29:39):
Card Well explained, saying, quote, there were numerous other blows
that could have been fatal in due time, but it
was the one knife wound that was fatal. Card Well
reported that outside of the stabs and slashes, he could
find no wounds or signs of a struggle on the body,
and no indication of sexual assault. Based on the angle

(30:00):
of penetration from the pairing knife confirmed to be the
murder weapon, Cardwell notified investigators that the killer was likely
shorter than Janet, who had stood five feet nine inches tall.
Determining the time of death was slightly tricky, though, with
Cardwell noting that Janet had probably been killed anywhere from
twenty to twenty eight hours before her body was found,

(30:24):
placing the time of death somewhere between seven pm Saturday
evening and four am Sunday morning. This estimation, though, may
not have been entirely accurate, as investigators later noted that
it was a hot, humid weekend and Janet's air conditioning
had been running full blast. That, combined with the fact
that she lay on the cold tile of the bathroom

(30:46):
floor for hours before her discovery, could have thrown off
the estimate, making it possible that Janet was killed even earlier,
perhaps as early as one am Saturday morning. Taking the
cold to air and floor into consideration, investigators believe Janet
probably was killed early in the morning on Saturday. That

(31:07):
would explain the fact that they could not find a
single person who saw or spoke to the victim for
the entirety of Saturday, and it would fit him with
the witness who claimed to hear a scream and a
car driving away around three point thirty that morning. To
this date, more than forty five years later, the official
time of death ranges from anywhere between three am and

(31:27):
eleven PM on Saturday the twenty fourth. Howard County Detective
Sergeant Lee Eckert was placed in charge of the investigation,
and he certainly had his work cut out for him.
On Tuesday, the twenty seventh, Eckert was asked about the
status of the investigation, to which he replied that they
were still interviewing people but had not yet identified a

(31:48):
suspect or a motive, telling the Chronicle Tribune quote, there's
just so much that we're trying to put together. Media
attention on the murder and subsequent investstigation spread across the
state and into surrounding states, all of whom reported about
the vicious nature of the murder, as well as the
apparent lack of clues and suspects. Howard County sheriff Robert's

(32:12):
sergeant was very vocal about his desire to capture the
killer as fast as possible, telling the Cocomo Tribune quote,
what we're doing now is that long, slow process of
separating the wheat from the chaff. It takes a lot
of hours and a lot of time, but we'll get
it done. I want that sucker in jail, Sheriff's sergeant.

(32:35):
And with a name like that, how could he be
anything but a law enforcement officer noted that four detectives
were assigned full time to the case, and that the
sheriff himself was also working it. He was very clear
the case needed to be solved quickly, and if needed,
additional officers would be assigned. They were putting together what
pieces of information they had and continuing to conduct interviews

(32:59):
with neighbors, friends, family, and coworkers, looking for anything that
might lead them to a possible suspect. According to the sheriff,
while there were a lot of rumors floating around that
Janet might have known her killer, they didn't have enough
information to confirm or deny that, he explained, saying they
had no information yet to show that the killer was quote,

(33:21):
anybody that she knew or did not know. I assume
nothing that I do not know. We've developed other leads
from the people we've talked to. Were learning more, but
the process is slow. Asked about potential evidence, sheriff's sergeant
stated that while they did collect evidence for processing, they

(33:41):
needed to wait on the results from the crime lab.
When those results would come, he couldn't say with any certainty,
but he noted that he expected the test back within
the next week. For the most part, they didn't have
a lot of evidence to analyze, as they couldn't be
too sure what if anything in the apartment had been
touched by the killer outside of the knife and the

(34:03):
victim herself. Back at the Center Meadow apartments, multiple residents
spoke with local media and stated their shock not about
the crime itself, as they noted the apartment complex had
a lot of issues with crime, but about the fact
that no one seemed to hear the murder happening. They
described the walls as paper thin, saying they could often

(34:24):
hear music in television sounds coming from their neighbors. Maybe
the timing of the murder, likely in the very early
morning hours, led to a lot of people sleeping through it.
Owners of the complex announced plans to install security lights
in the front of the building, where Janet's apartment had been.
At the time of the murder, only small exterior lights

(34:46):
mounted by the doorways were present. Over the course of
the next few months, more than a dozen detectives would
be assigned to the case, but there didn't appear to
be any movement or developments please for a answers and
assistance from the family fell upon deaf ears, while transparency
regarding the investigation was itself nonexistent. Janet's mother, Rose began

(35:10):
a letter writing campaign focusing on local politicians and law
enforcement agencies, both local and federal. The Kocomo Tribune, one
of the biggest local papers, started publishing letters weekly and
almost daily from concerned citizens and family members asking why
no charges had been filed, no suspects named, no new

