American murder victim
Maria Elizabeth Ridulph (March 12, 1950 – c. December 1957) was a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Sycamore, Illinois, on December 3, 1957. Her remains were found almost five months later in a wooded area near Woodbine, Illinois, approximately from her home. Maria was last seen by her friend on her neighborhood corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Place with an unknown man in his early twenties who called himself "Johnny".
The case, which was well known in the Chicago area, was one of the oldest cold case murders in the United States to be presumably solved. Jack McCullough, who under his former name John Tessier had been a neighbor of the Ridulph family, was convicted for her murder in September 2012. However, in March 2016, the DeKalb County State's Attorney announced that a post-conviction review of available evidence showed McCullough could not have been present at the place and time of Maria Ridulph's likely abduction. McCullough was released from prison on April 15, 2016, and the charges against him were dismissed on April 22, 2016. McCullough was declared innocent of the crime by the DeKalb County Circuit Court on April 12, 2017.
Background.
Maria Ridulph was born on March 12, 1950, to Michael and Frances Ivy Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois. She was the youngest of four children and had two sisters and a brother. Although many residents lived or worked on farms in the area, her father Michael worked at one of Sycamore's few factories; her mother Frances was a homemaker. At the time she was abducted, Maria was 7 years old, 44 inches tall, and weighed 53 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was an honor student, then in second grade. She also received awards for perfect Sunday school attendance at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John.
According to her mother, Maria was high-strung. "My daughter was a nervous girl and if she got in any trouble would become hysterical," Frances said in a 1957 interview shortly after Maria disappeared. "Someone would probably have to kill her to keep her quiet. I am the only one who could calm her down." Maria was also described as a "screamer" and afraid of the dark. Her best friend was 8-year-old Kathy Sigman, who lived on the same street as the Ridulphs.
Crime.
On the evening of December 3, 1957, Maria begged to be allowed to go outside as it had started to snow. After finishing dinner, Maria and Kathy Sigman went outside in the dark near Maria's house and played a game they called "duck the cars", running back and forth trying to avoid the headlights of oncoming cars in the street. According to Kathy, they were approached by a man, whom Kathy later described to police as in his early 20s and tall with a slender chin, light hair, and a gap in his teeth, and wearing a colorful sweater. The man, who said his name was "Johnny", told the girls that he was 24 and not married. He asked if they liked dolls and if they liked piggyback rides. He gave Maria a piggyback ride, after which she went back to her house and got a doll to show him. After Maria returned, Kathy ran back to her house to get her mittens, leaving Maria alone with the man. When Kathy returned, Maria and the man were gone.
Kathy went to the Ridulph house to tell them she couldn't find Maria. The family initially thought Maria was hiding, and sent Maria's 11-year-old brother to look for her. After he was unable to find her, the Ridulphs called the police, and within an hour, police and armed civilians began a search of the town, but failed to locate Maria or "Johnny", the man with whom she was last seen. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), presuming that Maria might have been abducted across state lines, arrived in Sycamore within two days to help the local and state police in the search. The FBI and police interviewed numerous witnesses who had seen the two girls playing without any other person present between 6:00 – 6:30p.m., and also spoke to family members who had seen or spoken with Maria and Kathy in the course of Maria getting her doll, Kathy getting her mittens, and Kathy reporting Maria's disappearance to the Ridulphs. Based on these interviews, "Johnny" was thought to have approached the girls after 6:30p.m., and the FBI concluded that Maria was abducted between 6:45 – 7:00p.m.
Kathy Sigman was the only witness who had seen "Johnny" and was placed in protective custody, as the police and FBI feared that the kidnapper would come back and harm her. The authorities had her look at photos of convicted felons or suspects who bore a resemblance to "Johnny". John Tessier, who was convicted of the crime over 50 years later, lived in the girls' neighborhood and was on the original list of suspects based on a tip, but the police failed to have Kathy identify him after he provided an alibi for the night of the crime ;templatestyles src="Crossreference/styles.css" / ;. In late December 1957, Kathy was taken to the Dane County Sheriff's Office in Madison, Wisconsin, to see a lineup of possible suspects. She positively identified Thomas Joseph Rivard, described in FBI documents as a 35-year-old man approximately 5 foot 4 inches tall and 156 lbs., with dark blond wavy (bushy) hair. However, Rivard had an alibi, as he was in jail at the time of the kidnapping; police suspected someone else in the lineup as the real culprit and Rivard was merely used to fill out the lineup. Rivard also did not physically resemble Tessier, who was six inches taller and 17 years younger than Rivard. When asked years later about the 1957 lineup, Kathy said she did not remember picking Rivard out of the lineup.
Maria's disappearance received national news coverage, and both President Dwight D. Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover took an interest in the case. Law enforcement continued to investigate various suspects in the area, including transients, known sex offenders, and a local man who had given children piggyback rides, but developed no solid leads. Maria's parents appeared on television and in other media pleading for their daughter's safe return and the public's help in finding her.
