The Dardeen Family

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2:00My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.

2:09Today, I'm discussing the case of the Dardene family. Now, I do want to warn you up front that this is one of the worst, most gruesome cases I have ever covered on this podcast. But as always, it's an important one to highlight. In 1987, a young, beautiful family was brutally murdered in Ina, Illinois. A man has confessed to these crimes, but whether or not he did it is up for debate, and nearly 40 years later, it remains unsolved. This is the case of the Dardeen family. It's nearing the end of 1987, and the Dardeen family is ready to get out of Ina, Illinois. It's technically a village in Jefferson County with about 2 ,500 residents, and it's nearly 300 miles south of Chicago, which you might think would make it a sleepy community, a safe place to raise your kids, but there have been 15 homicides in the area over the past two years.

3:14These range from random killings to an 18-year-old murdering his parents and three younger siblings, a child being raped and murdered, and everything in between. It's honestly terrifying and just horrific. So 29-year-old Russell Keith Dardene is ready to get his family out of there. He's married to 30-year-old Ruby Elaine Dardene. They both go by their middle names. Together, they have a three-year-old named Peter. And Elaine is pregnant. They're expecting a baby girl in just a few weeks, whom they plan to name Casey. So Keith is making plans to move his young family out of the area. He's already making plans to move his family back to his hometown of Mount Carmel in January.

4:00It's definitely not plan A. They really seem to love their community. Keith works at the local water treatment plant, and he's the lead singer at their church. Elaine works part-time at an office supply store, and she also plays the piano at their church right alongside Keith. They have some roots here, so leaving isn't easy, but Keith just feels this urge to be proactive and protect his family. All of his family lives about 80 miles away in Mount Carmel, and he tells his mom, Joanne Dardine, about the murders in the area. the crime, and he says there's just too many things happening. He said, we're going to move our boba home, and we're going to move back to Mount Carmel in January.

4:46I said, why are you coming back? He said, there's just too many things happening down here. There's people being murdered and robbed and just all kinds of meanness. And he said, I don't like it. That quote is from an article by Bob Ciphers and Sarah Benora for First Alert 4 News. It goes on to explain that Joanne had just spent the weekend visiting in Ina with everyone. She said, quote, It was odd. We'd usually end up talking about murders. I know you might think that's crazy, but me and him were really into a lot of murder cases, you know, and things happening to people. End quote. I'm sure she could have never imagined that it would be the last time she ever saw them that she'd never be able to hold her new granddaughter that nearly 40 years later people would be talking about the murder in her family it really is just haunting but just days after getting back home on Tuesday November 17th Joanne got a call that made her heart drop well calls plural actually It was Keith's boss.

6:03He said Keith was a no-call no-show at his night shift at the water treatment plant, and no one could get a hold of him. No one was answering the phone or door at their house. Again, in addition to Keith, there's a woman who's about seven months pregnant and a three-year-old. No one could think of where they could all be basically in the middle of the night. So Keith's boss is power-calling his parents until Joanne picks up, but she hasn't heard from Keith and can't get a hold of him either. She is immediately scared for all of them, especially given what her son and her had just spoken about.

6:39She ends up calling the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office to express this concern, but nothing really seems to happen in that first call. When she calls again, she directly asks for someone to go to the house to check on them. While the Sheriff's Office is making their way to the Dardene home, so are Keith's parents with a key to the house. They finally get there at 6.30pm on now Wednesday, November 18th. When the deputy gets to the home, there's no answer at the front door. There's also no apparent signs of any forced entry. In fact, when they go to open the back door, it's unlocked. Now, again, I will warn you that what they see inside is incredibly disturbing.

7:26Probably the most disturbing scene I've ever described on this podcast. When the deputy shines their flashlight inside the bedroom, they find what appears to be Elaine, Peter, and Casey tucked into bed. But as they get closer and see more, when they see blood, they realize that all three are deceased. They'd been bound and bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat It seemed that Elaine had gone into labor Delivered Casey The umbilical cord had been cut And then they were both killed Elaine had not been sexually assaulted as far as they could tell But her genitals had been mutilated Out of respect for this family, I'm not going to go into more detail It's obviously just absolutely brutal.

8:26But after they were killed, whoever did this tucked them neatly into their waterbed, almost really positioned them in a way to make it look like they could be peacefully sleeping. Cash and jewelry were left openly visible in the home. Again, there was no sign of any forced entry, and nothing appeared to be missing. Except for Keith Dardene, who immediately became their primary suspect.