(35:31):
information released. In the absence of solid, reliable information from officials,
the void was filled by speculation and a series of
rumors suggesting the killer as possibly being a jealous boyfriend
or another tenant in the building. One rumor, which many
people found grotesque was the idea that perhaps one of

(35:53):
Janet's own students could have been involved. There were also
rumors about Janet's previous employer, Universal Steel, which at the
time was under federal investigation by the FBI in relation
to some allegations of financial mismanagement. At the end of
the day, no one knew anything for sure, but that
didn't slow the rumor mill down even one bit. In fact,

(36:16):
it seemed to hasten the effect. However, there was one
rumor that grew from a quiet whisper to a loud roar,
and that one didn't focus on any of the aforementioned possibilities.
As Janet's former co worker jan Hinkle commented, within a
few weeks quote, the questions changed from who were her

(36:37):
boyfriends to who was the girl? The girl, as she's
always been referred to, was someone that the Shearer family
strongly felt was responsible for the murder, or, at a minimum,
who was in possession of information that might be vital
to solving the case. So who exactly was the girl? Well,

(36:58):
more than forty years later, her name has never been revealed,
but the story revolving around her and why she was
being looked at with such intense suspicion was hard to downplay,
even for local law enforcement. According to multiple sources, including newspapers,
friends of the victim, and even family members, Janet was

(37:20):
not alone the night she was murdered. Instead, another woman
was present in the apartment. This so called girl who
has been referred to as everything from Janet's associate, to
her friend, to a former roommate to an ex girlfriend.
In the hours leading up to the murder, Janet spoke

(37:40):
to her mother on the phone twice, but did not
mention anyone else being there. Investigators in the family now
believe this girl was in fact present when both calls
came in. In addition, she was also apparently in the
apartment when the final call from a friend came in
around midnight of what transformed Friday into Saturday. Reportedly, this

(38:04):
woman made statements to multiple people which placed her in
the apartment Friday night. One of the people to whom
she made such claims was Janet's stepfather, Alvin, who later
told authorities that the woman confidently had informed him that
she was quote the last one to see Janet alive,
a strange claim to make, since, according to the police,

(38:27):
the last person to see Janet alive was the one
who killed her. The bizarre nature this story doesn't end there.
In fact, it gets even stranger. Allegedly, after the murder,
this unidentified woman makes a phone call to another unidentified woman.
Whether based on speculation or the result of actual fact finding,

(38:50):
it's been heavily implied that during this call, the so
called girl told her friend that she had been involved
in the murder. Towards the end of June, nearly a
month after the murder, a Howard County detective joined by
an FBI agent, went to speak to the recipient of
that call. Despite claiming that she would hand over all

(39:11):
relevant information if asked, the woman told the law men
that under the advice of her attorney, she would not
be answering any questions about what was or was not
said on that phone call. The woman partially cooperated, detailing
the nature of the relationship between Janet and the girl
was she would go no further. Allegedly, after refusing to

(39:35):
give up any pertinent information, the woman told law enforcement
that quote she would come forward about additional conversations if
she thought justice could be served seems a strange comment
to make, being that she was one of the largest
obstacles preventing justice from being served in the first place.

(39:55):
Under sheriff's sergeant, A comprehensive report of the investigation was
put together and ultimately delivered to then county Prosecutor Fred Osbourne,
who referred to it as quote the largest investigative report
I've come across in years. That report, heavily bulwarked by
sheriffs sergeant's confidence statements of the investigation's expansiveness, was delivered

(40:18):
to Osborne in August, three months after the murder. Yet
by November, six months had passed since Janet was killed,
and there was no movement from the prosecutor's office, no arrests,
no subpoenas, no impaneling of a grand jury. By late November,
public outcry was growing, and when pressed about the manner,

(40:39):
sheriff's sergeant excoriated Osborne in the press, noting that he
didn't believe the prosecutor was all that interested in pursuing
the case. Instead, he'd returned the report to the sheriff's
office and requested more evidence. Sheriff's sergeants, speaking to the Tribune,
noted that Osborne felt they didn't have enough evidence to

(40:59):
move move forward, but he disagreed. Sergeant believed Osborne should
have called the grand jury and presented the evidence, allowing
the people to decide if the report was thorough enough
and the evidence sound enough. Asked about why this wasn't done,
Sergeant replied, quote, I think if fred Osborne was totally

(41:20):
committed to the case, he would have. I don't know
why he doesn't. I've seen fred Osborne totally committed to
a case, and there's none better. If he's committed, we've
got a good case. If he isn't, we don't. For
his part, Osborne countered, arguing, quote, law enforcement authorities feel

(41:41):
that they have a good suspect, but they do not
have the evidence to convict. At this point, Sergeant would
not be silenced, though, making it evidently clear to the
public that worried up to him and arrest would have
already been made. Sergeant continued, saying if Osborne didn't want
to go before the grand jury, he could have, at

