Book Description

I wrote this book to highlight some of the most bizarre and famous cases that the Indianapolis Police Department has investigated. This quiet city at the Crossroads of America had an assortment of strange and dangerous characters pass through it in the 20th century. Among them were "Blondie", who enjoyed torturing her victims while singing love songs to her boyfriend. "Ted" Carr, a psychopath who experienced "Instant Karma" while murdering his last victims. WWI veteran Howard Ellis, who brought his own war to Indianapolis and single handedly shot nine police officers holding off 200 more. In 1943, WAC Corporal Maoma Ridings, who had been FDR's favorite nurse, comes to the Claypool Hotel for a weekend of fun and finds death. Even a gang leader who rightfully earned the name "The King of the Ghouls" by robbing hundreds of graves of the freshly buried. This book lets the reader take a peek into the Indianapolis Police case book and see the steps taken by its detectives to track down and apprehend the suspects in these cases. Internal documents and photographs from the police archives and other sources are presented here for the first time. - Patrick Pearsey, Police Archivist