By Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker
The Star Press
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — For many of them, the unsolved murder cases they’ve immersed themselves in occurred before their birth, or when they were children.
But for a class of Ball State University students, working with Muncie police on compiling comprehensive notes and video public service announcements on Muncie cold cases has been an affecting experience.
“It’s very emotionally draining,” Austin Highlen, a member of the class, told The Star Press. “We were talking to someone about something that we could never possibly relate to. It’s the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to talk to someone whose brother is missing, whose son was killed. You’re being most respectful while trying to obtain the information you need. That’s an amazing learning experience.”
Highlen and about a dozen other students in professor Bryan Byers’ Criminal Justice and Criminology 450 class worked with the Muncie Police Department on four local cold cases. Three of them are unsolved murders that were part of The Star Press’ Cold Case Muncie series, including William Gene Burton, Sam Drummer and Lou Ann Cox, and one — Chad Nease — is a case likely to be included in a future Star Press Cold Case package.
The Cold Case Muncie series began in The Star Press in 2010 with an in-depth look at what is probably Muncie’s best-known cold case, the unsolved 1985 murders of two teenagers in Westside Park.
The series has since then spotlighted 15 additional unsolved homicides and continues with a 16th Cold Case, Donald Phillips.
As part of their class project, the students have interviewed Star Press reporters and county Coroner Scott Hahn, obtained information from Muncie police investigators, produced detailed narratives summing up the cases and evidence for internal use by MPD and produced cold case video PSAs that MPD can air on the city’s public access channel or post on social media like Facebook. The work is being done in conjunction with Crime Stoppers.
The objective is to get the unsolved cases in the public eye with hopes that someone will come forward with information that might propel the cases toward some resolution, including the arrest of a suspect.
This isn’t the first cold case work by Byers’ class. Students — including Highlen — worked on a series of 18 cold cases and other unresolved investigations in 16 other Indiana communities last year. The class produced case narratives and PSAs for police departments in those areas.
The subject is one that’s intriguing and familiar to Byers, who was a deputy coroner under his father in Marshall County in the 1980s. He was also an investigator for the St. Joseph County prosecutor’s office around that time.
“I learned a lot about death investigations,” Byers said. “Death investigations have always been fascinating to me.”
Closely examining unsolved homicides has likewise been fascinating for students like Highlen and Ashley Lanham, another criminal justice major. Both graduated from Ball State this month.
“It’s been really eye-opening,” Lanham said. “Just being out in the real world and experiencing different people. Talking with victims’ families, that’s pretty hard. Interacting with law enforcement is really eye-opening and I have a lot of respect for them. Getting to work with the newspaper ... and getting to know how you guys work, you get a full perspective.”
Lanham said working on the case involving Burton — whose body was found near the railroad bridge in McCulloch Park in January 1997 — was especially affecting.
“I can’t imagine a 16-year-old kid who everybody loved getting killed like that,” Lanham said. “It shocks me completely.”
Byers said the students thought the cold cases were a “really good experience. They’re so involved this semester with cases they’re working on and benefited greatly by witnessing the feeling in the room among those who had experience such tragedy.”
Lanham plans to pursue her interest in criminal justice as a probation officer, likely in Marion County.
Highlen is a reserve police officer in Winchester and wants to pursue a career in police work. “I love police work,” he said. As for the cold case class, Highlen said the very nature of the subject meant that this class carried a lot of weight and importance.
“Me doing well is not going to mean me getting a good grade in a class,” Highlen said. “We know what we’re working toward. We’re working with the public and investigators and victims’ families and friends. This is real to them. They deserve the best we can do.”
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