(42:03):
a minimum, sought a subpoena to question both the girl
as well as the woman she allegedly made statements to
over the phone about the murder. Sergeant went on to
note that in less than a year after the murder,
the woman who had received that call had already moved
more than four times, and law enforcement were having a
difficult time keeping track of her, ever changing whereabouts. According

(42:27):
to then Indiana state law, only the prosecutor's office had
the legal authority to subpoena witnesses quote in matters of
suspected illegal activity or criminal cases, to appear for questioning.
Law enforcement is barred from forcing a reluctant witness to
answer questions during interrogation or before a grand jury. Unfortunately,

(42:51):
as the case moved forward, it became more about political
arguments and the outcomes of elections rather than justice for
the victim or her family. Frustrated with the long line
of issues, sheriff's sergeant resigned from the department and towards
the end of the decade, would later find himself successfully
elected as the mayor of Cocomo, Indiana. Osborne remained the

(43:13):
prosecutor and continued to defend his perspective on the case,
maintaining that there was not enough evidence available for a conviction.
He would later tell the Tribune quote, in general, when
a homicide occurs, rarely is it a total stranger. They've
been talking to friends and acquaintances to get leads just
to who's responsible and it goes without saying at this point,

(43:36):
if we thought we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt
who's responsible, someone would be in court. The investigation could
lead several possible directions. It's a tragedy and it's a
tragedy for her family, but we don't have the evidence
to convict. If we did, it would be on file.
You never know when the least little thing might give

(43:58):
you a break, but an this case, it just hasn't
happened yet. October of nineteen eighty one marks seventeen months
since the murder, and the case had only grown. Colder
asked for an update. It was reported that while initially
there had been a dozen detectives working the case, that
number was drastically reduced six months after the crime. So

(44:21):
where did it stand in nineteen eighty one, Well Prosecutor
Osborne explained, saying, quote, nobody is assigned to it full time,
but new Sheriff Earl Howard has an entire department available
to it if an aspect warrants it. The investigation is continuing.
Everyone who came in contact with her six months either

(44:42):
way is a suspect. They interviewed everybody I could possibly
think They should This same month, Major Steve Rogers, who
took over the direction of the investigation after Sergeant's resignation,
noted that they were reworking the case from a different angle, saying, quote,
we have a new plan of attack, a new thing

(45:04):
we hope will work well. Whatever that new plan of
attack was, it wasn't yielding any new or measurable results,
and the case continued growing cold. In March of nineteen
eighty two, twenty two months after Janet was brutally murdered,
Prosecutor Fred Osborne finally for the very first time sat

(45:25):
down for a face to face meeting with her mother
and stepfather. Rose, who had become extremely outspoken about the
lack of progress, argued that Osborne just didn't seem to
care much about what happened to her daughter and was
unwilling to risk hurting his numbers with an election approaching
by taking on a case he didn't view as a

(45:45):
slam dunk. After the meeting, her opinions hadn't changed, as
she stated, quote, I think that he is trying now,
and I think it's the public pressure. That pressure, as
it was, came from seven different angles. Rose and the
family had organized a massive letter writing campaign which flooded

(46:06):
the Tribune almost daily. The paper ran different letters, some
from friends and family, some from total strangers, and still
yet others from anonymous law enforcement officers who argued fiercely
that this case could be solved if only the prosecutor's
office would put their full power into the investigation and

(46:26):
support the officers on the street working to bring justice home.
Two people who had written letters, former coworkers Jan Hankel
and Elaine Langford, found themselves the target of a frustrated
and angry prosecutor. On Sunday, February twenty second, nineteen eighty one,
Langford was summoned to the Prosecutor's office to discuss the

(46:48):
letters she'd written to the paper, in which she mentioned
one of the bloody handprints on the wall. Frightened by
this summons, Langford asked Hankell to accompany her, and together
the two women went to the office, where they later
stated Osborne screamed at them, belittled them, and did everything
in his power to try and intimidate them into silence.

