I-65 Serial Killer Timeline

1963–1998
Harry Edward Greenwell builds an extensive criminal history across multiple states, including offenses involving robbery, assault, escape, and sexual violence. Authorities later describe his record as spanning decades.

February 21, 1987
Vicki Heath is murdered at a Super 8 Motel in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Her killing later becomes the earliest confirmed homicide linked to the offender eventually known as the I-65 Serial Killer.

March 3, 1989
Margaret “Peggy” Gill is murdered while working at a Days Inn in Merrillville, Indiana.

March 3, 1989
Hours later, Jeanne Gilbert is murdered at a Days Inn in Remington, Indiana. The same offender is later linked to both Indiana murders.

1989–1990
Investigators begin recognizing similarities between the motel attacks: female clerks working alone, robberies, sexual assaults, shootings, and locations near the Interstate 65 corridor.

January 2, 1990
A 21-year-old clerk survives a brutal attack at a Days Inn in Columbus, Indiana. Her survival becomes critical to the investigation because she provides details used to develop a suspect composite. DNA later links this attack to the same offender.

1991
A similar assault in Rochester, Minnesota is later examined as part of the broader investigative history surrounding the I-65 offender pattern.

2008–2010
Cold case investigators revisit the evidence. DNA testing begins linking the crimes more firmly, transforming what had once been separate investigations into a serial offender case.

2010
Kentucky and Indiana investigators publicly confirm that the 1987 Kentucky murder, the 1989 Indiana murders, and the Columbus assault are connected by forensic evidence. The offender becomes widely known as the I-65 Killer or Days Inn Killer.

January 31, 2013
Harry Edward Greenwell dies in Iowa before authorities publicly identify him as the offender.

2019–2022
Investigators use investigative genetic genealogy to develop Greenwell as the suspect. A close-family DNA comparison ultimately provides the breakthrough.

April 5, 2022
Indiana State Police, the FBI, and partner agencies announce that Harry Edward Greenwell has been identified as the man responsible for the murders of Vicki Heath, Peggy Gill, Jeanne Gilbert, and the Columbus assault. The FBI states Greenwell was identified through investigative genealogy and had died in 2013.

After 2022
The identification answers the central question of who committed the confirmed crimes, but it does not end the investigative history. Questions remain about possible additional victims, suspected related cases, missed opportunities, and Greenwell’s movements across the Midwest.