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10:50Elaine, seven months pregnant at the time, prematurely gave birth during the beating to a little girl who was also killed. Articles ran in the local papers stating that Keith Dardene was being sought for questioning in the triple homicide. There were quotes from friends, family, even his employer about what a good and upstanding man he was. Everyone who knew him was in disbelief that this happened in the first place and that anyone thought he could be to blame. Here's a clip of Keith's mother and his lifelong friend, Kevin Davis, discussing exactly that. In a situation like that, if the husband's missing, he's the one that did it.

11:29And of course, they could not find him. They could not locate him. It rattled me. I'll be the first to admit it rattled me completely, you know. But I said there's just, there's no way I could even give any credibility to that thought whatsoever because I knew he couldn't have done that. He just could not have ever done something like that. I mean, with nothing missing from the scene but Keith and his family vehicle, it makes sense that they would be focused on finding him. But he's not the person who murdered his family. Keith was found in a field by hunters the following day, about a mile from his home.

12:08He'd been shot three times in the face and castrated. The family vehicle was found the next day, 10 miles south of the Dardene home. There was blood inside, but where it was found is one of the most chilling aspects of this case, in my opinion. Whoever did this parked it not just in full view for anyone to find, but specifically right in front of the Benton Police Department, which was right next door to the Franklin County Courthouse. It seemed that whoever committed these horrific crimes was outright taunting the police with this placement. Or maybe they were begging to get caught. Either way, between all the crime scenes, about 150 items were taken and placed in evidence bags, and the coroner ultimately determined that all four of the family members had been killed within an hour of each other, with Keith being killed inside the family vehicle and later placed in the field.

13:08but it was unclear who was killed first. Some have speculated that maybe Keith was made to watch his family be killed before facing the same fate. His mother has wondered if maybe the killer wanted him to do something for them, like sell drugs, but he refused and that's what got them all killed. But the truth was, investigators had no idea why this happened or who did it. Now, because this was the year 1987, because these killings were so brutal and involved genital mutilation, detectives brought in an expert on cults to consult on the investigation. This was really around the height of what has since been coined satanic panic in the United States.

13:53It's a pretty interesting topic that I'm researching for my Dark Truth series on Patreon, because I do think it has greatly impacted how many cases around this time were being investigated. There's a lot to dive in there that wouldn't all make sense for this episode, but to keep it brief, there was a belief at this time that certain things like the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons and heavy metal music were being used as tools to recruit mostly young people to commit crimes like this. Some of these studies were even receiving federal funding. Again, that is a very simplified way of looking at it, but the point I'm trying to get out here is that at this time, the idea that the Dardene family may have been killed in some type of ritual was pretty par for the course in something as shocking as this, especially because there didn't seem to be any other motive.

14:44They weren't robbed, there was no sexual assault other than the mutilations, and as far as investigators could tell, neither Keith nor Elaine had any enemies or secrets that would lead to violence like this. Neither of them was having an affair, and they were often described as being open books who truly enjoyed spending time with family and at their church. I mean, outside of a little weed found in their home, they seemed like a pretty picture-perfect family who did everything by the book. These sentiments were backed by both their family and officials. Jefferson County Sheriff Bob D. Pitchford told the St.

15:21Louis Dispatch back in 1987 that the family's reputation in the community was outstanding. In the same article, a local business owner named Claudia Johnson came forward to discuss how often Elaine shopped in her store, CJ's new and used. She also discussed how the family had won their community Halloween costume contest two years in a row. They dressed up as characters from The Wizard of Oz in 1986 and Ghostbusters in 1987. She said, quote, if I could say anything that really summed up this family, they were a nice couple, end quote. Detective Captain Mike Anthes, who led the charge early on, has said directly that there was no immediate or direct motive in this case, while Captain Bobby Wallace would later speculate that the crime was meant to, quote, send a clear message to somebody, or it was extremely personal, end quote.

16:18Locals speculated that it was a random act of violence, that the entire village of Aina was prone to crime due to being surrounded by two major freeways, one to the east and the other to the west, but they didn't find any evidence pointing to any theory. There seemed to be just nothing, and the case grew cold. It became just another part of Aina's horrific history. I told you earlier that there had been 15 homicides in the area within two years of the Dardene family being killed. But that history goes back even further. The Hight-Sweeten double murder gripped Ina, Illinois in the summer of 1924 and became one of the most sensational scandals of its time.

