Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, And Page 11

  The lab technician’s microscope had discovered a large number of thin, half-circle-shaped blue paint fragments as well as red, white, and blue cotton fibers with the fingernail scrapings submitted by Dr. Porterfield.

  Examinations of the blue sleeper turned up more of the paint fragments as well as some nylon and polyester fibers.

  Only one soil grain was recovered from the sleeper’s rubber feet. Abrasions were barely evident—even under extreme magnification. This confirmed that Wyant was right: The child had not walked to the site where his body had been found; he had been carried.

  Further scrutiny of the sleeper showed that faint, brownish stains on the left foot and the inside front neck of the garment were urine. No urine, however, was detected in the crotch area. This meant that likely the child had been alive when he was dressed in the sleeper. Young surmised that when urinating the boy had dribbled a little on his toe, and when pulling up the sleeper a few drops had stained the neck area.

  No semen or saliva stains were detected on the sleeper.

  The fibers found on the men’s underwear picked up at the Lutheran cemetery were not similar to the debris found on the boy’s sleeper. The briefs tested positive for semen and urine, yet it was not conclusive that they were related to the case in any way.

  It was the discovery of fragments on the gray wrestling T-shirt that immediately gave the investigators the needed shot in the arm—at least at first. As with the sleeper, there were fragments of blue paint and some nylon fibers on the T-shirt.

  The clear and blue fibers found on the T-shirt and the sleeper were of the type found in carpet. The origin of the blue paint was less clear. Chemists determined that it was thinner and more brittle than the types used on cars and houses. It was possible that the paint was of the type used in toy manufacturing, although further analysis would be needed.

  As Wyant saw it, the T-shirt had become a critical link in their case. Find the right Panther Wrestling team and it might lead them to the answer to the mystery.

  It was a long shot, but it was all they had. But there was a bright spot. No other Panther Wrestling team they had encountered used that same logo of the panther looking over its shoulder. Most featured only the big cat’s head.

  Wyant and Young had discussed the T-shirt evidence on numerous occasions. The shirt had been recovered in the northeast corner of the field in a flat area. Yet, the terrain of the field itself was hilly and stubbled with the spiny remains of cornstalks. Young didn’t think it was possible that the wind could have blown the shirt across the field.

  “It must have dropped out of a vehicle and been blown into the ditch,” he told Wyant.

  The person who dumped the child had to have stopped, either before or after abandoning the child, and the T-shirt must have fallen out of his vehicle. Young felt that the killer must have stopped before the body had been dumped. He simply could not come up with a reason for the killer to have stopped afterward.

  If the killer had stopped before, what was going on?

  Wyant switched gears and began the process of tracking down the Panther Wrestling teams in Nebraska. As he compiled the list, he became discouraged. Dozens of such teams existed in Nebraska and probably thousands more nationwide. How would they find the right one?

  On February 21, Gary Young met with Dan Werner and Lon Adams in the mortuary’s garage to pick up the boy’s body for another go-round with the pathologists. The back of the garage, surrounded by boxes and tools, had been the hiding place for the corpse. It was supposed to be a secret, but others in the county whispered that the child was kept in town in the kind of freezer homemakers use to store sides of beef.

  Young’s knife cut the yellow and black evidence seal and the silver duct tape that ensured no one would tamper with the evidence. Evidence. He knew that the boy’s body should only be considered “evidence” in a criminal case.

  Inside the freezer was the boy’s naked body, sewn together with more stitches than a country sampler and swaddled in a plastic body bag. Fifty frozen pounds of someone’s child. They carried the package to Young’s police car and put it in the trunk. Gary Young did this gently, as though putting down a newborn for a nap.

  Young drove the corpse to Lincoln for one last look, poke, and cut. Plans were now in the works to let the child rest. Some accepted that there would never be any answers in the mysterious case.