(47:10):
According to Hinkel, when the women brought up evidence such
as the bloody print, Osborne shouted at them that he
had no knowledge of that evidence, and that they, as teachers,
obviously knew nothing about the law. Hinkel later told the
Tribune quote, I was furious he tried to put me down.
He could have been more sympathetic and patient. He didn't

(47:32):
have to remind me. I don't know about the law.
I knew that already. I didn't belittle him like he
did me. I was scared of him. I'm scared of
him now. I know he's politically powerful and I'm just
a peon school teacher. I wanted to help Osborne find
Janet's murderer, but he didn't want our help. He seemed

(47:53):
to be telling us that we were overreacting. Much of
the letter and arguments made publicly were about osborne seeming
disinterest to question the alleged witness or the girl whom
many believe was Janet's killer. According to Hinkel, during their meeting,
Osborne claimed he was already in the process of trying

(48:14):
to find the witness to bring her in for official questioning,
but Hinkel, as well as many others, wondered why he
was doing that now, as opposed to a year earlier,
when sheriff's sergeant had stated that was the next most
logical course of action. Rose and Alvin, as well as
Hinkel and Langford, stated that in separate meetings, they were

(48:35):
both told by Osborne that there was a quote weakness
in the pathological end of the investigation. Reportedly, Osborne stated
that there was a conflict between what investigators believed happened
and the official established timeline of the murder as provided
by the coroner's office. Reportedly, in an attempt to bridge

(48:57):
that gap, Howard County authorities had reached out to an
out of state expert for assistance, though nothing appears to
have ever come from that either. Asked about the case
and their opinions of the investigation, both Sheriff Howard and
Major Rogers declined to comment, noting that it was ongoing
and they didn't want to jeopardize any aspect of it. Simultaneously,

(49:21):
on the other side of town, Prosecutor Osborne was very blunt,
telling this Tribune that the investigative result was not strong
and relied too heavily un circumstantial evidence. He went on
to say that while police had quote suspects, maybe even
a prime suspect, we feel that at this point there
is neither sufficient evidence to obtain probable cause for a

(49:42):
warrant for anybody's arrest, much less to sustain the burden
of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. When Osborne was asked
once again about bringing in the so called witness who
had been called by the girl many believed to be
the killer, Osborne expressed frustration, noting that the there was
nothing to gain from forcing her to testify before a

(50:03):
grand jury, saying, quote, if we could not get her
cooperation through head to head conversation or interrogation of her,
the chance of her cooperating before a grand jury are
about the same as if she knows anything that doesn't
mean the investigation won't go forward. Apparently, Prosecutor Osborne was
unaware of the legal remedies available for a witness who

(50:25):
refuses to cooperate with an investigation and defies a subpoena
by refusing to answer questions in a grand jury hearing.
But obviously he knows more about the law than anyone else.
All of this continued to build and lead up to
the election for County Prosecutor, and a new younger attorney
had risen up to challenge Osborne, Charles Myers, during speeches

(50:48):
and at campaign events. Railed against Osborne's in action, and
even brought in jan Hinkle to speak about her experiences
with Osborne and his apparent disinterest in solving the case.
Myers ran on the platform that he would immediately bring
the case in all available evidence before the grand jury
should he win, and when he did, ousting Osborne, who

(51:11):
had worn out his welcome with the people of Howard County,
many of whom felt that he had betrayed them and
Janet's family by being more worried about statistics and elections
instead of victims and justice. In May of nineteen eighty three,
just a few months after being sworn in Prosecutor, Myers
announced they were calling the grand jury to hear evidence.

(51:33):
Three months later, in August of nineteen eighty three, Circuit
Judge Robert Kinsey officially called the grand jury and scheduled
the hearing for the morning of Thursday, September eighth. What
happens that a grand jury who testifies, and what exactly
is said is strictly barred from public disclosure, So we
can't say with any certainty what may or may not

(51:54):
have been presented as evidence during this hearing. The only
thing that we can say is that no indictments came
out of it. The investigation was not advanced through this action,
and following the hearing, most of the coverage of Janet's
murder and the political circus around it began drying up
and fading out. For the most part, the only mention

(52:15):
of Janet's name in future articles and news reports comes
about when questioning current law enforcement about the case or
interviewing friends and family about the dispute between police, the
prosecutor's office, and that alleged lack of evidence. It was
later reported that the woman who had supposedly received the
call from the killer was eventually ordered by a judge

(52:39):
to give an official statement to law enforcement, but that
it did very little to assist them, if it even
helped it all. Major rogers would later say quote that
witness didn't know what we thought she did, or she
just didn't want to tell us anything. May of nineteen
eighty nine marked nine years since it was viciously butchered

(53:01):
in her one bedroom apartment, and there wasn't so much
as a charge filed or suspect named. Then Sheriff John D.
Batty wouldn't discuss the details of the case, noting only
that it remained an unsolved homicide that his department was
determined to close. Asked about the so called girl and
claims that she was the real killer, Batty refused to comment,

(53:24):
saying that several suspects had been considered and he did
not want to go deeper into that discussion. Baty added
that they hadn't given up, saying, quote, I think one
of the things that concerns all of us is that
it's a homicide. It's an open homicide, and we would
like to solve that case and arrest the person who
committed that homicide. We still bring that case up and

(53:48):
do pursue it, and have pursued it within the last
month and a half. Batty, however, did state his support
of former prosecutor Osborne, telling the Tribune that the lawyer
was when he said the evidence was not solid enough
to support charges. Batty, who had originally worked the case
in the early days of the investigation, told the Tribune, quote,

