After 30 years, police say they’ve captured a child killer who left a sickening trail of taunts

The message was slashed onto the weather-beaten planks of a barn in the empty farmland not far from where the girl’s body had been found.

Police in northern Indiana stared at the jerky handwritten scrawl in May 1990, realizing this was the most significant clue to drop in the region’s most publicized unsolved crime. In 1988, 8-year-old April Tinsley had been found murdered and sexually assaulted.

Two years later, police were now studying the white building on a stretch of lonely rural road, fields running to the horizon on all sides. The message appeared to be a confession — as well as a taunt and a threat.

“I kill 8 year old April M Tinsley,” the barn read, according to a recently filed police affidavit. “[D]id you find the other shoe haha I will kill again.”

Although the message initially failed to steer investigators to Tinsley’s killer, it was not the last word from the alleged murderer. As the case stalled, and hundreds of suspects were targeted and cleared, the girl’s assailant would continue to haunt the Fort Wayne area. Grotesque messages — left with used condoms and Polaroids — were sent to other little girls who the child killer claimed were next on his list.

This reign of terror also failed to direct police to a suspect. But the horrific messages did provide investigators with the DNA they would eventually use to zero in on the killer — albeit once the right advanced science and technology came along.

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