INFAMOUS: The Westside Park Murders

In September of 1985, two teenagers drove into Westside Park but, tragically, never left the park alive. The police have spent decades trying to hunt down their killer.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia Diambra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  And I'm Britt.

• 0:34Ashley Flowers?

  Today, I am as baffled as I am consumed by this case. It's one where two teens, seemingly excelling in every way, go out for a night of fun and then are brutally shot dead in what could almost seem a targeted ambush. And I'm obsessed with this case, not only because it took place right here in Indiana, but because some believe answers in this unsolved double murder may have been right under police's noses throughout their nearly 40-year quest for justice. This is the story of the Westside Park Murders.

• 1:43Ashley Flowers?

  It's around midnight on September 28, 1985, when Officer Terry Winters of the Muncie Police Department is on patrol in Westside Park, which, literally, as its name suggests, is on the west side of the town, and it runs along the White River. It's a Saturday night, just before midnight. And according to a book by Keith Royston and Douglas Walker, a source we'll rely on very heavily here for this episode, Terry also has his canine partner Max with him. Now, at some point, this real-life Turner and Hooch hop in their squad car to leave, and as they pull out, the headlights catch on some tire tracks that lead to a Volkswagen hatchback idling in a little gravel area of the park.

• 2:25Ashley Flowers?

  Now, one of Terry's responsibilities is to scope out any cars left in the park past closing, which was about an hour earlier. So, this is literally the gig, and Terry gets out to investigate. There doesn't appear to be any movement coming from inside the car, but as he approaches and puts his flashlight through the open driver's side window, he gets the shock of his life. There are two teenagers, a boy and a girl, shot dead in the front seats. In the book, The West Side Park Murders: Muncie's Most Notorious Cold Case, it says that both the front seats were reclined with, like, sleeping bags draped over them, and the passenger side window was shattered. The guy who's in the driver's seat has been shot in the torso, and the girl who's in

• 3:10Ashley Flowers?

  the passenger seat was shot in the head. It's not long before the entire place is crawling with police, and investigators take note of the fact that there are no signs of a struggle, and no signs that point to this being motivated by a robbery. Nothing appears to have been taken from the car, as far as they can tell. I mean, like, there's even literally a portable stereo still in the back. And they see an open pocket knife just sitting on the dashboard. But the murder weapon, the gun, that's nowhere to be found. They just find a small, empty gun holster under the young man's body.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Like, he was sitting on it?

• 3:48Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, well, some accounts say sitting on it, others just say under the body, some say it was found in the car more broadly. I think the important thing is that it seems unlikely that it would belong to one of the kids, which could mean that the killer left this thing behind.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:04Ashley Flowers?

  And it seems they may have left behind something else, too. Prints, on or in the car. Now, some of those, obviously, though, might belong to their victims, who they learn are 16-year-old Ethan Dixon and 15-year-old Kimberly Dowell.

• 4:20Ashley Flowers?

  Now, they were able to ID them so quickly because while they were still on the scene processing, this guy named Don showed up. And Don tells police that he'd been out driving, looking for his stepdaughter Kimberly, who just never came home that night. I guess she had gone out with a guy that she'd just started dating, Ethan. He picked her up between 9:00 and 9:30. And the plan was for them to go get some pizza, take it over to West Side Park, eat, hang out, but they just never came back. And while they were concerned when the teenagers didn't return home, I mean, they hadn't called police or anything yet, which like I understand, like teenagers missing curfew or whatever is like kind of par for the course.

• 5:01Ashley Flowers?

  But it becomes clear that this isn't par for the course that night when police let Don go with them to the car. And according to the Star Press, it's him who confirms the thing that he was most terrified of. It is Kimberly and Ethan in the car. The events of the night don't just shock Don and Nancy, who is Kimberly's mom. News of the shooting is spreading like wildfire. And while publicly the victims aren't being named, it didn't take long for local parents and teenagers to put two and two together. Both teenagers were students at Northside High School, and by all accounts, like really standout kids. According to the Star Press, Ethan was on the debate team, he was the junior class president.

• 5:46Ashley Flowers?

  Kimberly was a cheerleader recently named as part of the Homecoming Queen Court. And a story in The Sun at the time quotes their principal describing them as "very, very fine people." Basically saying that, like, they never caused any problems, they were never difficult. So for them to end up like this, it's hard for anyone to fathom. But that didn't mean that they were teenagers, like, who weren't dealing with teenager problems because police discover that Ethan had been the victim of bullying. Now, I don't know the full extent of it. It doesn't seem like this is something police ever really fully explore or, or find the need to explore. But Ethan's parents do say that at one point, they had taken a knife away from him that he was keeping on him because of bullying.

• 6:30Ashley Flowers?

  So, when I think about that, I mean, that could be one of the reasons there was that pocket knife in the car.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then why would it be on the dash and not in Ethan's hand? Like, thinking he was maybe trying to protect himself or something?

• 6:42Ashley Flowers?