On April 26, 1958, near Woodbine, Illinois, two tourists searching for mushrooms in a wooded area along US Route 20 discovered the skeletal remains of a small child, wearing only a shirt, undershirt, and socks, under a partially fallen tree. The decomposed condition of the body indicated it had been there for several months. The body was identified as Maria Ridulph based on dental records, a lock of hair, and the shirts and socks she had been wearing when she disappeared. The rest of Maria's clothing, including her coat, slacks, shoes and an undergarment, was not found. No photographs were taken of the crime scene because the coroner, James Furlong, did not want photos of the child's body leaked to newspapers. Because the crime had occurred within Illinois rather than crossing state lines, the FBI withdrew from the case, leaving it to state and local police.
The initial autopsy did not determine a cause of death due to the state of decomposition. During an autopsy done 50 years later, a forensic anthropologist determined Maria had likely been stabbed several times in the throat ;templatestyles src="Crossreference/styles.css" / ;.
Suspects.
John Tessier (Jack McCullough).
John Tessier was born John Cherry on November 27, 1939, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to British sergeant Samuel Cherry and his wife Eileen McCullough Cherry. Samuel Cherry was killed early in World War II. During the war, Eileen Cherry served as one of the first female airplane spotters with the UK's Royal Air Force and met Ralph Tessier, who was serving with the United States 8th Army-Air Force at RAF Bovingdon, England. She married Ralph Tessier in November 1944, and after the war, she and her son John, then aged 7, followed Ralph to Sycamore, Illinois, where Ralph and Eileen had six more children together over the years. After his mother's marriage, John used the last name Tessier, although he was still sometimes called John Cherry.
The Tessier family home in Sycamore was located around the corner from the Ridulph home, less than two blocks away. Ralph Tessier, a sign painter, painted insignia on the doors of Sycamore police cars and was friendly with the police chief. John Tessier was expelled from school in the tenth grade for pushing a teacher and calling her a name. At the time of Maria Ridulph's disappearance, he was 18 years old and living at home with his parents and siblings while making plans to join the U.S. Air Force.
On December 4, investigators visited the Tessier home as part of their neighborhood search for Maria. According to Tessier's half-sisters Katherine Tessier (Caulfield) and Jeanne Tessier, their mother told the investigators that John Tessier had been home on the night of December 3, something that they later testified was not true. Shortly thereafter, before Maria's body was found, the FBI investigated Tessier as a possible suspect. Sources differ on whether the investigation was triggered by a tip from a local resident or by John Tessier's own parents seeking to clear their son, who they realized had the same name and general description as "Johnny".
Tessier and his parents told FBI investigators that on December 3, 1957, Tessier was in Rockford, Illinois, approximately 40 miles northwest of Sycamore, to enlist in the Air Force. He said he had been in Chicago on December 2 and 3 undergoing physical examinations required for his enlistment. On the morning of December 3, he had visited the Chicago recruiting station and then spent the day sightseeing in Chicago before returning to Rockford by train that evening, arriving there at 6:45p.m. Upon his arrival in Rockford, he had called his parents to ask for a ride home to Sycamore, since he had taken the train to and from Chicago and left his own car at home. Telephone records were later found showing that a collect call was placed from the Rockford post office to the Tessier home at 6:57p.m. that evening by someone who gave his name as "John Tassier" as written down by the operator. After making the call, Tessier then met with officers from the Rockford recruiting station to drop off paperwork relating to his enlistment. The officers confirmed that they spoke with Tessier around 7:15p.m. that evening, although one officer also expressed some concerns about Tessier's credibility and conduct. Tessier was brought to the police station to take a lie detector test, which he passed. In view of his alibi and the lie detector test result, Tessier was taken off the suspect list, and the FBI closed out his report on December 10, 1957, noting: "No further investigation is being conducted regarding the above suspect." Kathy Sigman was never shown a photograph of him or asked to identify him. Tessier left Sycamore the next day to report for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base.
Tessier served in the U.S. military for thirteen years and rose to the rank of captain. After leaving the service, he moved to Seattle, Washington, where he subsequently graduated from the King County Law Enforcement Academy in June 1974 and became a police officer in the small town of Lacey near Olympia. He later joined the police department in Milton, Washington, where he clashed with the chief of police, who attempted to fire him and documented a long list of complaints about his work and conduct. In 1982, in Tacoma, Washington, Tessier took in a 15-year-old runaway, Michelle Weinman, and her friend, who knew Tessier as a Milton police officer. Weinman later testified that shortly after she began living with Tessier, he fondled her and then performed oral sex on her. Tessier was charged with statutory rape, a felony. After plea negotiations, he eventually pleaded guilty to communication with a minor for immoral purposes, a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to one year of formal probation and was terminated from the Milton Police Department on March 10, 1982.
On April 27, 1994, John Tessier legally changed his name to Jack Daniel McCullough, saying that he wanted to honor his late mother. By 2011, McCullough, now in his early 70s, was living at a retirement community