  Gary Young was not among that group and he knew he never could be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  August 5, 1977

  There wasn’t an Amishman in Wayne County who wasn’t aware of the barn-raising planned for Eli E. Stutzman, a widower and father of a young boy. At daylight they began coming, tools and supplies filling buggies. By midmorning a formidable crew of two hundred Amish had assembled, each with a job to do. In the house, women gathered to cook and visit. A big meal was planned for noon.

  Curiously, Stutzman was absent from much of the actual work. Some passed it off as a part of the grief process—the bereaved man’s need for solitude. They also knew that the trauma of losing a wife might be even more difficult for a weak or disturbed man like Stutzman.

  The morning of the raising, a couple of neighbor boys saw Elam Bontrager go to a desk in the house and remove some pills from a drawer, then go upstairs to the bedroom where Stutzman was resting.

  Maybe they were pills to settle Stutzman’s conscience, Daniel Gingerich later thought.

  Further, it was strange that Bontrager went right to the drawer for the pills before he even saw Stutzman. Bontrager had to know exactly where the pills were, Gingerich thought.

  The first of the massive, wooden, pinned-joint post and beam framing was erected by 7:00 A.M., although some of the cutting and measuring had been completed before. Just after noon, the structure resembled a barn, walls were up, and two dozen Amishmen furiously drove nails through shakes on the roof.

  It was an unbearable day for the Gingerich family. Ida’s father would have cried all day if he hadn’t been so busy. His daughter was on his mind. His son-in-law’s story had some holes in it and he felt suspicious and wondered if others did, too.

  Richard Armstrong, the loan officer from Wooster, was in the area and decided to stop by to say hello. He hadn’t realized that the barn-raising was taking place, but when he arrived the framing was finished. His car was the only motor vehicle on the property.

  “Where’s Eli?” he asked one of the workers.

  “He is in the house sleeping right now,” the man responded.

  This seemed odd to Armstrong. It was midday and Stutzman’s barn was being built by friends and family . . . all these people here to help him and he was in the house sleeping.

  Before evening, with the exception of a few finishing touches needed on the inside, the barn was complete. They left behind more than a handsome barn; it was a symbol of the strength and unity of their community. The labor had been free—given by the community as a token of their support for the troubled man. Stutzman ordinarily would have been charged for the lumber and hardware, but because of the tragedy and, maybe, because of his mental state, even that had been without cost.

  As they left, however, some were uncomfortable about the design Stutzman had insisted upon. More horse stalls had been built than were needed for dairy farming.

  The Firemen’s Lounge is the name of the barbershop adjacent to the Kidron Fire Department. Very adjacent. In fact, the two share the same telephone number. Until he answered the phone, barber/fire chief Mel Wyss could never be sure if a caller wanted a haircut or the rescue squad. The barbershop was one of the community’s best sources for information and gossip.

  Stories started to drift in after the Stutzman barn-raising. Some even came from the Amish. Dan Hershberger and John Stutzman said they didn’t like what was happening on the Stutzman farm; they thought he was just buying time, and that he wasn’t going to stay with the Order. Sometimes word leaked out of strange goings-on at the Stutzman farm.

  Eli Stutzman call
ed John Yoder one Saturday a week or so after the raising; he wanted a ride.

  Yoder drove down Moser Road and at the little T at the base of Sand Hill found Stutzman waving him over. Beside him was a hickory rocker. Yoder recognized the chair as Ida’s.

  “Don’t tell anyone about this,” Stutzman said as he loaded the backseat of Yoder’s ’71 Dodge Dart Demon. “I didn’t want Susie to see me with the rocker. And I don’t want anyone to know that I went into a car.” (Ida’s sister Susie was then staying at the Stutzman farm.)

  Yoder understood how the Amish were—how they took delight in telling the bishop news about those who had strayed from the laws of the Order.

  Stutzman told Yoder to drive to an auction house on Route 57 in Riceland. “It didn’t make sense to me,” Yoder later said. “Eli didn’t need the money, and even if he did, he had other things that would bring a better price than the fifty dollars the rocker would get. It was as if he wanted to get rid of that rocker.”

