MARIA RIDULPH - 7 yo (1957) - Sycamore (W of Elgin) IL

SEATTLE — Wearing red jail-issue scrubs, a former police officer
quietly nodded yes when a judge asked him Wednesday whether he would
return to Illinois to face charges he murdered a 7-year-old Sycamore girl over half a century ago.

Jack Daniel McCullough, of the Seattle
area, waived his right to an extradition hearing during a brief
appearance in King County Superior Court. His lawyer said McCullough's
return to Illinois would be "prompt."Officials, however, declined to say when McCullough might be returned to DeKalb
County, where he was charged this month in the slaying of Maria
Ridulph. The child was abducted as she played near her home on the
evening of Dec. 3, 1957. Nearly five months later — after a massive
search — her body was found about 120 miles northwest of Sycamore.McCullough, 71, who then went by the name John Tessier, lived near the Ridulph family's home in Sycamore.McCullough's return to Illinois "should be in the near future, but we're still working it out," said DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott, adding that the suspect will return by air, but he declined to offer specifics.McCullough
told the Tribune in a jailhouse interview two weeks ago that he would
not fight extradition because he does not want to delay a trial. He
maintained during his interview that he is innocent and that, at the
time of the murder, he was undergoing a day's worth of tests in Chicago
to join the military. During the court session Wednesday,
McCullough's stepdaughter, Janey O'Connor, sat in the front row,
straining to hear. As she left the courtroom, she said she had no doubt
the man she refers to as "dad" is innocent. "The sooner he gets
to Illinois to trial, the sooner he can come home," she told reporters.
"He's a strong person. His main focus is my mom and how this is
affecting the family."McCullough's wife, Sue, with whom he lived
in a Seattle retirement home until his arrest, did not attend the
hearing. Until his arrest three weeks ago, McCullough was a night
watchman at the retirement complex.Court records show that
Illinois police have investigated the case for the last two years and
that they interviewed McCullough's sisters. One of the sisters alleged
that McCullough sexually abused her and other girls when they lived in
Sycamore, according to records.McCullough joined the Air Force
and later the Army. In 1972, he was stationed at the Army base in Fort
Lewis, Wash., an hour south of Seattle, he said. After being
discharged, he became a police officer in Milton, Wash., but resigned in
March 1982 rather than be fired, records show. That same month, he was
charged with the statutory rape of a 14-year-old teen and later pleaded
guilty to a lesser charge.O'Connor said she knew about what McCullough has described as his "checkered" past."It
wasn't a secret," she said. "It wasn't something he was proud of, but
because you make a mistake … does not mean that you're capable of
murdering a little girl. That's a pretty big leap."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-sycamore-cold-case-0721-20110721,0,2056784.story

Illinois Girl’s Body Exhumed In 1957 Slaying

Maria Ridulph was kidnapped in 1957, when she was 7 years old. Her remains were found four months later.

Jul 27, 2011
(CNN)

–
Investigators Wednesday exhumed the body of a 7-year-old Illinois girl slain more than five decades ago in hopes that modern science will bolster the case against the man now accused of killing her.

The remains of Maria Ridulph, dead since 1957, were exhumed for tests as the 71-year-old suspect in her killing was headed back to Illinois from Seattle, DeKalb County State’s Attorney Clay Campbell told reporters.

“Suffice to say science has advanced greatly, thankfully, since that time and we’re hoping that advancement in science can assist us in our investigation of this case,” Campbell said.

Ridulph disappeared while playing with a friend near her home in Sycamore, Illinois, about 60 miles west of Chicago. Her body was found five months later and 120 miles away.

Jack Daniel McCullough, the man now facing murder charges in her death, was an early suspect in the disappearance but had an alibi: He told police that he was at a military recruiting station in Rockford, Illinois, about 20 miles away, the evening Ridulph was reported missing.

McCullough told investigators he had been given a train ticket from Rockford to Chicago
by the military, then returned home and went on a date with his girlfriend. But when police interviewed the woman again in 2010 and asked if she had any photos of McCullough, she
discovered an unused train ticket from Rockford to Chicago that she said he had given her on the date of the crime.

The discovery led to McCullough’s arrest in Seattle in early July. Campbell said Wednesday that McCullough was en route to Illinois from Washington state to face murder charges in
Ridulph’s death.