(54:10):
I think we basically wanted to submit the case to
him to look it over and see if he believed
there was enough to pursue it any further. He sent
it back to us saying no, that it really did
need more investigation. Five years later, in nineteen ninety four,
fourteen years after the murder, Rose was contacted by the

(54:32):
Tribune and asked about the case and what had or
hadn't changed The morning mother expressed frustration, noting that she
was exhausted from fighting for her daughter against a system
which seemed entirely disinterested in finding justice to her. While
the police had tried and even local reporters had been helpful,
the prosecutor's office was a lost cause, she explained. Quote

(54:57):
they had a woman suspect, but secutor never charged her.
He kept telling us that there wasn't enough evidence to
charge her, But I think he should have at least tried.
We talked to the prosecutor several times in the last
couple of years, but he won't do anything. But the
police and the newspaper reporter I talked to back then
really did try to help me. I just hope someday

(55:21):
they get her. Over the course of the next decade,
Janet's name came up rarely. When it did, it was
normally in response to questions about the female suspect and
the lack of police action. Major Dave McKinney of the
Sheriff's Department made an interesting comment in two thousand and
one which seemed to suggest a closer connection between Janet

(55:44):
and her alleged killer when he stated, quote, what we
would like to do, if there is any way to
do it, is to go back with DNA. But in
the Shearer case, it would not help since the main
suspect lived in the apartment, meant her DNA would be
all over the place. This is the first time anyone

(56:06):
associated with law enforcement made any reference to the suspect
actually living at Janet's apartment, and this sent off another
firestorm of rumors, many of which opined about whether or
not the killer may have been someone with whom Janet
had had a romantic relationship. Unfortunately, that's pretty much where

(56:28):
the case falls into the lull of a cold case
file and begins fading from the conversation. Deputy Lieutenant Greg
Hargrove asked about the case in two thousand and seven,
twenty seven years after the murder, noted there had been
little movement, telling the Tribune quote, we have heard very
little about this case. The last tip we received was

(56:50):
in nineteen ninety nine. The circle of possible suspects is
pretty small. We need additional information. There is no physical
evidence to that woman to the crime. There is a
lot of speculation. Every once in a while we keep
track of people of interest and reinterview them. Sadly, this

(57:12):
is where the case stands today. There's no movement, no
major investigation, and apparently no one working hard to find
justice for Janet Shearer. Instead, a woman that many people
believe was the killer has only walked free, but hasn't
ever even been named publicly. A friend who she allegedly

(57:32):
called and confessed details of the murder too, as well,
has faced no hardships as a result of her hard
efforts to protect her friend, who may or may not
be a brutal killer who needlessly ended the life of
a dedicated, loving, and caring special education teacher. As time
rolled forward, the family never forgot, even as more recent

(57:55):
tragedies would fail their hearts. On Friday, September twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety four, Janet's stepfather, Alvin, passed away. Twenty one
years later, on Saturday, August fifteenth, twenty fifteen, Rose passed
away while in hospice care in Indianapolis. To her dying day,

(58:15):
she pleaded that one day someone would be arrested and
charged with her beloved daughter's murder, but she believed she
was going to be reunited with Janet long before that
ever happened. In one of her last interviews, she sadly commented, quote,
we kind of gave up on finding anything out, but
I feel like it could have been solved. Two years later,

(58:39):
on Saturday, February eleventh, twenty seventeen, Janet's biological father, Richard,
passed away at Marion General Hospital following a difficult battle
with copd. He was ninety years old. A less vocal
member of the family, Richard had been very close with Janet,
and according to those who knew him, he never got

(59:01):
over her murder and lost all faith in law enforcement
as a result. Twenty nine year old Janet Rose Shearer
was a loving and dedicated daughter, sister, aunt, and teacher.
Her students meant the world to her, and she selflessly
gave everything she had, sacrificing her own free time in

(59:22):
social life to do everything in her power to provide
them with the best, most compassionate and focused education that
she could. Sometime between midnight on Saturday May twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty and eleven PM Sunday, May twenty seventh, she
was viciously attacked with a four inch pairing knife taken
from her own kitchen drawer. Fleeing from the blade, she

(59:46):
made it only so far as the bathroom before collapsing
to the floor, where she ultimately bled out in less
than three minutes. Forty five years later, there are no answers,
no solutions, and no one has been held accountable for
this painous act. Yet somewhere out there, a killer walks free,

(01:00:06):
and someone with information that could finally break this case
open continues to remain mute, allowing justice to be silenced
in the spirited memory of a beautiful, kind soul to
continue to be denigrated. Asked about the status of the
case all these years later, jan Hinkle simply replied, quote,

