DNA Reports Reveal the Murderer of 1988 April Tinsley Case

After 3 decades of the murder of April Tinsley, the DNA reports have finally revealed the name of the culprit and police arrested the convict who was in charge of child molesting, criminal confinement, rape, and murder of a felony. April Tinsley was just 8 years old when the heinous crime took place. 59-year-old John Miller was arrested on the basis of the DNA reports. The advances in the DNA and Genealogy helped the police to find the criminal.

As per the police reports, the dead body of Tinsley was found in a ditch on April 8, 1988. The place from where her body was taken for autopsy was 20 miles away from Fort Wayne, in a place called Spencerville. After the autopsy of the body, it was found out that Tinsley died out of throttling after a sexual assault. As per the forensic report, there was an unknown DNA of a male in Tinsley’s underwear that clearly suggests that she was under sexual exploitation.

As per the ABC report, Tinsley’s body was recovered 3 days after her parents filed a complaint of her missing. Later, Miller’s DNA was collected from his trash which matched with the DNA found earlier in Tinsley’s underwear. Recently, Miller admitted his crime and said he was involved in all the criminal activities for which he was accused.

Even after the crime being committed in 1988, he took a step forward to spread the word of terror in the consecutive years. Two years later, a note was found in an empty barn which said, “I kill 8-year-old April M Tinsley did you find her other shoe haha I will kill again.” He did not stop at that single note of threatening on this case. He continued to share indecent messages to other small girls. The case reveals, that many girls in the Fort Wayne area was terrorized in 2004 and were at potential risk as they continued to be the target of Miller. When asked why such things were done by him, Miller confronted that these girls were next in his target list and that’s the reason he used to drop condoms and Polaroid pictures of his private parts in their bags and cycles. The messages dropped by Miller had mentions of April and said the targets would also face through the same incidents. Recently, John Miller’s brother confirmed that the handwriting found in those messages is of Miller.

The police informed about the content of one of the notes which said, “Hi honey, I been watching you I am the same person that kidnapped and raped and killed Aprill Tinsely you are my next victim.” The police said that the criminal wanted people to know about his misdoings. In that same note, the writer asked the targeted girl to report the matter to the police. At the same time, he demanded that he wanted a feature in the newspaper about the threat message. If that was not followed he threatened to put the girl’s house on fire. As per Miller’s confession to the police, he was surprised that after Tinsley was thrown into the ditch, there was no news about it. He passed by the same location where he threw the dead body and that’s when he found that one of Tinsley’s shoes were with him and then he threw it in the place.

As reported by Tinsley’s mother it was a Good Friday Night of 1st April in 1988. April was in her first grade and it was a stormy night. That night she went to her friend’s house which was just two streets away from her home. She promised to return soon but her mother was worried when her little princess did not return before the dinner time. She was worried about her whereabouts and that’s when she informed that her little girl was missing. It was three days later when she finally found her blonde dark-eyed baby. A jogger had been passing through the water-filled ditch which was in one of the fields of Amish. The person found a body in that ditch. Later after investigation, one Tinsley’s shoes was found 1000ft away from where her dead body was recovered. The investigation further revealed a bag near the site which had sex toys.

As per reports, on 15th July, when the detectives found that the DNA matched and with enough evidences, the detectives asked him to visit the police station. Being adamant at the first stage he finally confessed his crimes. When the detectives asked if he knew why he was being called, he sternly replied “Ashley Tinsley”. He admitted that he was the one who abducted April and confined her in the trailer to have forced sex. Soon after he killed April by choking.

He killed April Tinsley as he did not want her to reveal his name to the police. John Miller confirmed that it took 10 minutes to kill her and then he raped Tinsley again.  

In May, Fort Wayne Police Department gave the responsibility of DNA reports to Parabon NanoLabs. Researcher CeCe Moore narrowed down the suspect. The Police department mentions the fact the technological advancement of DNA and Genealogy helped to arrest the criminal in this case.