Maria’s brother, Charles Ridulph, appeared at a news conference with Campbell and said the family had agreed to the exhumation.

“Although the events were very difficult and very unsettling, we understand the necessity for these things, and we are in complete agreement and thankful for the way this case is being handled,” he said.

www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/27/illinois.cold.case/

Assistant State's Attorney provides information at McCullough status hearing

Posted: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 11:38 pm | Updated: 11:55 pm, Tue Nov 1, 2011.

The man charged with the 1957 kidnapping and murder of Maria Ridulph appeared in court Tuesday for his latest status hearing.
Victor Escarcida, DeKalb County Assistant State's Attorney, said the prosecution provided the defense with discovery information, including a copy of the grand jury transcript.
Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, was indicted on Aug. 19 and is charged with murder, kidnapping and the abduction of an infant. McCullough was also charged on Sept. 30 with one count of rape and four counts of indecent liberties with a child. Court documents allege McCullough sexually abused another Sycamore girl in the early 1960s.
The state has chosen to prosecute McCullough for the rape charge first, with trial set to begin Jan. 5.
McCullough's next scheduled court appearance is set for Nov. 8. Circuit Judge Robbin Stuckert will make a ruling on a motion filed by the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press to quash subpoenas issued by the DeKalb County State's Attorney's Office for reporters' notes of interviews conducted with McCullough while he was in custody in Seattle.

http://northernstar.info/city/police_beat/article_a699b3d6-050c-11e1-9509-0019bb30f31a.html

Judge rules that prosecution won't get McCullough jailhouse interview notes

By CAITLIN MULLEN - cmullen@shawmedia.com
Created: Wednesday, November 9, 2011 5:30 a.m. CST

SYCAMORE – A judge ruled Tuesday that reporters who conducted jailhouse interviews with Jack D. McCullough do not have to turn over their notes to prosecutors.

During a ruling at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore, Circuit Judge Robbin Stuckert granted a motion to quash subpoenas seeking reporters’ notes from interviews with McCullough, 71, who is accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Maria Ridulph of Sycamore in 1957.

Ridulph was abducted near her Sycamore home Dec. 3, 1957, near the corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Place. McCullough – who was arrested July 1 in Seattle and extradited to DeKalb County on July 27 – is being held on $3 million bond. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, kidnapping and abduction of an infant. He has said in media reports that his alibi will clear him of all charges.

In July, the DeKalb County State’s Attorney’s Office subpoenaed the notes of Isolde Raftery – a freelance writer working for the Chicago Tribune – and Eugene Johnson – a reporter for The Associated Press – from separate interviews conducted with McCullough at the King County Jail in Seattle.

Stuckert said she reviewed arguments made Sept. 29 by Samuel Fifer – the attorney representing the Chicago Tribune and AP – and DeKalb County State’s Attorney Clay Campbell. She also examined the Reporter’s Privilege Act, briefs filed by both sides and relevant case law.

At the motion hearing in September, Fifer argued the state’s attorney needed to be more specific about the information he was seeking, prove that disclosure of the information was essential to the public interest and that all other measures to obtain the information had been exhausted.

Campbell contended McCullough clearly talked about his alibi during interviews with reporters, which he said is specific information relevant to the case. He said the information in the notes serves an important public interest.

Reading her written ruling Tuesday, Stuckert said the state did not demonstrate the reporters have specific information that is relevant to the case, that disclosure of their notes is essential to protect the public interest or that prosecutors have exhausted all other available sources that could provide the same information.

Stuckert said although McCullough’s alibi is relevant to the case, she finds it troubling prosecutors believe the interview notes include “previously unknown witnesses or sources of documentation” but gave no basis for that belief.

Stuckert said she finds it hard to believe reporters would pick and choose which information to print regarding McCullough’s whereabouts.

Though the state said seeking the reporters’ notes was not a fishing expedition, Stuckert said Campbell admitted during the September hearing’s closing arguments that he hadn’t seen the notes, so he didn’t know what was in them. Such statements proved divestiture was not warranted, she said, and the state only can speculate about the information in the notes.

“The act requires more,” she said.

Stuckert said the state’s right to pursue a fair trial and effectively prosecute McCullough does not trump the rights of other protected parties.