  Why would he want to get rid of something that had belonged to his wife? The Amish are not unsentimental. Ida had rocked baby Daniel in that chair only a month ago.

  Yoder knew better than to ask. He knew that Stutzman had been under strain since the fire. He also knew that Stutzman had suffered a couple of nervous breakdowns.

  When they arrived at the auction house, Stutzman took the chair inside. A few minutes later he came out and instructed Yoder to drive to Buehler’s Mart in Orrville, where he purchased two cases of beer. Then they returned home.

  Yoder expected to let his friend off on Moser Road so that Susie wouldn’t see him in a car, but Stutzman told him to park in the drive next to a shed. He hid the beer inside and thanked his friend for the ride.

  Buying beer notwithstanding, the whole trip puzzled Yoder. Why would Stutzman, who had said he was so concerned that someone might see him get into a car that he carried the rocker up the road, out of view, want to be dropped off in his driveway in broad daylight?

  As the weeks passed, it became clear that Stutzman didn’t want any reminders of his late wife.

  He asked Amos Gingerich to build him a chest so that he could store Ida’s clothes for Danny to keep when he grew up. “It is too painful for me to see them in the wardrobe,” he said.

  For some reason, the old man felt that his son-in-law was insincere. Stutzman had asked for the storage chest, but it didn’t seem like he wanted it. “Did he just want to get Ida’s clothes out of the way?” Gingerich asked later.

  In the coming months, another concern was rekindled when race horses were delivered to the farm. The new barn could hold more of the expensive animals.

  All of the Gingeriches did what they could to help Stutzman restart his life since God had called his wife home. Amos Gingerich sent his children over to help run the farm and take care of Danny. Some wondered if Stutzman would marry Ida’s sister Susie.

  Just after the barn was built, Gingerich gave Stutzman two thousand dollars. “You have so many things to buy to start over,” Amos said, offering the money. When Stutzman hesitated, Amos said: “But, Eli, all of the expense!” Stutzman then accepted the money.

  Dan Gingerich also stayed at Stutzman’s farm, filling his days with farm chores and taking care of his brother-in-law, who now seemed to be afraid all the time. In fact, he seemed never to want to be alone, even at bedtime.

  Amish often share a bed. It is practical—especially when a household has more than a dozen people. It makes little sense to have individual beds.

  At that time, Stutzman complained of a bad back, so he spent little time, if any, doing regular farm chores. His routine was to stay inside, occasionally making a trip in the buggy to visit friends. He rarely took Danny along.

  At noontime each day, Dan Gingerich brought in the mail and took it upstairs, where he and Stutzman would lie down and read through it. Stutzman was delighted by the money sent by strangers who had heard about the fire.

  After Stutzman drifted off, Dan continued his chores. He felt sorry for his brother-in-law, but he wondered if Stutzman felt bad because he had lost his wife, or if there was another reason why he didn’t want to be alone.

  One day Stutzman told his brother-in-law that he had not cut himself up in Marshallville. It was a lie he said he had to tell, to end all the trouble. Dan didn’t know what to believe. Each time Stutzman told a story, he seemed so sincere.

  Another time, Stutzman confided his hatred of his father. “He was too strict. He wouldn’t even let us boys smoke!” Stutzman complained.

  Dan understood. He had worked for One-Hand Eli when he was 16 and had found the man too “sarcastic” and too unyielding and set in his ways. To One-Hand Eli, there was only one way—his way.

  January 16, 1978

  Amos Gingerich was stunned by the parallels between Stutzman’s situation and that of a LaGrange, Indiana, farmer he read about in the Amish newspaper Die Botschaft. Gingerich urged his son-in-law to write to the farmer, Harley Schrock, an Amishman whose wife had also died suddenly and tragically.