(01:00:28):
Janet was vivacious, She had more energy, love those kids.
She was effervescent in her life, and all at once
someone took it away from her. We have a legal
system that's supposed to punish, and it didn't do its job.
Somebody prevented our judicial system from fulfilling their responsibility. And

(01:00:49):
I don't think that's the way it should be. I
don't care if it's twenty years from now, and I
would hope no one would allow my murderer to go unpunished.
When it comes to the murder of Janet Shearer, there's

(01:01:09):
a whole lot of information that ultimately builds up to
a lot of failure and in action. Now, for their part,
it appears very clear that law enforcement worked hard to
try and bring about a resolution, but when the limitations
of their evidence were discovered, they essentially hit the wall.
It doesn't matter how thorough of an investigation you conduct
if the prosecutor's office won't take it on. At the

(01:01:32):
same time, no prosecutor wants to walk into a courtroom
where they feel like the burden of proof hasn't been
met and the evidence isn't strong enough to lead to
a conviction. In some instances, that's a simple matter of
not wanting to see killers acquitted before enough evidence can
be found, and in a rush to give voices to justice,
one might rob the prosecution and family of both. In others, however,

(01:01:57):
we get inundated with buzzwords about political accountability, elections, optics,
and a win loss ratio. Sadly, in a case about
the murder of a twenty nine year old teacher. Much
of the discussion centered around almost everything but the victim herself.
No evidence, circumstantial evidence, not enough evidence, not strong enough evidence.

(01:02:18):
Depending who you ask, this was either a tight case
with enough to make charges, or so unsupported that even
the idea of subpoenaing a potential witness was looked at
like a foolish act. When those we look up to
as figures of authority and law enforcement are contradicting one
another and arguing about what is and is not enough
for an arrest, it's difficult to accept that any sense

(01:02:40):
of justice will be found. Countless times in previous episodes,
we've seen exactly what happens when a case is at
the center of a political debate. We either see a
lot of resources poured into it, resulting in new developments,
or it continues to be ignored, mentioned only when the
name of the victim might score points, and then ignored

(01:03:01):
again when the argument becomes moot. Unfortunately for Janet and
her family, there was absolutely some politicization here. Now, which
side you come down on depends on what you personally believe,
and that's no way to make decisions about an investigation.
Factual information evidence, witness statements, and testimony are what should

(01:03:23):
drive law enforcement, and that includes the prosecutor. On the
one hand, while I agree with sheriff's sergeant that I
would have liked to have seen the alleged witness called
before the grand jury, as well as the suspect herself,
we are forced to acknowledge that while Osborne may have
come across as cold, smug, and uncaring, he ultimately proved

(01:03:44):
to be right. A grand jury was called, testimony was compelled,
and nothing came out of it. Whatever the jury members
heard during their hearing clearly wasn't enough for them to
support the issuance of any indictments. So what actually happened,
who was responsible, and why was Janet specifically targeted? Those

(01:04:05):
are all questions we don't have the full answers to,
and instead we're left to depend on rumors and speculation,
information gleaned from reading between the lines of interviews with
law enforcement officials, and claims from friends and family who,
above all else want to see justice served. Unlike a
lot of cases I've covered in the past, there isn't
even a suspect named here. Instead, we're left to patch

(01:04:29):
together what information we can and ultimately it comes out
like this. In the hours leading up to her murder,
Janet was at her apartment at the Center Meadows complex
southeast of Kocomo. She was preparing for a busy weekend
which would include a family gathering as well as a
birthday celebration. Friday night, she speaks to her mother on

(01:04:49):
the phone twice to confirm plans, that she got the
cake and was picking up the present day'd agreed on.
A few hours later, near midnight, an unidentified friend calls
and speaks to Janet for unspecified period of time. After that,
no one knows for sure what exactly happened until the
moment of the violent knife attack. According to Janet's stepfather,

(01:05:10):
her mother, and her former co worker Jan Hinkel, this
unidentified woman makes statements claiming that she is the last
person to see Janet alive, and that she was present
in the apartment for both of the calls from Rose
as well as the final call from the friend. It
would appear, since Janet does not mention this woman's presence
to anyone, that she was either keeping it secret that

(01:05:33):
she was there or she didn't think it was worth
mentioning things. At some point go sideways, though it's difficult
to try and speculate as to the specifics, but based
on the condition of Janet's body, nude and brutally stabbed
when she's found by her friend and parents, we can
surmise that at some point she went to bed. Her

(01:05:54):
clothes are found neatly folded in her closet, suggesting she
had removed them prior to laying down, but we can't
know that with any certainty. At some point, the killer
moves into the kitchen and pulls a four inch pairing
knife from the drawer. The killer then returns to the
bedroom and attacks Janet. The first stab wound fatally severing
the subclavian vein, resulting in a massive spurting of blood,