“Any public interest asserted by the state does not outweigh the public’s interest in the news media’s First Amendment protections or right to freely gather and disseminate information,” Stuckert said.

Calling the state’s view “misguided,” Stuckert said all other sources of information must be exhausted – including talking with all other people McCullough made statements to – before attempting to obtain reporters’ notes.

Stuckert said the state’s “no-stone-unturned” approach to the case is commendable.

“However, their strategy does not allow them to divest the media of their qualified privilege without meeting the requirements set forth by statute,” she said.

After the ruling, Campbell said there’s a historical tension between prosecutors’ right to seek evidence and the freedom of the press.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed at the court’s ruling,” he said.

The state can appeal, though he said prosecutors will take time to consider Stuckert’s ruling before making any decision on filing a motion to reconsider.

Fifer called the judge’s decision gratifying.

“You never want to sound like you’re surprised when judges do the right thing,” Fifer said.

Though the state “can always be creative,” Fifer doesn’t expect prosecutors will appeal the decision.

McCullough appeared at the ruling Tuesday via closed-circuit TV from the DeKalb County Jail. His attorney, public defender Regina Harris, was in the courtroom. McCullough will next appear in court Nov. 29.

http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2011/11/09/judge-rules-that-prosecution-wont-get-mccullough-jailhouse-interview-notes/a3mcjwt/?page=1

McCullough rape trial pushed back

By DAILY CHRONICLE
Created: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 9:51 a.m. CST

SYCAMORE – Jack McCullough will be tried for rape in April instead of January after the defense Wednesday was granted a new trial date.

McCullough, 72, was scheduled to be tried starting Jan. 9 on one count of rape and four felony counts of indecent liberties with a child. But McCullough's defense team sought an new date because of time constraints.

Despite the state's objection to a new date, Presiding Judge Robbin Stuckert granted the defense motion and set a new trial date of April 9.

The indictments of the rape and indecent liberties with a child charges say McCullough raped and sexually abused a 14-year-old girl in Sycamore between November 1961 and November 1962. McCullough was arraigned on those charges in October, and the indictments note the statute of limitations was put on hold because McCullough was not a resident of the state from Dec. 11, 1957, to Nov. 1, 1961; Nov. 30, 1962, to May 1, 1969; and Oct. 31, 1970, to the present.

McCullough also was charged in July with kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Maria Ridulph, who was abducted from her Sycamore neighborhood Dec. 3, 1957. Her remains were found nearly five months later in rural Jo Daviess County.

McCullough was arrested July 1 in Seattle and extradited July 27 to DeKalb County. He was indicted Aug. 19 by a grand jury on charges of murder, kidnapping and abduction of an infant in the Ridulph case. He has said he has an alibi for the day she disappeared and pleaded not guilty to the charges Sept. 8.

McCullough is being held on $3 million bond on the charges from the Ridulph case, with an additional $100,000 bond for the rape charge.

http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2011/12/14/mccullough-rape-trial-pushed-back/aj68mud/

Ex-police officer convicted in 1957 murder of 7-year-old Illinois girl that haunted nation

By Associated Press,
Published: September 13 |
Updated: Friday, September 14, 6:48 PM

SYCAMORE, Ill. — For most of five decades, it seemed no one would ever be held accountable for the murder of a 7-year-old Illinois girl snatched off a small-town street corner as she played.

Now someone has.

Fifty-five years after Maria Ridulph vanished, her friends and family let out a deafening cheer Friday as a judge pronounced a former neighborhood teen — now a 72-year-old man — guilty of the kidnapping and murder. It is one of the oldest unsolved crimes in the U.S. to make it to trial.

The roar of approval soon gave way to loud sobs from those who knew the little girl and whose body was found after a five-month search that drew national media attention and haunted people across the country. Jack McCullough, who was 17-year-old John Tessier at the time, showed no hint of emotion.

“A weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” said Kathy Chapman, 63, who was playing with Maria in the snow on the night of Dec. 3, 1957, before she vanished. “Maria finally has the justice she deserves.”

McCullough won Maria’s trust by talking about dolls and giving her piggyback rides, Chapman testified. At some point, authorities say he dragged her into an alley, choked her with a wire, then stabbed her in her throat and chest.