  A week later, Stutzman mailed a 4-page letter written in an off-putting red ink to Schrock. In it he offered Schrock his condolences and, for the first time, he recounted the night of the barn fire in writing. It was around midnight, he wrote, when Ida woke him after hearing an explosion and seeing flames through a barn window. The couple hurried to the barn, but found it too engulfed in flame to save the old wooden structure. Stutzman described how he had in mind to save some tools and implements from the barn and when Ida asked what she could do to help, he told her to go to the neighbors to call the fire department. On her way, she asked if she shouldn’t try to retrieve some things from the milk house and Stutzman told her she could—as long as it was not too hot inside the little room. Stutzman wrote that he then went about salvaging what farm equipment and livestock he could—a foal was saved, but a bull was taken by the flames—before returning his attention to the milk house. Just outside the milk house, he found strainers and other equipment, and the doorway blocked by a milk vat that Ida had been attempting to save. Inside, he made a horrible discovery: his beloved life’s companion dead, her body slumped next to the doorway.

  All of this was possible, of course. Yet Stutzman, eager to enhance the story’s credibility, went further, as he had many other times in his life. He wrote that it was the doctor who had determined that Ida had died from a heart attack, and that other “officials” had determined that the fire might have been caused by lightning. The truth was that he had been the one to suggest both scenarios. He had told many people over the previous six months that he had seen the lightning strike with his own eyes—but now it was some nameless official who had identified the cause.

  When he made his statement to Sheriff Frost, Stutzman reportedly indicated that he wasn’t able to hear what Ida was saying when she left for the neighbors. But in the letter Stutzman stated that he and Ida had a discussion about the milk house and what the Amishwoman could do to help.

  Harley Schrock was touched by the letter and put it away in a safe place, unaware that it was Stutzman’s most complete—and only documented—version of the night of the barn fire. Suddenly Eli Stutzman recalled details that had eluded him—and events and ideas that were patently untrue.

  When he opened his front door, Chris Swartzentruber was shocked and delighted. At his door in Greenville, Ohio, was his buddy Eli Stutzman, dressed in his Amish clothes and grinning ear to ear. Swartzentruber hadn’t seen Stutzman since his marriage to Ida Gingerich.

  “How did you get here?”

  Stutzman just smiled that old Eli grin and skirted the question. But Swartzentruber pressed him. “How did you get a driver’s license? You’re supposed to be Amish!”

  Stutzman just laughed.

  For Swartzentruber, the laughter stopped when Stutzman shared his tragic news about Ida’s death in the fire. Swartzentruber offered his condolences, but was still curious about what had happened to Stutzman’s wife.

  “What was s
he doing in the barn?” he asked.

  “She had gone into the barn near the hayhold to save some puppies.”

  The response caught Swartzentruber off guard. To Low Amish, a dog is not a pet, it is an animal. There would be a lot of other things more important in a burning barn than some puppies.

  Stutzman said he had seen lightning strike the barn when returning from Kidron. Swartzentruber was skeptical. He had been up that way many times when his brother Daniel owned the farm. How could Stutzman see lightning strike the barn coming from Kidron? A bolt in the sky, maybe, but not a direct strike on the barn. What was Stutzman trying to pull now?

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Jean Samuelson came to Chester as pastor of the United Methodist Church, she brought with her a marriage as shaky as the railroad tracks leading out of town. Try as she and her pastor husband did, neither could make it work. As a minister she could chalk up the strain to God’s Grand Plan; as a wife, that proved excruciatingly difficult.

  The Methodist church was built in 1912 of red brick with clay from deposits found in Thayer County. When Samuelson first saw the facade it looked like an institutional building, maybe a school. Inside, of course, it was a church. Rich, red carpet and row upon row of gleaming oak pews filled the expansive room. A stained-glass dome topped the ceiling. More than 250 belonged, making it the biggest of the three churches in town.

  Two months after his discovery, the dead boy continued to find his way into her prayers and thoughts. Samuelson felt a connection to the child, as though God was speaking to her through the tiny lifeless form in the blue blanket-sleeper.

  When her parishioners came to her with stories of the indignity of keeping the body in a freezer, she felt the bond strengthen.

  “Ambulance drivers are talking about the stinky body in Hebron.”