Timeline of the Dardeen Family Murders
Main Article: What Was Done in Ina: The Dardeen Family Murders – American Crime Journal |
1985 – 1987: Context
1985: Thomas Odle, a Mount Vernon teenager, murders his parents and three siblings as they return home one by one. Jefferson County begins what investigators later identify as a period of elevated homicide.
Spring 1987: A 10-year-old girl is raped and murdered in the area. Keith Dardeen becomes so protective of his family that he refuses to let a young woman into the trailer to use the phone.
Summer/Fall 1987: Keith and Elaine Dardeen place their trailer on the market. Keith tells his mother he plans to move the family back to Mount Carmel with or without a new job. The new baby is expected in early January.
Late October 1987 (Fanning account): Tommy Lynn Sells, according to his later confession, is living primarily near St. Louis and traveling by freight and hitchhiking.
November 1987: The Murders
Late November 16 / Early November 17, 1987: The estimated time of death for all four members of the Dardeen family. Authorities believe all four were killed within approximately one hour of one another.
November 17, 1987 (day): Keith fails to appear for his shift at the Rend Lake Conservancy District water treatment plant. His supervisor tries unsuccessfully to reach him by phone throughout the day. The superintendent visits Keith’s home, gets no answer, and notifies Jefferson County authorities.
Approximately 5:30 p.m., November 17: Joeann Dardeen, Keith’s mother, calls the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department expressing concern about her son and daughter-in-law. Don Dardeen, Keith’s father, calls and offers to drive to Ina with the house key.
Approximately 7:00 p.m., November 18: Jefferson County deputies, joined by Don Dardeen, open the trailer. Inside the master bedroom they find the bodies of Ruby Elaine Dardeen, Peter Sean Dardeen, and the newborn girl, all three laid together on the bed. Elaine has been bound and gagged with duct tape. A bloody baseball bat is found at the scene. Nearly all traces of the duct tape have been removed and taken by the killer.
Keith Dardeen is not present. His car is not present. He is immediately considered a suspect.
Officers search through the night. DCI agents canvas the area around the trailer. The Illinois State Police and both county sheriffs’ departments begin coordinating.
Approximately 1:30 a.m., November 19: Benton police discover Keith Dardeen’s red 1981 Plymouth abandoned near the police station, 11 miles south of the family home. Interior is blood-stained.
Late Thursday afternoon, November 19: Hunters near Rend Lake College alert maintenance workers to a body in a field just across the Jefferson-Franklin County line. The body is Keith Dardeen. He has been shot three times in the head. His genitals have been severed. Franklin County Coroner Robert Lewis confirms Keith’s death is a homicide. He is believed to have been dead approximately 24 to 36 hours, placing his death within an hour of his family’s.
November 20-21, 1987: A 25-member task force is formed at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. Authorities confirm all four deaths are homicides. Jefferson County Coroner Richard Garretson rules all three deaths in the trailer as homicides, noting that blunt force trauma was used in all three cases, that Keith’s injuries were of a different type than those of his wife and child, and that the birth of Casey Elaine likely occurred during the attack on her mother.
November 22, 1987: Joint funeral services are held for all four members of the Dardeen family at Short Memorial Chapel. Three ministers officiate. Hundreds fill the chapel and adjoining hallways. They are buried in Graceland Cemetery in Albion, Illinois.
Late November / December 1987: Authorities confirm no motive has been established. No robbery. No rape. No forced entry. A $10,000 reward is offered by the Dardeen family, matched by the American Publishing Company. Leads begin arriving from across the country.
1988: Investigation and Inquest
January 12-14, 1988: A coroner’s inquest is held in Benton City Hall for Russell Keith Dardeen. Two witnesses testify: Detective Mike Anthis and pathologist Dr. Steven Nuernberger, who conducted the autopsy. The inquest takes less than twenty minutes. Jurors deliberate six minutes and return a verdict of homicide. The coroner, Robert Lewis, acknowledges that some traditional lab and crime reports were intentionally withheld from the inquest record to avoid hampering the investigation. Inquests for Ruby Elaine and the children are scheduled later. Reward totals $30,000.
Through 1988: Task force conducts more than 822 interviews, generates more than 740 individual leads. Leads checked in states as distant as Texas, Wyoming, and California. The Dardeen family mobile home is sold, moved, and searched by Jefferson County authorities. No significant evidence is found.
November 18, 1988: One year anniversary. Case remains unsolved. Task force still active, working the case full time. No suspect. No arrest. $30,000 reward still stands.
1989 – 1997: The Long Search
March 1989: Southern Illinoisan publishes an investigation into 18 unsolved homicides in Southern Illinois, naming the Dardeen case as one of the most complex. DCI Zone commander Lou Lemme says the Dardeen case is still worked full time.