McCullough was briefly a suspect, like more than 100 others, in the 1950s, but he had an alibi. He told investigators he had been traveling to Chicago to get a medical exam before joining the Air Force. He settled in Seattle, working as a Washington state police officer.

As the months became years, many Sycamore residents assumed the killer must have been a transient — perhaps a truck driver passing through but disconnected to Sycamore.

A deathbed accusation by his mother in 1994 — passed on to police by his half-sister in 2008 — led to a chain of events that brought about McCullough’s conviction.

His mother, Eileen Tessier, had lied to police canvassing the neighborhood in 1957 about her son’s whereabouts, buttressing his alibi, prosecutor Julie Trevartchen said Friday.

“She knew what she did and she didn’t want to die with that on her conscience,” she said.

McCullough’s girlfriend in the 1950s also contacted police with evidence that called his alibi into question. She had found his unused train ticket from Rockford to Chicago for the day Maria disappeared.

The case seemed a long shot — at least at the beginning.

DeKalb County State’s Attorney Clay Campbell was taken aback when investigators told him they had a suspect in a 1957 murder. “When they said 1957, I said, you mean 1977? 1997?” he said Friday.

McCullough was arrested on July 1, 2011, in Washington state at a retirement home where he worked as a security guard.

One reason authorities felt confident they had the right suspect was that Maria’s friend, Chapman, picked out McCullough as the teen who identified himself as “Johnny” while the girls were playing. Chapman last saw Maria with that man before the girl vanished.

For decades, that day was never far from Chapman’s, she said. She would scan faces everywhere to see if any of them looked like that man.

“I never stopped looking for Johnny’s face,” Chapman said Friday.

During closing arguments, public defender Tom McCulloch said no physical evidence tied his client to the crime, and he raised doubts about Chapman’s memory.

But Trevartchen said it wasn’t surprising she recalled that night with such clarity.

“Little kids remember the really good things that happen and the really bad things,” she told the court. “And they remember the face of the man who took their little friend.”

Maria vanished at a time when grease-backed hair and automobile tail fins were in. Child abductions, if not unheard of, rarely made headlines.

This one did.

President Dwight Eisenhower even asked to be kept apprised of the search for the girl, which ended when her decomposed body was found 120 miles from her hometown.

The otherwise sleepy town of Sycamore, 60 west of Chicago, would never be the same.

“I had nightmares — all Sycamore kids did,” said Jeanne Taylor, 57, who grew up near the Ridulphs and attended each day of the trial. “From then on, I never trusted strangers.

To conceal the body, prosecutors said, McCullough dragged it through a window at his home, then later loaded it into a car and drove to a wooded area.

“He left her there for animals to feed on her body,” prosecutor Victor Escarcida said in his closing.

Maria’s brother, Charles Ridulph, took the stand to describe his sister as a sweet, smart, outgoing girl beloved by the entire family. He was relieved by the verdict, though he said the trial had been stressful.

“I feel totally spent, exhausted,” he said. “I am not pleased with the new thoughts that I will have (about Maria’s death). Some things I wish I did not know.”

The half dozen relatives of McCullough at the trial all said they wanted a guilty verdict.

Members of both families hugged each other after the lanky McCullough was led away in handcuffs. When sentenced later this year, he faces the possibility of life behind bars.

One of his half-sisters, Janet Tessier, who told police about her mother’s deathbed comments, spoke with her eyes still red from tears.

“He is as evil as prosecutors painted — and some,” she said minutes after the verdict.

At a news conference later where Maria’s brother and sister spoke, Tessier asked if she could step up and say something to them — to apologize her brother wasn’t caught decades earlier.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking as she looked at the Ridulphs. “I’m so sorry it took so long.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trial-of-1957-ill-school-girls-murder-nears-conclusion-closings-possible-verdict-friday/2012/09/13/1c8dece4-fe02-11e1-98c6-ec0a0a93f8eb_story_1.html

Life sentence closes oldest cold case


By Ann O'Neill, CNN

updated 6:24 PM EST, Mon December 10, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Man sentenced to life in 1957 kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old girl
Case is believed to be the oldest cold case to go to trial and result in a conviction
Jack Daniel McCullough, now 73, continues to assert his innocence
Victim's brother: "This has been a nightmare"

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/10/justice/oldest-cold-case-sentencing/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

This case is on 48 Hours tonight.