Security footage: Are those the TSC bus vandals?
Plus, sheriff reopens '78 investigation into missing Lafayette teen after remains ID’d in Tenn. Commissioners join chorus saying Fairfield trustee should be ousted. Check out Ross-Ade renovation plans
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SECURITY VIDEO RELEASED FROM NIGHT OF TSC BUS VANDALISM
Security video images of people and a vehicle who were on the Wea Ridge Elementary and Wea Ridge Middle School campus late Saturday and early Sunday were released by Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office investigators Wednesday. The move came as they looked to figure out who broke into a school bus lot south of the middle school, found hidden keys and drove six buses through security fences, rammed playground equipment and plowed into the woods sometime before Sunday morning.
Tippecanoe County Sheriff Bob Goldsmith said investigators were able to pull the images from footage near the elementary school playground. Goldsmith said that “we know the images are dark,” but that investigators were looking for any information about who might have been at the school between 11:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday.
If so, contact detectives at 765-423-9321 or through the anonymous WeTip hotline at 800-782-7463.
FOR MORE: Here’s an account of the TSC bus vandalism from Monday morning’s edition.
SHERIFF: CASE REOPENED AFTER REMAINS FOUND IN TENNESSEE ID’D AS THOSE OF LAFAYETTE TEEN REPORTED AS A RUNAWAY IN 1978
Tippecanoe County Sheriff Bob Goldsmith said his department would reopen a missing person report filed about Tracy Sue Walker, who was listed as a runaway in 1978, after revelations this week that human remains found on a Tennessee mountain in 1985 were hers.
First, Goldsmith said, his detectives were trying to pull files and get up to speed on the extent of the investigation in 1978, when family reported that the 15-year-old had last been seen at the Tippecanoe Mall. Goldsmith said that included reaching out to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which used advanced DNA techniques and forensic genetic genealogy to identify the girl.
“It’s a case that we were not aware of,” Goldsmith said. “We just found out yesterday afternoon about it.”
Officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Lafayette Police Department – which helped collect DNA samples from possible relatives of Tracy Walker this summer – declined to discuss more details about the case than were released Tuesday. That included revealing who LPD detectives talked with in Lafayette about getting DNA swabs.
Goldsmith did not immediately release the initial missing person report from 1978, though he gave some details from it, including that Tracy Walker had lived on Eisenhower Court, along the Wildcat Creek just east of Lafayette. He said that with the investigation reopening, he wanted to see where things stood on the case with Tennessee investigators before releasing those reports.
Based on her June 1963 birth date, Tracy Walker would have been among the Class of 1981 heading to Lafayette Jefferson High School. Yearbook photos of Tracy Walker show her through eighth grade at Tippecanoe Junior High School, a former Lafayette School Corp. school on the city’s north end. (The junior high, at the Old Jefferson High School on Ninth Street, is now is the Historic Jefferson Centre Senior Apartments.)
Initial attempts here to reach her family members were not immediately successful Tuesday and Wednesday.
Archive searches of Lafayette newspaper accounts did not immediately turn up stories about a missing girl by the name of Tracy Walker.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was asking this week for anyone who knew Tracy Sue Walker before she disappeared from Lafayette, knew how she wound up in Campbell County, Tennessee, or knew about anyone she might have been around before her death to call 800-TBI-FIND (800-824-3463).
FOR MORE ON THIS STORY: In Tennessee, they dubbed the remains found on a remote mountain site “Baby Girl.” Trying to identify her had remained an ongoing investigation since 1985. Here’s an account this week: “DNA helps ID remains of Lafayette teen, missing since 1978.”
COMMISSIONERS VOTE: TALETHA COLES SHOULD BE OUSTED AS FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP TRUSTEE
One step closer to losing her position as Fairfield Township trustee, Taletha Coles wasn’t there Wednesday afternoon when Tippecanoe County commissioners took her to task for breaking the public’s trust in her and her office.
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