(01:06:17):
which shoots across the dresser and mirror, according to the corner,
shoots across the killer as well the lead. The wound
is gushing blood, and in desperation, Janet runs to the bathroom,
but it's already too late. Moments later, the killer catches
up with her and begins stabbing and slashing at her
even as she expires. This, however, does not stop the killer,

(01:06:40):
as many of the wounds were reportedly inflicted post mortem.
The attack so brutal and vicious is referred to as
a hate killing, long before the term hate crime was
even part of the common parlance. In this instance, this
statement isn't referring to the victim, the killer, or the murder,
but is a commentary on the brutality which left season

(01:07:02):
detectives overwhelmed by the scene they stumbled upon. After killing Janet,
the killer lingers in the apartment for an indeterminate amount
of time. Based on the condition and positioning of the body,
it appears the assailant posed Janet and took time to
carefully wipe down her hands. Perhaps Janet fought back and

(01:07:23):
had managed to get some of the killer's blood, saliva,
or hair, and that had to be rectified. Based on
the bloody hand prints, it sounds as though they belonged
to the killer as well. One outside of the bedroom
on the wall beside the door, Another on a wall
near the kitchen, noted as being approximately waist high and
probably the result of accidental contact during the cleanup process.

(01:07:47):
Of course, there are details about the apartment which go
unexplained and for which the police have never offered up
any speculation. Janet's purses in the middle of the living
room and has clearly been opened and gone through. The
telephone and stands are moved from their normal spot, as
if someone either wanted to make a call without anyone
in the bedroom or bathroom hearing it, or perhaps to

(01:08:10):
make it more difficult for Janet to get to the
phone to call for help once the attack had begun.
We simply don't know. But when you factor in claims
about the killer calling a female friend and confessing or
at least revealing vital details of the crime, one must
confront the haunting possibility that as Janet slept fifty feet away,

(01:08:32):
the killer was on the phone discussing what she planned
to do, or after having done it, what she had
just done. Time and time again, when listening to forensic
analysts and psychologists, we are told that knife crimes are personal,
that they usually suggest a connection between victim and killer.
Obviously that's not always the case, but given that Janet

(01:08:54):
appears to have let her killer into the apartment and
she was there during multiple phone calls, surely implies some
kind of a connection between the two. One detail about
the case which has always stuck with me comes from
the statement made in two thousand and seven that the
one and only suspect had previously lived in the apartment
with Janet. It's worth noting that this is a small,

(01:09:19):
low cost, one bedroom, one bathroom apartment. If you're letting
someone move in with you under those circumstances, if you're
not already close with them, you're about to become extremely
close given the square footage and lack of space. No
statements have ever been made about Janet's relationships, be they

(01:09:39):
with men or women. But if we're looking at the
possibility that the killer may have been a former girlfriend
or perhaps someone who wanted to be that makes things
very different. Was Janet killed because she wasn't interested in
pursuing an intimate relationship or returning to a relationship that
she had previously been in. It's difficult to say with
any so one way or the other, but I also

(01:10:02):
don't think it's something we can rule out. Some have
suggested that perhaps Janet and this woman messed around a
little bit, and while Janet didn't want anything serious, the
other woman did. All of that is pure speculation, but
in a case like this, speculation is almost all we've got.
I've always wondered if Janet being nude that night was

(01:10:24):
a choice she made, or if it's possible that she
was forced to undress, perhaps at knife point. The autopsy
report specified that no signs of sexual assault were found,
But what if this wasn't in the way we normally imagine.
What if instead of forcible penetration, what if she was
forced at knife point to provide oral copulation to the

(01:10:46):
victim or vice versa. What signs of sexual assault would
be detectable under those circumstances. Specifically noting that the killer
wiped down parts of Janet's body after the crime, I
sincerely doubt that an autopsy carried out in May of
nineteen eighty and Cocomo, Indiana would generally have been searching
for what could be subtle signs of sexual assault that

(01:11:08):
do not stand out as strongly as say, bruising, bite marks,
and tearing. Again, I'm no expert in this area, but
I simply find it hard to believe that you can
say with any certainty whether or not Janet may or
may not have been subject to a sexual assault, especially
if the acts may have been carried out under duress
and at the point of a knife blade. But like

(01:11:28):
so much of this case, we simply don't have enough
information to know. Then we get into this whole ridiculous
conversation revolving around this other woman who the killer allegedly
calls and honestly, I don't even know. In some reports,
it's heavily suggested that she basically confesses to the murder.
In others, we hear that she makes comments that put

(01:11:48):
her at the crime scene leading up to the murder,
but nothing more specific. She allegedly tells Alvin that she
was the last person to see Janet alive, and while
that sounds rather mild, however, she said it was enough
to make Alvin believe there was something more sinister behind
her words. Unfortunately, again we don't know, and because this