  If that's what it was, and again, like, I'm making all the assumptions. But if that's what it was, part of me wonders if he had the knife on him for like all the reasons we just talked about. But then maybe him and Kimberly were like, you know, doing things teenagers do sometimes when they're in the park and like maybe he like pulled that out of his pocket or something, like put it on the dash to be more comfortable. So, I don't know, like, this is a weird fact that like I can't quite like put it in a box, but it's worth, it's worth people knowing, like it's something you'll read if you look into this story. Now, there's nothing in the source material about police at the time finding anything in the way of evidence, like blood or prints on the knife, or even the holster for that matter. And going back to the knife, though, like, it is important to say that I don't think like that was ever actually used.

• 7:27Ashley Flowers?

  So like nothing like blood or whatever on that. But speaking of the holster, police never find any evidence that Ethan owned a gun. So it's definitely seeming like the murder weapon belonged to the perp. And then maybe this holster also belonged to the perp. And the autopsy confirms that Kimberly was killed by a gunshot wound to the left side of her head, which most likely killed her within seconds. Ethan died from massive blood loss caused by a gunshot wound to the left side of his chest. And both of them were shot with a 38 caliber, which they for sure did not fire. I mean, like, obviously, no gun at the scene, I think that's, you know, speaks for itself. But they do check for gunshot residue on their hands anyways.

• 8:11Ashley Flowers?

  And even though the results that came back later were positive, that still didn't really change anything for police, like because there could be explanations for that. Again, I think not finding the weapon there made it clear.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:23Ashley Flowers?

  That this was a homicide.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  The gunshot residue, they're in a car that's a pretty small enclosed place, they were both shot.

• 8:28Ashley Flowers?

  Exactly.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Like, that's explainable.

• 8:30Ashley Flowers?

  Right. Oh, and the other thing I wanted to note about their autopsies, neither of them showed any signs of drugs or alcohol in their systems. While even in Kimberly's exact time of death is unknown, the ME estimates that it could be about 11:00 PM. So roughly an hour and a half to two hours after they left Kimberly's place, and about 50 minutes before Officer Terry discovered their bodies, which was around 11:50 PM.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Which, speaking of Terry, how did he not hear the gunshots? Like, he was in the park.

• 9:04Ashley Flowers?

  He was. It's possible that he was just at an earshot, though, when the shooting happened. Like, I've never seen anything about his exact location at the time, like, at 11 o'clock, if it's known. But I know he's supposed to be on duty at the time. According to the Star Press, the park is, like, a little over 20 acres. So if you look at it on Google Maps, it's like a very long, skinny, like, strip. So my thinking is, if he's, like, patrolling all of it, maybe he could be on the opposite side, or at least a ways away. But even though he doesn't appear to have heard anything, there are others who did hear the shots. Investigators talked to people who say that they were in the park when gunfire rang out. I don't know who these people are, who were at the park at 11:00 PM,

• 9:48Ashley Flowers?

  or how police even found them, but good job. Some of those witnesses say that they just booked it when they heard the bangs. But others claim to have been close enough to the parking lot to see three people around Kimberly and Ethan's car after the gunshots. And through these witness accounts, cops determined that there were between 10 and 12 other cars in the park that night, not including Ethan and Kimberly's car. And investigators zero in specifically on two cars that were parked the closest to Kimberly and Ethan around the time of the shooting. But these cars weren't there when Terry showed up. So there is a red one, and then there is a black or some kind of dark-colored one, often described as a Monte Carlo.

• 10:32Ashley Flowers?

  And it was this black one I think that they're most interested in, because it was specifically said to have left right after the shots rang out. So these are either really good witnesses they have to find.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Or suspects.

• 10:46Ashley Flowers?

  Or suspects, right. And according to Royzen and Walker's book, within two days of the murders, they actually might have found one of them.

• 10:57Ashley Flowers?

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• 11:40Ashley Flowers?

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• 13:00Ashley Flowers?

  In the early hours of September 30th, so just two days after the murders, two Muncy police officers notice a car parked in West Side Park. Now, nothing in the book about what this car looked like, so I don't know if it fits the description of the cars that they were previously looking for. But considering what has recently gone down in this park, they're like checking out everything. And as they head towards this car, it like starts up and drives at them. Police were able to block the vehicle somehow. And when they finally talked to the driver, they can tell that he has definitely had too much to drink. And when they ask him about it, he says he's grieving.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Grieving what, sir?

• 13:42Ashley Flowers?

  They ask him exactly that. Like, what are you grieving for? And he replies, "You know what for."

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. My daughter answers like random questions like this all the time. And it's frustrating then. It's infuriatingly frustrating here.

• 13:58Ashley Flowers?

  Prepare to stay frustrated because that's about all the info that this guy gives. And this information about this guy is actually only in the book. So it is super limited. The authors don't even use his real name. But we do know that this guy gets arrested for driving under the influence. And he later tells police that he was just upset about the murders.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, we all are. But most of us aren't melting down on the spot where they were found. So like, what's your story, dude? Who is this guy?

• 14:27Ashley Flowers?