17:02Coal miner Wilford Jack Sweeten suddenly fell ill after a day trip with his wife Elsie and died 10 days later. His death was blamed on food poisoning. Just weeks later, Anna Haidt, the wife of local Methodist minister, Reverend Lawrence Haidt, suffered a similar fate and also died. Rumors of an affair between Elsie and the charismatic preacher swirled as suspicions grew. And for good reason. Testing would later prove that both died from arsenic poisoning, and investigators discovered that Haidt had recently purchased arsenic under the pretense of killing rats. When confronted with the evidence, Height first claimed that he'd poisoned his wife out of mercy, but eventually confessed to both murders and implicated Elsie in her husband's death.

17:51At first, Elsie denied any wrongdoing, but after a jailhouse conversation with Height overheard by authorities, she admitted feeding Wilford poison in candy, oatmeal, and tomato soup at heights urging. She explained that she was unhappy in her marriage and had fallen under the preacher's spell, mistaking his attention for something almost divine. And this was a huge deal at the time. Their confession shocked the public, drew national reporters, there were folk songs written about this, and crowds so large that women brought picnic baskets to the trial. That trial took place in December 1924. Haidt's attorney argued insanity, while Elsie's lawyer painted her as a woman manipulated by a powerful minister.

18:39And on Christmas Eve, Haidt was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, while Elsie got 35 years. But her story didn't end there. In 1927, the Illinois Supreme Court granted her a new trial, ruling that she should have been tried separately. This time, her written confession was excluded, and despite testimony about her earlier admissions, a jury quickly acquitted her. She walked free after three years behind bars, while Reverend Haidt remained in prison for life. The case remains one of Illinois' most infamous murder scandals to this day. I mean, for such a small village, Ina definitely has a rich record of murder.

19:23And it wasn't just before the Dardene family was murdered. There was another case that you should be familiar with if you've listened to this podcast for some time. In 1993, Susan Lund's partial remains were found in a park in Ina, specifically just her head. You may remember her case from my episode discussing her identification a few years back. She was last seen on Christmas Eve in 1992 in Clarksville, Tennessee, but remained unidentified for decades. While we now know her as Susan Lund, her case remains unsolved. There was clearly something happening in Jefferson County around this time, but again, the Dardene case just went cold.

20:06Despite thousands of hours being dedicated to this case by investigators, they just couldn't find the right pieces to complete this puzzle. Over a decade passes with no tangible leads. until the year 2000, when a man in Texas confessed to the murders. This man, detectives say, confessed to committing one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Jefferson County, Illinois. He's a 35-year-old drifter named Tommy Lynn Sells. Well, this is a small community where everybody knows everybody, and it'll be a relief to all the community to know that the person responsible for this or been accused of this, and we got to realize he is not guilty until he's been proven guilty in court.

20:49Investigators say Tommy Lincels is a serial killer. The 35-year-old drifter is already accused of murders in Kentucky, Arizona, Texas, southwest Missouri, and now suspected in Illinois. So how did all of this happen? Well, let's take a step back and go across the country to Del Rio, Texas, on December 31, 1999. 13-year-old Katie Harris and her friend, 10-year-old Crystal Searles, were asleep when 35-year-old Tommy Sells climbed through the bedroom window. He attacked Katie first. He sexually assaulted her, stabbed her, and slit her throat. Then he went for Crystal. She was hiding on the top bunk of the bed, hoping Sells wouldn't see her.

21:37According to her interview with CBS, Sells nearly left the room before turning back one last time, and that's when he saw Crystal. She says he just walked over and slit her throat. She pretended to be dead until he left. She said, quote, And then I just remember laying there and the light turning off, and I heard the door shut. And so I got on my hands and knees, and I was crawling across the floor in the bedroom, and I came across Katie on the floor. She was kind of making a gasping noise, or maybe she was choking. But then I was trying to comfort her. I had laid next to her, rubbing her back, and that's when I realized I couldn't talk.

22:22Because all I wanted to say was, everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. But I couldn't. And then, I mean, as soon as she stopped making those noises. I had this feeling, you know? Get out of here. Get up. Come on, go. Don't lay here. Go. It was dark outside. I was in my pajamas, no shoes, nothing. And I just decided. I saw a light in the distance. I was like, that's my goal. That's where I need to be. I just got on the road and walked really slow to that light. Really, all I could think about was just get to this house, just get to this house, just get to this house. And I banged on their door and I hear a gentleman.

23:06He's like, who's there? Who's there, you know? I can't, and I can't talk. So I'm just banging as hard as I can on the door. And then he opens the door. End quote. Like Crystal said, she couldn't speak. So she wrote on a notepad, the Harris's are hurt, please hurry. In another note, she wrote, will I live? That is one of the hardest quotes I've ever had to read. It is nothing short of heartbreaking, but Crystal did survive and is truly a hero. If you want to learn more about her case, I highly encourage you to listen to and watch the interviews she's given about what happened to her and to Katie that night.

