A resident of Indiana killed a girl and threw the body in a field: after 37 years he returned and became everyone's favorite
'28.06.2021'
Source: Lenta.ru report
Her body was found in a cornfield in the US city of Crown Point in Indiana. After 37 years, the girl’s killer returned to the scene of the crime with lectures that everyone deserves a second chance, and his wife is preparing to become Crown Point Mayor. Anyone who remembers the loud 1982 process of the year is shocked by what is happening. "Lenta.ru reportTalks about the unfolding drama.
10 September 1982 schoolchildren found a female corpse in a cornfield.
“I remember everything as if it were yesterday,” says Brad Lambert, who was then 12 years old. “The terrible smell seemed to hit me ... I have never met such a smell in my life, but if I had felt it again, I would have recognized it right away.” The boy kept walking across the field until he saw the body. He rushed home at full speed, where his mother called the police.
A pathologist at a local hospital determined that the body belongs to 21-year-old Robin Shafash. Detectives were afraid that the experts could not determine the cause of death due to strong decomposition. “The corpse was in terrible condition,” recalls John Mowery Sr., who was investigating. “You can imagine what happened to him under the August sun.”
The fears were in vain. “Three and a half minutes later, the medical examiner told us why she died,” added Mowery. - He said: “Do you see this? This is her hyoid bone. It's broken"". Such an injury indicates that the girl was strangled.
disappearance
Robin's parents remember in detail the evening when she disappeared. 27 August 1982, the girl was going to a party. She left home in blue jeans and a white striped lavender pullover, and her earrings sparkled in her ears. “The party was on Friday night,” says Moweri. “The next day, at about eight in the evening, Robin's parents went to the police.” They were very concerned, and I understood why. "
Although the girl had stayed with friends before, she usually came home no later than three or four in the morning. This time it was not much longer. "It has never happened before," her father explained to the police. According to him, the day before she returned from work, chatted with him and left the money that needed to be carried to the bank. “She couldn't just run away,” he thought.
Mowery turned to Detective Rick Lamer for help. Began the search for a girl. “We searched everywhere, did what we could,” says Lamer. “In a few days, we already knew that something terrible had happened to Robin.” Finding a cornfield confirmed their worst fears.
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Robin's friends remembered that at the party the girl met a young man named Paul, and he promised to take her home. Until that evening, none of them had ever seen him. Eyewitnesses noticed that Robin left with him at about three in the morning.
Finding a stranger was not difficult. Paul Dressel lived in Conroe, Texas. In a telephone conversation with a detective, he said that he had come to Crown Point for the weekend. According to him, after the party he took the girl home.
He promised Mowery that he would come to testify in a couple of weeks. Instead, the detective called a lawyer. “He said that his client would not be able to meet me,” said Moweri. “I was sure that Paul had guessed that we had found the body of Robin.”
Although the investigators suspected Dressel of murder from the very beginning, they lacked evidence to send him to jail. But soon everything changed.
Evidence
The case was opened by the testimony of Crown Point resident Curtis Darnell, who was near that field in the morning of August 28, that is, in a matter of hours after Robin disappeared. He claimed that in his eyes a suspicious young man had come out of the corn.
“It was a bomb! He is going to work. Sees some guy coming out of a corn field. Sits in the car and records the number of his car. Cool, right? - Detectively recalled Detective Tom Dekanter, who also participated in the investigation. “That's how we got to Paul Dressel.”
Darnell argued that the stranger got into a light-colored Chrysler car with a license plate starting with "45А73". This description is fully consistent with the machine Dressel parents - silver-blue "Dodge" with the number "45А7301". During a search in the front seat of the car, they found an earring of the killed girl.
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Now there was enough evidence to arrest. 29 September 1982, while in Conroe City Prison in Texas, Paul Dressel confessed to the murder. 14 October, he repeated his confessions at a court hearing. Dressel explained his actions by alcohol and drug intoxication.
“He didn’t even know my daughter, and perhaps he didn’t even remember how she looked,” said the mother of the murdered girl at the trial. “But I remember Robin, and I will always remember her.” I could not even hug my daughter for the last time or at least see her. This is something that I can never forget. ” She stated that the killer deserves life imprisonment or execution.
Dressel was sentenced to 35 years of imprisonment with the possibility of parole. The judge ended the verdict with these words: "There is no doubt that the killing and loss of a loved one is tragic and that this will certainly leave scars that will never heal."
Everyone's favorite
Dressel spent years in prison 18 and was released in 2000 year. He moved to Crown Point and gradually became one of the most popular people in the city. Now the killer is working with local religious organizations and prisons and talks about the dangers of drugs. “Through hard work, perseverance, hope, faith, and a relationship with God, you can change. We can all change, he says in his speeches. “I proved: there is a second chance.”
In 2007, Dressel married Crown Point Treasurer Krystri Dressel. She recently nominated her candidacy for the post of mayor from the Republican Party. In response to questions about her husband's past, she expressed her admiration for his devotion to her work and noticed that America was based on the idea of a second chance. “He served his sentence and became an outstanding person who works for the good of society and helps people,” she said in an interview with journalists.
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Dressel himself insists on drawing lessons from his past. “I can’t change what happened 37 years ago when I was an 20 old guy who was under the influence of alcohol and drugs,” he said in a written interview with The Times of Northwest Indiana. “But I was saved ... I explained to young people how drugs spoiled my life, how they spoiled the life of another family.” I worked hard to change for the better. ”
The prospect that the murderer’s wife will become mayor has agitated the city. Many locals remembering the high-profile case of 1982 of the year do not consider Dressel's public career appropriate. The police and detectives also do not think that he deserved a second chance, because his victim does not and will not have such an opportunity.
“The real tragedy is to watch such good parents,” Detective Moweri notes. “Young people should have the opportunity to visit public places and not worry that they may not return home.”
“He should be in prison,” insists Detective Tom Dekanter, who has already retired. He does not believe that 18 years behind bars correspond to the crime committed by Dressel. Investigators say that even after 37 years, they are still hard to drive past the corn field, where the girl’s body was found.