  I don't know much. Like truly, like, I just know that he had a criminal record. He had even served some time. But it sounds like primarily for a minor burglary charge, like in another state, California, actually. Nothing violent like murder. So maybe for that reason, maybe because they didn't find anything to link him to the killings, maybe something else, this guy kind of just falls off the radar. At least from the reporting perspective. I don't know what category police put this guy in. Suspect, person of interest, or some bizarre encounter.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Just some weird thing.

• 15:01Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, that they don't know what to make of. Either way, we don't hear much more about him. Instead, police around this time seem far more interested in someone close to Kimberly. Her stepfather, Don. Because not only was it pretty convenient that he showed up at the park that night while they were still processing the scene, but the Star Press reports that police also discover that two witness accounts might lead back to Don and the car that he was driving that night, possibly putting him at the park before the shooting. So on October 4th, they bring Don in for a formal interview and they talk to him for about six hours. And in that time, Don's story is unchanging.

• 15:45Ashley Flowers?

  He said that when Kimberly wasn't home by 11:00 PM, her mother Nancy got worried. And when she still wasn't home an hour and a half later, Don went out looking for her. He's like driving around, checking out local McDonald's, whatever. And then he was heading to the park where Nancy had thought that they might have gone. And that's when he came across all the police activity and he was told what happened. So the Star Press reports that police asked Don if he will take a polygraph, which he agrees to, braver than me, Don. But it actually plays out in his favor. Don passes it. But that's not enough to close the book on him because while the answers he was giving were deemed to be truthful by a machine and some guy reading the machine, other answers

• 16:28Ashley Flowers?

  that he was giving to Deputy Chief Marvin Campbell in follow-up questions were like kind of friggin weird. Like, for example, when asked if he was in the park, Don replies, quote, "Within my body, I wasn't there."

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Okay, is that a no then?

• 16:46Ashley Flowers?

  I think it's trying to be. And I, like you, like Deputy Chief, like we all find this kind of sus.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Ashley Flowers?

  And in another statement during the interview, Don said, quote, "If I did this, you're going to have to tell me I did it." And listen, Deputy Chief Campbell isn't going to put words in his mouth, but he doesn't believe him in like what he's saying. And he doesn't believe the polygraph results either. The hangup is Don's alibi. I mean, it's rock solid. Kimberly's mother Nancy said that Don went to a football game earlier in the night but was home before the shootings even took place and that he only went back out around 12:30 AM to look for Kimberly.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  And like, that's great. I guess my biggest hangup about him as a possible suspect is why? Like, what would his motive even be for killing Kimberly and Ethan?

• 17:39Ashley Flowers?

  That's the other problem. There isn't one. So it's not quite adding up. And listen, we've contacted Muncy PD to ask like why they were so hot on Don early on. Like, there could be things on police's radar that they didn't make public, maybe a motive we're unaware of. But as of this recording, we haven't heard back from them. Now, it's no surprise that after this initial interview, Don lawyers up. The Star Press reports that his lawyer tells police he will not let Don be interviewed again without a lawyer in the room. So essentially, Don stops cooperating, which then Deputy Chief Campbell like seems to suggest that Don is now somehow hindering the investigation. But the police have nothing that they can really make stick to Don as their guy.

• 18:22Ashley Flowers?

  And I mean, the thing is, they can't make anything stick to anyone. For a brief moment, they looked at one of their own, actually, Officer Terry Winters, the police officer who discovered the bodies, which was like, honestly, my first crime junkie guess when I got into this case.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Like, maybe your first Nancy Drew guess.

• 18:38Ashley Flowers?

  The amount of times that I've looked into real cases and it turned out to be the person patrolling who finds the bodies, but not here. This guy was asked to turn over his guns for analysis. It's determined they were not used in the killings. And as far as I can tell, no one seems to place his police vehicle anywhere near the shooting at the time of the shooting. So by early October, police are, in a long way, like circling back to the Monte Carlo tip. Because you see, they had gotten a tip from someone pointing at their neighbor, this guy named James, or he goes by Jimmy, Swingley. And just an FYI, the book is the only place that he is officially named, and we couldn't corroborate this anywhere else. But according to Royce and Walker's book, someone who lives down the street from Jimmy

• 19:23Ashley Flowers?

  reports to police that his house was robbed, and he is convinced that Jimmy did it. He is also confident that Jimmy knows about the murders of Ethan and Kimberly, or was maybe involved in them.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Which are all like, pretty bold allegations. Did this tipster happen to mention why he felt Jimmy was involved? Like, he felt this pretty strongly.

• 19:44Ashley Flowers?

  I know. If he did, I don't know. Like, all I know is that we get to him somehow, or like that they make this suggestion. And I do know that police look into this afterwards and maybe give it some weight because on October 7th, they release a description and a sketch of someone that they're looking for, who they also associate with the black or dark colored Monte Carlo. So I said, it kind of all comes full circle. And while there's no mention of this publicly at the time, Deputy Chief Campbell later indicates that this sketch looked a lot like our guy Jimmy. White male, about 24 years old, 150 to 160 pounds, slender build, brown hair, parted down the middle, acne scarred face. And this guy apparently wears gold wire glasses.