23:58Crystal later worked with a forensic artist to create a sketch of cells, and he was caught about 24 hours later. When he was, he said that he was happy to be caught, and that he was tired from committing all these crimes. Now, Crystal wasn't his only victim to escape. In 1992, a 19-year-old woman named Fabian Witherspoon took pity on Sells when she found him under an overpass holding a sign that read, I will work for food. She says Sells showed her a photo of who he said was his wife and children, so she invited him to her home to serve him a warm meal. Once inside, Sells grabbed a knife and tried to rape her.

24:42But she fought back. She hit him over the head and stabbed him. Sells, in turn, hit her over the head with a piano stool, which rendered her unconscious. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital. It turns out that she hurt Sells pretty badly. He also ended up in the hospital, and then in police custody. He took a plea deal, served five years, and was released in 1997. Two years later, he committed the second murder he would be convicted of. In April 1999, in San Antonio, Texas, Sells kidnapped 9-year-old Mary Beatriz Perez, sexually assaulted, and killed her. Sells was sentenced to death for the murder of Katie Harris in September 2000, and he was given a life sentence in prison for killing Mary Beatriz Perez in 2003.

25:39This is when he began confessing to killing dozens of people. So what did he say about the Dardene family? Well, let's dive into it, because it was and still really is a hot topic of debate. But here's what we know. He specified the exact seat in the family vehicle where he says he killed Keith Dardene. However, physical evidence has disproved this claim. Sells described a set of watermelon ceramics found inside the Dardines' home. This is something investigators say was not known to the public at this time. When asked more questions about details of the crime that were not known to the public, Sells began giving incorrect answers followed by correct answers, leading some investigators to believe that he was just guessing.

26:34Sells also claimed that Keith picked him up at a truck stop in Mount Vernon and invited him back to his home to have some type of sexual encounter with Elaine However, his story later changed saying that they met at a pool hall Either way, he says he killed Keith in a fit of rage following a sexual advance and then returned back to the Dardene home later to eliminate any witnesses Now, this idea of this sexual encounter is something that Keith's mother Joanne has adamantly rejected, saying it would have been extremely out of character for her son. And this really is also backed by Sel's own statements.

27:14He was vague about exactly what happened, but years later he told private investigator Bill Clutter that the family had been targeted in some type of larger conspiracy, possibly alluding to drugs. He added that if the police had searched the woods near the home after the murders, they would have found a pile of beer cans where cells waited and watched the family before murdering them. So take all of that for what you will. It really seems that it was the set of watermelon ceramics that gets most people and most investigators. That's what sealed the deal for clutter. He says he believed cells killed the Dardene family, and most investigators in Jefferson County felt the same way, so they made the case to the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, who denied taking the case.

28:05They cited a questionable confession and no physical evidence, which I do think is important to note. Many items from the scene were sent off for testing in this case, and not a single one has been matched to Sells. It was also proven by DNA that Sells was not the perpetrator of other murders he confessed to. It's hard, but I do think former prosecutor Gary Duncan summed it up pretty well. He said that while they couldn't completely discount Sells, there was still a, quote, fair possibility that the actual killer may still be out there, end quote. In an interview with the Hometown Register, Joanne said, quote, I am 99 % sure that Sells is the one who murdered them, but there is 1 % of doubt still in my mind.

28:57End quote. Joanne did reach out to Sells trying to get these answers for herself. She wrote him a letter and asked if he'd meet with her, but she never received a response. She said, quote, I need him to tell me face to face that he's the one who killed them, and I want him to tell me exactly what he did to them. End quote. Sells made several attempts to escape his death sentence and to be declared mentally unfit, but he was unsuccessful. Joanne said that she wanted to be present for the execution, saying, quote, I don't think it'll bother me in the least. Maybe it sounds like I'm cold-hearted, but when I stop and think about everything, her and that baby, and how brutally they were all murdered.

29:47It's been over 20 years, but you don't forget. Your mind wanders on it. I think I will probably feel like it's finally over with. End quote. Joanne was not present for the execution, but in 2014, Sells was executed without being convicted of the Dardene murders or any other others. What are your holiday traditions? Putting up a minimum of six trees? Decorating every room with a different theme? Whatever it is, here's one way to make those traditions extra special. Start the season with Etsy. On Etsy, you'll discover original pieces from small shops to help you celebrate your way. Shop Etsy for holiday decor that makes you feel seen.