(01:12:09):
woman is never brought in for questioning or subject to
a subpoena, we have no idea what she would or
would not have had to say about the crime, what
her alibi was, etc. It's reported that investigators focused on
this woman for sixteen months after the murder, but never

(01:12:30):
got enough to file a charge short of a confession.
I'm not sure what exactly they thought they were going
to dig up on her, unless she had a bunch
of other people she normally called to talk about murder
she may or may not have been involved in, so
you're left without enough evidence to charge her. And then
when it comes to the woman she apparently called, this
lady has the audacity to refuse to reveal the contents

(01:12:53):
of the discussion while arguing that if she thought justice
could be served, she'd come forward. Own to me like
a solid black and white case of protecting a murderer
and nothing more or less. If you're aware that someone
has committed a horrifying crime like this, and not only
do you fail to come forward, but you outwardly refuse

(01:13:14):
to cooperate with the investigation, you're worse than the cowardly assailant.
You were allowing a monster to go free while guaranteeing
that the victim and her family never receive justice. In
my book, that makes you a monster as well. Unfortunately,
that's kind of where we come to an end on

(01:13:36):
this case. There's no forensics to discuss, no prints to match,
no hairs recovered, and no DNA to analyze. Hell, As
one investigator said, even if they had DNA, it wouldn't
do much for them. Since the suspect had previously lived
in that apartment. This is a case that is only

(01:13:56):
going to be broken by someone coming forward and sharing
what they know. That's one area that everyone agrees on.
Someone out there has the information necessary to solve this case,
to bring Janet's killer to justice, and to allow the
family to finally accept this harsh reality and begin to
grieve for their loss. They weren't just robbed of a sister, aunt, daughter,

(01:14:21):
and friend. They were robbed of the ability to say goodbye,
to confront their grief with the knowledge that at least
Janet's killer was identified, tried, and jailed. Janet Rose Shearer
was a brilliant, kind, caring, and compassionate woman who was driven, focused,

(01:14:41):
and determined throughout her entire life. She never took the
easy way, choosing always to follow the path that would
provide the greatest reward and to her serving as a
special education teacher was the pinnacle of a life lived
in devotion to knowledge, learning and taking care of others.
She was stolen away from this world long before her time,

(01:15:04):
and she has now been deceased for forty five years,
nearly twice as long as she ever lived in her
twenty nine short years. If alive today, Janet would be
seventy four years old, and who knows where life would
have carried her. We will never get to know, and
neither will she. This is a very solvable case and

(01:15:26):
it's undoubted that someone out there has information that could
help advance the investigation. It's just a matter of whether
or not they will ever come forward because without new evidence,
a reliable witness, or an outright confession, the murder of
Janet Shearer will remain open, unsolved, and very cold. If

(01:15:57):
you're looking for more information about the murder of Janet Shearer,
there are several news archives available. Unfortunately, information on this
case can be difficult to find. For this episode, the
Cocomo Tribune was an invaluable asset and they really did
an amazing job covering this case in the years after
the murder. If you have any information about the murder

(01:16:22):
of Janet Shearer, please contact the Cocomo Police Department at
seven six five four five nine five one zero one.
You can also contact the Howard County Sheriff's Department at
seven six five four five six two zero two zero. Finally,

(01:16:44):
you can freely submit information anonymously to Crime Stoppers of
Indiana at one eight hundred two two two tips. That's
one eight hundred two two two eight four seven seven.
What do you believe happened? Tweet me at trace ev Pod,

(01:17:06):
email me at trace Evidencepod at gmail dot com, or
comment in the Facebook group. You can find all social
media and contact links in the show notes. At this time,
I'd like to take a moment to thank our amazing
Patreon producers, without whom this show would not be possible.
Ann m Bertram Brett, Edie, Christine Greco, Crystal J. Deer Thy,

(01:17:34):
Denise Dingsdale, Dianni Dyson, Jennifer Winkler, Justin Snyder, Karen Morland,
Leslie b, Lisa Hopson, Nick Mohar, Shers, Roberta Janssen, Stacey Finnegan,
Tom Radford, and Whitney Welt. This concludes our look into

(01:17:58):
the murder of Janet Shearer, a horrifying crime that is
incredibly solvable if only someone will tell what they know.
This was officially episode two hundred and fifty, a number
I never imagined reaching when I began Trace Evidence. I
wanted to give a very special thank you to all
of you who have graciously supported the show over these years.

(01:18:21):
Without all of you, there would be no Trace Evidence,
and for that I'm extremely grateful. I want to thank
you all for listening, and I hope you'll join me
next time for another unsolved case. On the next episode
of Trace Evidence,