• 20:29Ashley Flowers?

  But on the other flip side of this, this guy apparently looked a lot like other people too.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you just described a guy in Indiana.

• 20:37Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, because when they like put this sketch out to the papers or whatever, they get a lot of calls, like somewhere between 100 and 200 calls about it. Police take all these calls and they kind of narrow them down to get a list about of like a dozen people and they do this by like seeing who was named the most. But none of those actually lead to a huge breakthrough. Not even the Jimmy stuff, I guess, because I don't see him come back up yet. So they're starting to hit a wall early on, which is maybe why police decide to cast a wider net, looking beyond just their crime, even to other crimes that feel kind of similar or happen not too far away.

• 21:19Ashley Flowers?

  Like maybe if this is part of some larger pattern, that will tell them something about their killer and where to find them. And I know specifically, they looked at two cases. There was one that was local, one that wasn't. The first was an assault of a woman that took place in the summer at another park in a nearby county. And in that attack, the suspect might have had or been in a Monte Carlo. Then in the second case, that one happened five years earlier, a few states away in Kansas, where two young people were shot while sitting in their car. And on the surface, both of those, like that crime and this one have similar elements, but ultimately, police can't connect them in any way to one another.

• 22:00Ashley Flowers?

  Same with the other one. So they're kind of at another dead end and investigators turn their focus to some more like experimental investigative tactics, like hypnosis.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Hypnosis, that means they have someone to hypnotize. Like who?

• 22:15Ashley Flowers?

  It's mostly those witnesses that were at the park that night to see if they can remember any more details about like the car, I'm assuming car license plate, whatever. Here's the problem, though, like the way they were doing this hypnosis veers like pretty far into unethical territory, if you ask me, because according to the Star Press, before being hypnotized, one of the witnesses, who was actually an off-duty officer who was in the park that night, listen, I know, I hear it, like I have the same questions. Um, but it sounds like this guy, they vetted him because I have the same like, oh, like Terry things, like we've seen this before, he's vetted, he has an alibi, whatever. I mean, alibi, his alibi is in the park, but I think he was with someone else that night. But anyways, this guy was shown some pictures of cars, including the one that

• 22:59Ashley Flowers?

  Don was driving that night, which was Nancy's car. And then he's shown a photo of Don before the hypnosis.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  So he's kind of been fed info.

• 23:09Ashley Flowers?

  Which is what it feels like. It feels like they're being like, here are some, here's the guy that the chief is like very interested in.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Jog your memory.

• 23:17Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. But even them doing this, again, I said it's unethical, but even when they did it, like nothing tying Don to the killings even comes from this. So whatever they were trying didn't even work. But I do think it gives a glimpse to where investigators' heads were. For Deputy Chief Campbell, all roads were still leading back to Don. And he, at that point, is tired of Don's perceived unwillingness to cooperate. So he decides to try and put pressure on publicly.

• 23:46Ashley Flowers?

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• 24:30Ashley Flowers?

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• 25:46Ashley Flowers?

  In September 1986, Deputy Chief Campbell says publicly that a person related to the case refuses to come in for a second interview. And though he didn't explicitly say Don's name, everyone pretty much knows that's who he's talking about. And when asked about a motive, the chief says, "All they have are rumors and no real motive in this case." Listen, I don't know what the rumors are that he's referring to, like if they're even real, like, but again, nothing really happens in the case and a full year goes by. And really, even then, nothing happens in the case itself. That like full year, that's just when Kimberly's family is hit with yet another tragedy. Because on Christmas Eve,

• 26:29Ashley Flowers?

  1987, Kimberly's mother, this is Don's wife, Nancy, unexpectedly dies of a heart attack. The police at the time decide to have an autopsy done on Nancy to rule out any kind of foul play, which Don even agrees to, like presumably to get these guys off his back. And ultimately, nothing is found. It was a heart attack. So, over the next few years, Kimberly and Ethan's case just kind of stalls out. There are rumors that swirl through Muncie about what could have happened to them. But there doesn't seem to be anything like tangible police latch on to.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Like, what?

• 27:06Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, so I didn't have examples about like, if, if the rumors that the chief was talking about were in relation to Don, I don't know any rumors in relation to him. But they ran the gamut, really. Like, I mean, there was one that centered around the son of a politically connected family. Then there was one about someone who showed up at a party dressed as Rambo on the night of the murders. And then in one of the wilder accusations, a guy was convinced that a woman he knew might have committed the murders, like, and he thinks this woman, who I assume is like his girlfriend or some, something, like someone he knows intimately, basically, he assumes that she mistook Ethan for him in the car and like, thought she caught him cheating and then committed the murders?

• 27:47Ashley Flowers?