1991: Keith Dardeen’s high school class of 1976 donates $105 to the Wabash County Museum in his memory, at the suggestion of his mother, who said Keith was something of a historian.
November 1992: Five-year anniversary. Six officers working part-time. Joeann Dardeen writes a letter to area media asking for anyone with information to come forward. She writes: The person or persons responsible for their deaths have never been captured. The Department of Criminal Investigation is still actively working on their murder. I will never give up hope.
1993 – 1994: Crimestoppers receives a tip about the Dardeen murders and turns it over to Illinois State Police. Case still generates occasional new information. Captain Mike Anthis says the case is used internally to train investigators in avoiding tunnel vision.
November 1995: Eighth anniversary. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Detective John Kemp confirms case remains open. Joeann Dardeen continues to make contact with investigators regularly.
September 1997: Southern Illinoisan publishes a 10-year retrospective. Joeann Dardeen is quoted extensively. She has developed a theory that the killer was someone Keith knew. Detective Kemp says investigators are inclined to think the Dardeens were chosen by mistake, or at minimum not at random. FBI profilers had provided some guideposts but left no clearer answers. Police have worked more than 30 theories. Joeann Dardeen calls Keith’s case every day.
November 1997: Ten-year anniversary. Register-Mail publishes a profile of Joeann Dardeen’s decade of searching.
1998 – 1999: National Attention and New Suspects
1998: America’s Most Wanted runs a segment on the Dardeen murders. No credible leads result. Joeann Dardeen had gathered 3,000 signatures from area residents and sent them to The Oprah Winfrey Show; producers had declined, calling the case too brutal for daytime television.
July 1999: Southern Illinoisan publishes an investigation into the possible connection between the Dardeen murders and Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, the Railroad Killer. Former investigator Charles Parker says similarities in method and geography are worth examining. Illinois investigators later find no physical evidence connecting Resendez-Ramirez to the case after his surrender to Texas authorities.
December 31, 1999: Tommy Lynn Sells slashes the throats of two girls in a mobile home near Del Rio, Texas. Krystal Harris, 10, survives. Her description leads police to Sells within two days.
2000 – 2014: Tommy Lynn Sells and the Confession
Early 2000: Sells is arrested for the Del Rio attack. He is convicted and sentenced to death for that murder and for the 1999 stabbing of a 13-year-old girl in San Antonio. While awaiting trial, he begins confessing to murders across the country.
March 2000: Chicago Tribune publishes a feature titled ’13-Year Vigil of Fear Eases in Illinois Town,’ reporting that Sells has confessed to the Dardeen killings. Jefferson County authorities say the confession is being evaluated. Joeann Dardeen says she wants Sells to remain alive until she knows positively whether he did it. She is skeptical.
2000 – 2004: Jefferson County authorities attempt to have Sells transported to Illinois to assist with investigation. Texas prison authorities refuse to allow him to leave the state. Jefferson County prosecutor Gary Duncan reviews the confession, notes that Sells answered certain confidential questions incorrectly before self-correcting, and says there was a fair possibility the actual killer was still at large.
2004: Diane Fanning publishes Through the Window: The Terrifying True Story of Cross-Country Killer Tommy Lynn Sells, which includes a detailed chapter on the Dardeen killings constructed from Sells’ account and investigative records. The book presents Sells’ third and most detailed version of the crime.
May 2010: Southern Illinoisan reporter Becky Malkovich interviews Sells at the Polunsky Unit death row facility in Livingston, Texas. Sells confirms his confession to the Dardeen murders. He says Keith met him at a Mount Vernon truck stop, invited him home, and then made a sexual advance. He says: Rage don’t have a stop button. He says he cannot remember half of the murders he has committed. He says death is a welcome relief.
April 3, 2014: Tommy Lynn Sells is executed by lethal injection in Texas for the murder of Kaylene Harris. He is 49 years old. He is never charged with the Dardeen murders. Jefferson County State’s Attorney Douglas Hoffman says Sells remains the number one suspect. A county deputy who interviewed Sells says he knew confidential details of the crime. Gary Duncan says the case may never be resolved and the actual killer may still be out there.
April 13, 2014: Multiple newspapers including the Herald-News and the Northwest Herald publish AP stories on the Dardeen murders in the context of Sells’ execution. Joeann Dardeen, now 76, is quoted. She still does not believe Sells was the killer.
Present
The Dardeen family homicides remain an open, unsolved homicide case in Jefferson County, Illinois. No person has been charged. No arrest has been made. The case file contains thousands of pages spanning nearly four decades of investigation.
Russell Keith Dardeen, Ruby Elaine Dardeen, Peter Sean Dardeen, and Casey Elaine Dardeen are buried in Graceland Cemetery in Albion, Illinois.
