Episode Summary
Thirty years ago this week, a little girl in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was abducted, sexually assaulted, murdered and now, forgotten by everyone. It is one of the most horrific crimes we’ve ever researched, and yet when we ask people if they know about April Tinsley, we only get blank stares. This man, who police believed was local, not only committed the crime, but taunted police and the community for 16 years after. He could still be walking among us – you could very well know him.
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Episode Info
Please go to April’s Facebook page to show your support for the family.
IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING – PLEASE CONTACT FORT WAYNE POLICE OR CRIME STOPPERS IN FORT WAYNE.
Phone: 1-260-427-1404
Email: [email protected]
Or contact Crime Stoppers:
(260) 436-STOP or
1-800-237-STOP
or provide a tip online.
This is April Marie Tinsley, who was abducted on April 1, 1988, from her neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Here is a map detailing the key locations we cover in the case.
This is a picture of the note scrawled on the barn door in 1990.
This is the full note police found in 2004 alone with the killer’s DNA in a used condom.
Here are clips from other notes left at the same time.
Above is the “m” and the start of another letter that we talked about in the episode. It looks to us like the start of an “a” based on the other As in his other letters.
Here is the bedspread police are looking for. Do you recognize it?
Here is the sex toy that police found in a Sears shopping bag near April’s body in 1988. This information was not released until 2012 on America’s Most Wanted.
Based on the Parabon Snapshot done using the killer’s DNA, this is what he could have looked like in 1988 and 2016.
Episode Sources
- Interview with Janet Tinsley conducted by Ashley Flowers October 2017
- FBI – Cold Case Heats Up
- FBI – Profile of a Killer
- Sarah Bowker – Hensley named as perpetrator after his death
- Find a Grave – Sarah Jean Bowker