  Again, there's no real meat to any of those stories. So, police continue to look high and low and wide and far. And they do get at least one decent lead that they do follow in the early 90s. Two investigators go to interview a man named Steve, who's in prison on an armed robbery charge. Unclear if Steve reached out to them, or how his name might have come up. But he tells investigators that the murders stemmed from a marijuana deal that had gone bad in the park. He said, "The three men involved in the deal decided to mess with or take it out on a couple parked in a car." Which feels like a promising tip, knowing there was at least that one sighting early on

• 28:32Ashley Flowers?

  of three people outside of the kid's car. But it feels a little less promising when they're told the couple was killed with a shotgun, which, like, we know isn't true. But still detectives are like, "Okay, listen, we got, we gotta at least, like, continue following this through." Like, this line of investigation might lead somewhere. And the victim's family wants that also, so much so that Ethan's family pays for a trip to Virginia, where a woman supposedly can corroborate Steve's story. But unfortunately, when the detectives get down there and interview her, she ends up admitting that the whole thing is a hoax. And another inmate tells police that the whole thing was Steve's effort to try and get some kind of deal, or get, like, early release.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  You know, we see this all the time, and it's so incredibly heartless, right? Like, yeah, you're messing around with police, wasting their time. But the most devastating part is giving Kimberly and Ethan's families this, like, little tiny glimmering bit of hope, and then it just gets ripped away, just like that.

• 29:31Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, I don't, I just don't, I don't think criminals have the same code of ethics, right? That you and I do. Like, they're just operating in, like, a completely different field. And, like, in their minds, everyone is fair game. Like, I don't think they see a difference between, like, someone they know, or someone they're in jail with, or a victim's family.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Anything to save their own skin.

• 29:51Ashley Flowers?

  Right. So, I mean, you get how it goes. Same as in so many cold cases. Random tips and pointing fingers and a case file that gets dusted off just every so often for a fresh set of eyes to take a crack at it. And that's where it was in 2012, when Detective Nathan Sloan first starts working Kimberly and Ethan's case. Now, he spends about two weeks locked away with this case file. And when Detective Sloan emerges, there is a familiar name on investigators' radar again.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Swear to God, Ashley, if you say it's Don.

• 30:25Ashley Flowers?

  It's not Don. It's someone else. You see, while the deputy chief all those years ago was paying so much attention to Don, more and more tips about Jimmy swingly kept coming in. Remember, he's the one who'd been accused of robbing that guy's place, and the guy accused him of also maybe being involved in the murders. Well, here's what's interesting. So, the first tip about him came in like a week into the investigation. And then, a couple of months into the investigation, they got another tip. A more specific tip from someone said to have been close to Jimmy. And this guy said that Jimmy had come to his house on the night of the murders.

• 31:06Ashley Flowers?

  And he told this guy that a drug deal went bad and the teenagers ended up dead. And there were two other men with Jimmy.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  So, three guys again?

• 31:17Ashley Flowers?

  And he said that one of them pulled the gun out and the holster came out with it, and that's how it ended up in the car.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  But is there any evidence that Ethan or Kimberly were involved in drugs? Or would be in the park to buy drugs?

• 31:30Ashley Flowers?

  No, so it doesn't sound like it. And like, more than just like from their parents, right? Who like, most of the time are like, "I don't think so." According to the book, police also talked to other kids that knew them too, and none of them said that either of these two were involved in drugs. So, if this was some kind of drug deal gone bad, it seems more likely that they were in the wrong place, wrong time. Like, if you remember that like, other rumor we heard, it was like... There was a drug doggone bad and then they took it out on two kids and maybe that's, that's what really happened.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe someone approached them about drugs and an argument ensued like-

• 32:03Ashley Flowers?

  Oh yeah, that could be.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  There could be a lot of situations.

• 32:06Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, well, whatever happened, Jimmy's name wouldn't go away. Detective Sloan sees several more instances where people point to Jimmy over the years. Some say that Jimmy admitted to the killings or to knowing something about what happened that night. And he also sees that at some point in 87, police had given Jimmy a lie detector test, which he failed. But they didn't have anything to hold, you can't, you know, arrest someone on a polygraph. So like they end up letting him go.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  I mean, they were probably still so focused on John that, I mean, in 87.

• 32:41Ashley Flowers?

  True, maybe. And listen, by 2012, Jimmy had been free to live a lot of life. Lots that Detective Sloan had to dig through. And he finds that he apparently high-tailed it out of town shortly after the murders, which is interesting. Like within a couple of months, there are records of him being arrested all the way down in Florida. And he continues carrying out a lengthy criminal history over the next decade. And there's this one blip in his record that stands out, at least to me amongst others. It didn't involve like a violent offense, but the circumstances were a little chilling. So, the Westside Park Murders book notes that at one point Jimmy was pulled over for

• 33:25Ashley Flowers?

  blowing a stop sign and apparently he didn't have his license or he refused to give it. And when police ask him for his name, the name that he gives, to me is like a huge red flag. So he tells police that his name is Kevin Dixon.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  As in like Ethan's last name Dixon?

• 33:44Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, it's Ethan's last name. I can't speak for Jimmy and why he picked that last name. And there's nothing in the book about police like putting two and two together at the time. But like, it's just so odd that I felt like I had to mention it. I don't, it's weird.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Is Jimmy still alive in 2012?

• 34:01Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, alive in Kicken and Detective Sloan knows right where to find him. Prison.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 34:07Ashley Flowers?

  I told you, he had a real run in Florida, but his decade of criminal activity stopped in 1999, when he was convicted of murdering a man named Brian Insco. Like violently. Brian was found in his own apartment with his throat cut, like nearly decapitated is how it's described. And so Jimmy ends up getting sentenced to 65 years in prison for that, where he's still hanging out in 2012. Now Detective Sloan wants to be totally solid before he goes talking to him. So he continues to try and run down old leads about Jimmy, tries to run down new leads about Jimmy. And the long and the short of it is a clearer and clearer picture starts to form around what could have happened.

• 34:51Ashley Flowers?

  It seems like there really were multiple people in the park, and there was some kind of argument about something. And at some point Ethan pulled a knife.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Which lines up with the pocket knife in the car on a dash.

• 35:05Ashley Flowers?

  Mm hmm. And then the theory went on that someone in this group of people that included Jimmy fired the shots. The group then took off in the car. And whatever account he's pulling this from, he has the car not being a Monte Carlo, but one that maybe looked a lot like it or had some similarities. It was a Chrysler Cordoba.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  But how can they prove any of this?

• 35:29Ashley Flowers?

  Well, that's the thing, they can't. I mean, they have nothing physical tying Jimmy or anyone else to the crime.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:35Ashley Flowers?

  But now that he like, has heard enough that he feels solid on what happened, Detective Sloan is finally feeling that it's time that he can go straight to Jimmy now. Like maybe they can get something from him. So he heads to the state prison where Jimmy is being held. And let's just say it doesn't go well. Jimmy basically tells him to like, F off, there's gonna be no conversation.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Okay, then.

• 35:57Ashley Flowers?

  Now, that's kind of the end of the line for Jimmy. But listen, Detective Sloan like, isn't just gonna rest on this, like being the one and only answer. I don't know Sloan, but I like the way this man works. Like if you can't prove one theory, go try and prove others. Like best case scenario, you find out you were wrong and you do get an arrest. Worst case like scenario, you're like buttoning up your case even more. Like close all those doors that a future defense team might try to use when you finally do get your guy. So the next door he wants to explore and hopefully close or prove or whatever was that whole grieving man in the parking lot thing.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Oh, I like Detective Sloan too. Let's do this.

• 36:37Ashley Flowers?

  So he tracks that guy's ex-wife down. She tells him that her husband was prone to drinking too much, often blacking out. And he would even get out of bed in the middle of the night and leave the house, which he had done the night police found him in that park. She also admits that she wondered if her husband could have had something to do with the murders. But it sounds like ultimately she doesn't think like that he actually did. I don't know if this guy is dead by this point or what, but from what I can tell Sloan doesn't get a chance to talk to him directly. It might also be because he gets redirected with a new tip. And those are few and far between in cold cases. So like, strike while the iron is hot, right?

• 37:24Ashley Flowers?

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• 38:07Ashley Flowers?

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• 38:27Speaker 01

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• 39:11Speaker 01

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• 39:23Ashley Flowers?

  In 2013, the name Rafael Resendez is suggested to Detective Sloan as a possible suspect.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Oh, he's the Railroad Killer.

• 39:31Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, I was just about to say. Like, we've talked about him before. He is someone that gets brought up in a decent amount of cold cases from all over because of how mobile this guy was throughout the 90s. He is suspected of killing, like, 23 people? And his MO was to hop on and off railway cars, committing murders along the way in numerous states: Florida, Texas, even as far away as California. And while Indiana is not on the list, Illinois is. So he's, like, within shouting distance.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  And were there train tracks near the park?

• 40:03Ashley Flowers?

  There were. Now, according to the book, it sounds like the earliest of Resendez's known crimes happened in 1986. He murdered a couple in Texas, and at least one of those victims were shot to death with a .38. So the murder weapon lines up. The majority of his known crimes, though, took place in the 90s and often involved him strangling or beating his victims to death. And unfortunately Detective Sloan isn't able to speak to him himself because he was executed by the state of Texas in 2006. And maybe it doesn't matter because ultimately it sounds like Detective Sloan doesn't think Resendez is his guy. He's able to like close that door. So whether it's a local criminal like Jimmy or a serial killer like Resendez, nothing

• 40:48Ashley Flowers?

  is sticking for Sloan. And in light of closing all the doors, there is one more that Detective Sloan needs to look at, probably more than anything else, like to rule in or out once and for all.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  And we're back to Dawn.

• 41:02Ashley Flowers?

  We're back to Dawn, you got it. In April 2013 Detective Sloan interviews Kimberly's stepfather Dawn to see what he has to say after all these years. Dawn's story is the same and Sloan presses him on some of the odd things that he said to police back in the 85 interviews. But according to the book, Dawn tells Detective Sloan that he was just tired then and the statements didn't actually mean anything.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  And in this, does Detective Sloan have the same hunch about Dawn that police had back in 85?

• 41:33Ashley Flowers?

  No. So according to the book, he comes away from the interview ruling Dawn out as a suspect. He closes the door. He also even returns two guns that police had seized from Dawn at one point that turned out to have nothing to do with the murder that they had like all those years. And while he's, you know, talking to Dawn and like talking to her family, he circles back to Ethan's family too. And he talks to Ethan's dad, but he doesn't learn anything new or anything earth shattering all these years later. So much like back in 1986, nothing is really there to be gained from their families.

• 42:10Ashley Flowers?

  However, in light of talking to families, Jimmy's family members offer investigators some new information that is very interesting. Again, I'm going to give you the TLDR because spoiler alert, everything they learn about Jimmy feels super incriminating, but it's all just hearsay that they can't actually use against him. Like, he might have had a Monte Carlo. He might have stolen a gun from a family member, and maybe that gun was used in the murders. Oh, and he might have killed two other people, one of which was his brother Jackie, whose death was ruled undetermined. And I think the whole brother story is really interesting. So in early 2014, Detective Sloan interviews Jimmy's mother,

• 42:55Ashley Flowers?

  and she tells him that Jackie's wife had Jimmy's baby, some nine months after Jackie died.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that's emotive.

• 43:05Ashley Flowers?

  Mm-hmm. She also claims that Jimmy was in the room when Jackie died back in 1981. And according to the book, she tells Sloan that she thought he was capable of committing the Westside Park murders. And she had heard a rumor that he was arrested in connection to it, which obviously we know wasn't true. But this is just to say like what everyone in the area is talking about at the time. And it's like, no matter where police look or what roads they go down, it always keeps coming back to Jimmy, who has made it clear that he is not going to cooperate willingly. But in what seems like the first lucky break they get, the courts rule that his willingness is neither here nor there. According to Royzden and Walker's book,

• 43:50Ashley Flowers?

  on November 14th, 2018, a judge approves a warrant to get his DNA. So a few days later, on the 20th, Detective Sloan and another colleague go to see Jimmy. And surprisingly, this time, he is cooperative. He like lets them do the swap, which again, like they had to do. And according to the book, he sits for a 40-minute interview, which he didn't have to do. But in his interview, Jimmy denies any involvement in the murders. In fact, he points to the rumor a lot of people had heard over the years that it was Kimberly's stepfather, Don.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  You said DNA. What were they trying to match Jimmy's DNA to?

• 44:29Ashley Flowers?

  So according to the book, potential DNA evidence on the holster got left behind. That like, I can't tell when, but sometime between 85 and like when he's all these years later, like looking into this cold case, obviously they were able to like test old evidence.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:42Ashley Flowers?

  But here's the thing, whatever they have, it doesn't match Jimmy. Now, despite this, Detective Sloan still seems to think that he has his guy. Remember, I mean, right, like there's potentially multiple people. But others, like former deputy chief Marvin Campbell, who's one of the OGs in this case, like not so sure. But without more evidence, they'll never know.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Does he still think it's Don then? Like was Don's DNA tested?

• 45:12Ashley Flowers?

  Here's the problem. Unfortunately, Marvin Campbell recently passed away, so I can't ask him if he still thinks it's Don or what he thinks about Don. And if others like Don were compared to the DNA, or like that grieving guy or whatever, like that's never been reported on. In the book, the DNA evidence is described as being damaged and muddied. So I assume that like any advanced testing, like IDG is out of the question. I don't know that for a fact, though. And as far as things like, remember they found like prints in the car? Like some sources claim like one was found in the car, on the car, whatever. Like I just know none of those helped in the case either. Chances are like the killer never even touched the car, right?

• 45:55Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, and by the way, like we did attempt to reach out to Jimmy in prison, but haven't gotten connected. And same, again, I said this earlier, but goes for the Muncie Police. Now, in January of 2020, Detective Sloan became chief of police in Muncie. And according to the Star Press, as late as 2022, he continues following up on leads in this case when he can. Chief Sloan admits in that article that he hadn't assigned a new investigator to the case, like the time commitment and other investigators' caseloads just hasn't allowed it. But I did see like, so that's the last official update from police in 2022, but I did see like something interesting on, here's my disclaimer, Reddit.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 46:34Ashley Flowers?

  But this was from 2023 and someone posted on a Reddit forum that their neighbor confessed about a murder that sounds like what happened in West Side Park. Now, this person doesn't name names or even a name where this happened again. It sounds like West Side Park, but they don't say that. But the story that this neighbor told them goes a little something like this. The neighbor had claimed to be involved with a girl at his high school that he very much liked. One day, he and his friend happened to be at the park where he saw this girl with another boy that he hated. So he went over to the car and shot the girl in the head and then shot the boy in the chest. And he shot the boy in the chest because he wanted to watch him suffer.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Okay, that's all public information about like the crime scene.

• 47:24Ashley Flowers?

  It is.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Even if he's talking about West Side Park, like this could just be a troll.

• 47:29Ashley Flowers?

  It is, and it's what some of the users in the forum wondered. But like, some other people felt strongly about this confession, like so strongly that they contacted the police with this information, although like they never heard back from them. And like there were other people who were like, you know, could this have been some kind of deathbed type confession from someone? Now, one big flag for me on this, besides the whole like Reddit of it all, is that the poster said the neighbor said he used a 22 caliber in the shooting while we know it was a 38 used to kill Kimberly and Ethan. And the poster also said that he brought out a piece of evidence that he took from the car, but he doesn't say what the evidence is. And unless police are holding something back, the only thing that we know that they were looking for was the murder weapon, which they never

• 48:13Ashley Flowers?

  found. No one like talks about anything ever being stolen or taken from them.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:19Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. So like, it makes this whole confession a little much, and you can write whatever you want on the internet. And eventually, they did take this down from Reddit. So like, it's, you know, if we got to talk to Chief Sloan, this is what I would have loved to ask him if we ever get the chance. It's what I would love to ask him about if this ever got looked into. I mean, I think it's interesting, especially when you think about when the confession says, like, they hated the guy, knowing that Ethan was being bullied. I don't know.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  It feels like there could be something there.

• 48:47Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  And what I keep coming back to is like Jimmy's DNA didn't match the holster. Like, that's huge.

• 48:55Ashley Flowers?

  Right. And again, like, was he there or knew something? Maybe, but like, there's someone else that we should, we should be still looking for.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:05Ashley Flowers?

  And I think at this point, it's important to point out that no one, not Jimmy, who is due to be released from prison in 2030, by the way, and despite all the rumors, not Kimberly's stepfather, Don, or any of the other possible people police looked into, none of them have ever been charged in this case. It remains unsolved, which means Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell's families have never been given the closure they deserve. So if you know anything about the murders of Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell on the night of September 28th, 1985, in West Side Park, located in Muncie, Indiana, please contact the Muncie Police Department at 765-747-4867. You can also contact them anonymously through Crime Stoppers

• 49:50Ashley Flowers?

  at 765-286-4050. We'll also have a link to send a tip online in our show notes.

• 50:12Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  And you can follow us on Instagram at @crimejunkiepodcast.

• 50:21Ashley Flowers?

  We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but stick around, we've got some good for you.

• 50:48Ashley Flowers?

  All right, Brett. You know what time it is?

• 50:51Speaker 01

  You know I do.

• 50:52Ashley Flowers?

  Let's talk about some of the good that comes out of the crime junkie community. What do you got from our listeners?

• 50:55Speaker 01

  This month, we have a submission from Kayla. "My best friend and I are huge crime junkie fans. We actually have tickets to see you in New York in May."

• 51:05Ashley Flowers?

  So soon. See you soon.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  "But before I was a crime junkie myself, my best friend had stumbled upon one of your episodes at the end of the year in 2019. It had to do with domestic abuse. I can't remember the specific episode. However, when this episode was released, I was the one in the abusive relationship. I was still in denial at the time, even with all the mental and physical signs. I still acted like he was different, and this wasn't abuse. I remember one night after work, my best friend was giving me a ride home, and she played that episode in her car on the drive home. I only half listened, as I felt like she was being dramatic, and my boyfriend at the time would never go as far as murdering me. However, there are a few things that stuck out to me, and it was what you guys

• 51:49Speaker 01

  said at the end. The statistics for how many times it takes before you truly leave your abusive partner is, on average, seven times. And that time you're leaving is the most dangerous." That stuck with me. And a few months later, one of the times I was trying to leave, a gun was pulled on me. He ended up shooting it off in the wall, and I was able to run for help. At that time, everything had hit me like a ton of bricks. Everything said in the episode, the reason my best friend played it, all of it was flooding through my mind. I decided I didn't want to be a victim anymore, and I've since been able to get away. He is now in prison. I have three Siberian huskies that helped me get through and gave me a purpose, and I am now an avid listener of

• 52:33Speaker 01

  your podcast. I use the resources you guys share, listen to the advice given, and hear the stories of the ones who weren't as lucky as me to make it out alive. I want to be a voice for them and advocate for victims. Your podcast, mixed with Walking My Dogs, literally got me through the toughest time of my life. My best friend and I can't wait to see you guys in New York. Thank you for sharing the stories and everything that you guys do."

• 52:58Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, it's a good reminder. Like, most people don't stay in a relationship thinking it's gonna end in murder.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:06Ashley Flowers?

  That's not how people get there. Like, everyone thinks that they're the exception, or everyone thinks it's not gonna go that far, or that, like, the person's gonna change, or not capable of, like, that's how people end up there, is underestimating their abusive partner.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  For sure, for sure.

• 53:20Ashley Flowers?

  It does. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of work. We'll put some resources in the show notes. I know those have been helpful for a lot of people. And it's amazing how many people it's been helpful for.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 53:29Ashley Flowers?

  I love you guys, and I love you guys loving each other.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:36Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Lowe explores on her show, Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped, and the families who never stop searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather around, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.